Giselle’s Choice is book two of Penny Jordan’s Parenti Dynasty, which continues the story of Giselle and Saul that began in book one, last month’s The Reluctant Surrender. They have been happily married a year, he a billionaire businessman and she an architect, together opening teaching orphanages as a means of healing both their traumatic childhoods.

Their world is jarred when Saul’s cousin Aldo, rule of the European state their family has ruled for generations, dies suddenly, forcing Saul to make a solemn promise on his cousin’s deathbed—that he will assume his role as the succeeding ruler and all it entails.

Besides disrupting their lives, Aldo’s death causes Saul and Giselle to address the concern that neither ever wants to have children. Saul because his mother was off saving orphans at the expense of her relationship with him, and Giselle—well, Giselle because of a traumatic and terrible secret from her childhood that is revealed as the book goes on.

Giselle must come to terms with this terrible secret as she faces the fact that Saul must produce an heir—even as she learns she is pregnant, the one thing she has feared above all else.

This book is very emotional, which is one of its strengths. Giselle grapples with the fear that she may be capable of something horrible, and fears the loss of Saul’s love. The book is also an educational tool for the topic of postnatal depression/psychosis, which is an important issue. If read from beginning to end, it is an emotionally satisfying read about two wounded people who still have healing to do and vulnerabilities to expose to one another.

That being said, I felt when I was reading it that many of the misunderstandings between Saul and Giselle could be avoided simply by them sitting down together and having a good long talk. The emotional rollercoaster Giselle travels as she learns she is mistakenly pregnant is almost unbearable in its wild swings from one end of the spectrum to the other. Some people may perceive this book as a tender-hearted love story as these two, who truly love each other, work out their difficulties, and may truly enjoy the internal conflicts that take up most of this book. Others may find it difficult to suspend disbelief.

Reviewed by: Miranda