Housebound (Close to Home)

by Anne Stuart

Book Overview

Someone had invited Noah Grant to the family's home, but who? All Anne Kirkland knew was that the man looked like a tall Celtic Gypsy, with that dark skin, the blue, blue eyes and the wildly curling... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0373361114
• Release Date: January 1985
• Publisher: Harlequin Books
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

In love with a "house"!

Housebound, while maybe not my favorite book of Stuart's, is definitely worth the "price of admission"! I liked that the other reviewer pegged it a "Cinderella story" because there certainly are similarities. Annie loves her home, which is in badly in need of costly repairs that she can't afford. She is the middle child flanked by over achieving, yet shallow siblings. She works hard to care for their father and "maintain" their home. Noah Grant, a man with a painful past, comes to the home posing as Annie's sister's love interest. An instant attraction occurs between Annie and Noah even though Annie has no idea the "real reason" Noah is hanging around. I liked this book. Both Annie and Noah were likable and I wanted them to get their HEA. The secondary characters were surprisingly multi-layered and interesting. This book is a nice way to spend a quiet afternoon.

Cinderella Story

Anne is the only "untalented" one in a family of demanding, self-absorbed artists. All she has is the huge old family house that's falling down around her. The rest of the family wants to sell, and Noah is a lawyer who's come to check out the house and make an offer on behalf of his dead wife's father's company. Complicating things further, Anne is engaged to a man her sister Holly is in love with (and vice versa), and Holly, believing she's lost the man she wants, is after Noah. And Anne initially mistakes Noah for her brother's gay lover, though that misunderstanding doesn't last long. The good: The characters. They could easily have been cliched, two-dimensional stereotypes, but they had depth. None of them was all good or all bad, and even the heroine, Anne, wasn't perfect. The gay brother, Ashley, was particularly well done. He wasn't a stereotype at all, which is refreshing. The conflict. The things standing between Anne and Noah were real problems, not something that could be resolved in a short conversation. The bad: The Cinderella tale is a common story, and Anne's family's actions toward her were a little overdone in spots. The verdict: For a 20-year-old category romance, Housebound holds up exceptionally well. I've been picking up Anne Stuart's backlist here and there, and will continue to do so.