The Maverick's Greek Island Mistress (Harlequin Presents)

The Maverick's Greek Island Mistress - Kelly Hunter This series from Hunter has been consistently fantastic, but they're really not Presents. They're too funny, the heroes too middle-class (well, except for the first book), the heroines neither virginal nor sexually inexperienced and the relationship dynamic too even-footed. They're not stories where a heroine's swept off her naive feet by a domineering hero who has to have her. They're cute stories about two people finding love where they least expect to.But I loved this story about an Australian Navy veteran flying a helicopter charter in the Greek islands and a Greek-Australian aspiring photographer helping to run one of her family's businesses on a small island, improper Presents or not. Her protective, interfering family made me smile at how they continually contrived to keep Serena and Pete decent. Their outrageously flirtatious banter took the place usually occupied by sex scenes and was just as hot. When they finally do manage to shake her family, it's all the more hot for the wait and the feelings tied up in it. Add in a completely smitten hero and a commitment-averse heroine, and you've hit all my favorites.There's just one thing holding the book back for me. The final bit of conflict rested on what I saw as a false dilemma. He's a helicopter pilot with no fixed address and she wants to go on and work as a photojournalist at a daily newspaper somewhere far away from her family. So why are her dreams and a relationship with him mutually exclusive? Why would she turn down his proposal when she's inordinately fond of him just because she got a job at an Athens newspaper? Surely two bright people could've worked out a long-distance relationship for a bit or had him work in Europe somewhere. I saw numerous options other than "drop job and move with him to Sydney" and "break up," and that deflated the drama a bit for me.