An early one by RD that touches on some of the tropes and character types (icy, scary heroes and self-possessed but overwhelmed heroines) she'll writeAn early one by RD that touches on some of the tropes and character types (icy, scary heroes and self-possessed but overwhelmed heroines) she'll write to great effect in later books. All the elements are here but the intensity isn't built to the necessary levels to make this a pulse-pounder like some of her later stuff. St. Margarets explains why in her review. I enjoyed this one but it's pretty forgettable in comparison to some of RD's others.
The cover is by the prolific but mysterious "El"--haven't been able to dig up anything about this artist, anyone (hi Iris! :-D) know anything?...more
Are you a doormat? Take our Kosmo Kwiz and find out! (view spoiler)[ 1. Your boyfriend invites you for a weekend to Brighton—and we all know what that Are you a doormat? Take our Kosmo Kwiz and find out! (view spoiler)[ 1. Your boyfriend invites you for a weekend to Brighton—and we all know what that means! But you were expecting a marriage proposal. You even bought a new dress for the occasion! Do you: - Agree to go to Brighton—maybe if you weren’t so uptight, he’d want to marry you! - Make up an excuse about why you can’t go to Brighton now, and put off the issue. Why fight? ✓Tell him “It’s no good you looking like that…I said I wouldn’t, and I won’t, and if that’s all you think of me then I can see no point in going on as we are, can you?”
2. Angrily, he walks out on you, leaving you sitting alone in a fancy restaurant without enough cash to pay for the meal! You: - Chase after him and try to placate him and get him to return. - Explain to the waiter that your doctor boyfriend was called away and forgot to pay the bill and make an arrangement to return with the money. They’ll understand! ✓Allow the good-looking stranger who comes to your aid, pretending to know you, to pay the bill and drive you back to the nurses home.
3. Back at the hospital, you see your (ex?)boyfriend “strolling along, a cigarette in his mouth, [looking] as though he hadn’t a care in the world”; and later dating another girl. He’s a jerk to you on the ward, too, and keeps bothering you about the guy he saw you with when you got back to the hospital. Do you: - Tell him to mind his own business—he’s a jerk and you want nothing to do with him ever again! - Hope that he’ll apologize so that you can move past this episode—you love him and will do anything to make things right between you again! ✓Let pride be your guide and hide your heartbreak and wish to make up as best you can, even though you moon over your lost love, Nick the cad, for far too long. He’s a jerk and if he won’t make things right, then you’re done!
4. Your knight in shining armor, Dutch surgeon Sarre van Diederijk,* takes you out on some “face-saving” dates and seems to want to get to know you better while he’s in England consulting on some cases. He seems to pop up whenever Nick besets you, and you like him and are grateful. Still, you’re shocked when he offers a marriage of convenience—a way out, without it looking like you’re running away, he says convincingly. He needs a mistress for his home and a mother for his 11-year-old twins (he is divorced; his wife ran off with a South American millionaire soon after their birth). Someone to grace his table but not, he implies, his bed—he doesn’t want a wife, he’s done with loving, he just wants a companion and helpmate. You: - Refuse out of hand—the idea is crazy and you’re still in love with Nick! ✓Talk it over with Granny and decide to tell him no—it’s not fair to him even if he knows what he’s getting into. ✓Decide to say no but to your shock find yourself saying yes! You’re not sure why but it feels right!
5. You’re married! But you feel out of your depths—the kids seem to hate you, your new in-name-only husband turns out to be filthy rich to a scary degree, you don’t speak the language, and he’s pretty much AWOL because of his work. Do you: - Get annoyed, but brush it aside; after all, “it wasn’t as if he were in love with her. Now if it had been Nick…” - Shop, take over small responsibilities (flower arranging, minor grocery shopping, walking the dogs) from the faithful family retainers, learn Dutch, try to befriend your unfriendly stepkids, decide to learn embroidery. - Accept his apology gracefully when he notes he’s neglected you shamefully because of work and spends more time with you once he clears his backlog. You were a nurse and understand that a doctor’s time is not his own! ✓All of the above.
6. The kids seem to hate you. They’re polite in front of their father, but in private they pull very mean pranks—a pet rat in your bed, water deliberately thrown all over your new silk dress, a secretly cherished gift from Sarre deliberately smashed. Their elderly nanny is hostile toward you and does nothing to reprimand them. You: ✓Try to be patient and do nothing—you won’t tell because you’re not a tattle tale, and you hope with time the kids will come around. - Tell Sarre and let him deal with it. -Warn nanny that you’re not going to put up with her behavior and it’s her job to set a good example for the kids. You’re not going to put up with this!
