I started reading Harlequin novels when I was a teen. They were quick comfort reads. I knew what to expect and rarely would they exceed those expectations, but they always met them.

Modern Harlequins are more likely to exceed those expectations. The formulary is much less obvious and they usually read like any other book with the exception of the required happy ending. It’s less often that you have a powerless female character who meets a powerful male character and he sheds some of his arrogance in favor of finding love for her, a traditional theme for early Harlequins.

His Mistress for a Million by Trish Morey, though, follows exactly that theme, or almost does. I’m not going to say much more than that for the fear of spoiling it, but while everything seems to follow a specific pattern, a modern element is introduced to bring something newer to the traditional storyline.

However, that’s not why I wanted to mention this book on my blog. It’s more that Trish Morey has reminded me of the strength of Harlequin novels, especially the shorter ones. This is a Harlequin Presents. What the imprint promises is a passionate romance in an exotic locale. The funny thing is that the exotic location in this case, the island of Santorini, is a place I visited as a child. This fact made me think about why I enjoyed the book, since I didn’t fit its proper audience.

The answer there is tangled and yet simple. The characters draw me in. Sure, they’re not the same as me, one being an Australian who is impoverished after believing a man she met over the Internet and the other a Greek tycoon, but I can identify with their circumstances. She’s trying to make the best of things, aware of her own stupidity and determined to learn from it. He’s stuck in an uncomfortable situation where another woman has built up expectations about what he’d thought was a purely business relationship, as in she works for him, but he has no interest in emotional ties and is looking for a way out of this one. The characters might be exotic by type, but what they’re going through has analogs in my life or in the lives of family and friends around me, if not to the same degree.

Then there’s the part that’s unique to me and others who have been to Santorini. While most readers are learning about a unique place, I’m refreshing memories and seeing how the island portrayed in the book is different from the one I visited as time and tourism has shifted the face of the locale.

And in a blending of the two, Cleo is not your typical tourist. Instead of shopping, she wants to explore the complicated history of Santorini and read up on the possibility that Atlantis had once existed on top of the volcano that burst to form the cone of modern Santorini. As she’s telling Andreas snippets of what she learns, I’m remembering hefting boulders bigger than I was over my head (pumice), but at the same time, I’m sharing in Andreas’ delight in a woman who shares his love of this place that he calls home.

So, to come full circle, it’s the people and the places that I enjoy in these romances, but especially the people and how they can come from such different circumstances but find something to draw them together. Trish Morey does an excellent job of doing just that. ( )