Desi is a beautiful, international supermodel. Salah is a sheikh, and he’s a powerful advisor to a prince. By all accounts, it’s not likely that the two should even know each other, let alone be dealing with deeply repressed feelings of love.
But that’s exactly what’s going on in Alexandra Seller’s book, Sheikh’s Betrayal. In fact, in some ways, Desi has counted on the repressed feelings.
Years ago, Desi and Salah were best friends and lovers in beautiful and remote coastal Canada. Their families were friends, and the two summered together in the great north. Eventually, though, Desi’s modeling career began to take off, and Salah was uncomfortable with the path Desi was taking.
Now, ten years later, Salah is supposed to marry his cousin, who also just happens to be Desi’s best friend. Salah’s cousin doesn’t want the marriage, so she’s begged Desi to show up and distract Salah. She believes that Salah still harbors feelings for Desi, and hopes that Desi’s presence will keep Salah from going through with the marriage.
What follows is a well-researched, sex-driven, tension-filled book. Desi’s presence definitely affects Salah, as his cousin believed it would.
But brooding Salah is unwilling to admit to Desi – or to himself, for that matter – that he’s still in love with her, and Desi can’t get over what she perceives to be a lack of respect for women in Salah and his culture.
Sheikh’s Betrayal is so vivid and so real. The feelings between Desi and Salah are almost palpable, and the setting and scenes in the story are written so well that the reader can envision herself in the desert.
Salah is a frustrating character at times, since he’s so guarded and so unwilling to let Desi back into his life, and Desi, too, can be maddening as she internally crusades for women’s rights. But it’s these internal attitudes that make the story so captivating, because it’s these attitudes that create the tension between the two characters.
I thoroughly enjoyed Sheikh’s Betrayal by Sellers, and I think I will check out other books in her Sons of the Desert series.
Sheikh’s Betrayal was published by Silhouette in 2009. ISBN: 978-0373769599
Sandra Johnson is a full-time contributor to www.RomanticLoveBooks.com.