7. Sarre invites you along on a business trip to Hamburg! You have recently had a Dawning Realization that you are not only in love with Sarre, but that you have been for a while—and what you felt for Nick was just fleeting infatuation in comparison. Hamburg could be a game changer! You: - Plan to seduce your husband—he may not be in love with you but this could be an opportunity to become closer and have a real marriage. - Sulk when you realize you won’t see much of him—he’s busy all day. Why did you bother to come? ✓Hide your disappointment when you realize that he’ll be really busy and only see you in the evenings. Do some solo sightseeing and shopping—you’re an independent young woman and resourceful!--and make the best of things in a friendly way. The evenings are great fun, anyway, and he’s generous and attentive when he’s with you, and it ends up being great even though you haven't made much progress on the romance front!
8. Being in love is not all it’s cracked up to be. Sarre is his usual friendly but aloof self, the kids continue to cold-shoulder you, and there’s not much to do in any real, useful way. To make matters worse, Sarre’s female colleague is constantly hanging all over him. You: - Sob yourself to sleep. - Decide that you “would have to be careful never to let him find out that she loved him and that would mean not minding about Anna because of course if she hadn’t been in love with him Anna wouldn’t have mattered at all. - Pick a fight with him; tell him it’s clear you’re the third wheel, not Anna; flounce off to bed rather than discuss anything; allow him to derail any later attempts at discussion; and accuse him, without any justification, of bringing Anna along on an overnight work trip, which makes him really angry. ✓All of the above.
9. The kids refuse to obey you when you tell them they can't go Nanny’s old house, which is being demolished, and leave you a note telling you that’s where they went. Sarre’s away, so you go to find them. You all get trapped and your stepson, Sarel, tells you they had planned to lock you in alone to scare you—and when you try to say you played pranks as a kid, tells you it wasn’t a prank—they were in deadly earnest. Do you: ✓Accept their overtures of friendship and acceptance now that you’ve proven what a sport you are and that they don’t need to hate you—you have no intention of sending Nanny away or of stealing their father’s attention and affection away from them. There’s no need for any kind of punishment. - Make it clear that you forgive them but that you’re done with their nonsense. - Run for the hills—they’re clearly murderous little monsters and who knows when they’ll turn on you again?
10. Sarre asks if you still think of Nick and you blunder your reply—you say that you did think of him and begin to say that he doesn’t seem real to you anymore, but Sarre cuts you off and says he thinks it might be a good idea if you go spend some time with Granny in England. He even says whether or not you come back is entirely up to you. You: - Refuse flatly to go and finish what you were saying about Nick—he doesn’t mean anything to you anymore. - Meekly decide to leave: you must bore him silly, he clearly wants you gone, and maybe it really is Anna he has decided he’s in love with. If it is Anna, maybe you can tell him you won’t “interfere” (whatever that means!). But really, the only option is to slink away… ✓Don’t do anything until your departure day arrives and then do a shot of brandy, insist on stopping by his clinic, ignore his secretary when she says he absolutely can’t be disturbed, bust in on a board meeting, and tell him that you’re not planning to come back EVER because you’ve been silly enough to fall in love with him. Rejoice when he tells you he’s in love with you too and quotes Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “I love thee to the level of every day’s most quiet need, by sun and candlelight….” Enjoy your HEA!
Congratulations—you may be a little too forgiving and patient and softhearted at times, but you are NOT a doormat, Alethea! You may bide your time and may not raise some dust when maybe you should, but overall your responses show that you have pride and the resolve to walk away when push comes to shove. Your awesome, dryly amused Granny would be proud of you. (hide spoiler)]
A good MoC tale from Betty with likable MCs, wonderfully horrible children, understandable misunderstandings, and a believable happy ending. From 1979, a good one from TGB that I enjoyed even more on a second read (even if it didn't have a Nanny vs. Granny smackdown, which would have made it 10 stars).
*Fun fact: The hero in An Apple from Eve is Tane van Diederijk. I wonder if Tane and Sarre are related?
Wonderful car porn in this one!
Hero drives a gun-metal gray Jaguar XJ-S: [image]
He also buys a Bristol 603E as a backup car (lucky guy!): [image]
He tells the heroine that she can of course drive both his cars but he buys her a car as well—and it’s not a Mini or a Fiat for once, it’s a pretty badass Colt Sapporo (made by Mitsubishi—and not a British car as the hero says at one point): [image]...more
Susan Fox loves her misunderstood, downtrodden heroines and her initially hostile cowboy heroes. Lots of good recaps for this already, so I'll just saSusan Fox loves her misunderstood, downtrodden heroines and her initially hostile cowboy heroes. Lots of good recaps for this already, so I'll just say that it's moderately angsty with no sex but good heat. Only a couple of townfolk out to pillory our heroine in this one rather than the entire town as in some other SF books I've read, but it's pretty much what I've come to expect from SF: a decent enough Western romance with a rather pitiable heroine and a hero who starts off kind of mean but soon softens and turns protective. ...more
Reviewers seem to love this one, but I'll be the contrarian. So Zane is the one with mom Mary's gray-blue eyes and Chance is the (adopted) one with thReviewers seem to love this one, but I'll be the contrarian. So Zane is the one with mom Mary's gray-blue eyes and Chance is the (adopted) one with the hazel eyes and the awful backstory, but other than that, there didn't seem to be much difference between LH's two alpha heroes, each with his own book. I liked Mackenzie's Mountain quite a lot but these flyboy/secret-Ops sons of Wolf Mackenzie just don't have the same hot appeal for me for some reason. Maybe it's because the spy-games kind of bored me and I ended up skimming a lot. At least this one had less of the annoying lisping plot moppet.
LH is hit or miss for me--I seem to either love her books or to kind of roll my eyes and shrug. This was the latter. Not terrible but definitely not a keeper for me....more
Meh--formulaic Linda Howard with characters that seemed mostly borrowed from her other books. I like survival tropes but this one didn't do it for me Meh--formulaic Linda Howard with characters that seemed mostly borrowed from her other books. I like survival tropes but this one didn't do it for me (maybe because it was contrived by the hero and there was no real danger/need to work together). Or maybe I just need a break from LH for a while.
Sunny was annoyingly...sunny, particularly for someone who has spent her life being hunted. (And that whole plot line was so contrived, too, and just didn't stand scrutiny.) Chance was a fairly typical LH alpha but for some reason left me cold (and I like her heroes usually in that old-skool way). There was a lisping plot moppet in far too many "look at Wolf's and Mary's oh-so-happy-but-badass family" scenes, so full point off for that. The epilogue had a cute ending (view spoiler)[ when they reveal that they name the inevitable LH "and baby makes 3" Wolf. (hide spoiler)]
Not sure I'll bother with the other Mackenzie books, since 2 out of 3 have been largely strikes for me--we'll see. Sometimes a little of a good thing is a enough....more
A re-read for me, and updated review and rating because I liked it so much better this time! A familiar Cinderella trope from Betty, with a downtroddeA re-read for me, and updated review and rating because I liked it so much better this time! A familiar Cinderella trope from Betty, with a downtrodden but plucky heroine with a vile family who is rescued via a MoC by a bookish Professor of surgery. It’s Betty doing what she did so well, and somehow it never gets old.
(view spoiler)[Araminta Smith is one of Betty's small and supposedly plain heroines who works for a temp agency. She is hired to help care for the teenaged niece and nephew of our RBD hero, Professor Jason Lister, when his sister has an emergency. Jason pointedly keeps “Miss Smith” at arm’s length, civil but coolly aloof, although he is helpful with the kids. Araminta is attracted from the start, but our sensible girl tells herself it would be silly and pointless to develop any interest in him because she's clearly a nonentity to him.
Not so much. Our RBD is soon irritated to find himself thinking about her a lot, and finding that she compares favorably to the kinds of girls who bother him to take them out when he'd rather be home relaxing with Horace (in Latin of course): ... he found it difficult to dismiss her image from his mind…she was so unlike any of the women of his acquaintance. She had made to attempt to engage his attention; the reverse in fact….She was refreshingly undemanding and he no longer found her plain. How pleasant, he considered, to be able to read and study in his library without the fear of phone calls begging him to dine or escort any of his women acquaintances, wasting hours of precious leisure…a happy state which could be achieved if he were to marry a girl as undemanding as Araminta. He laughed aloud and dismissed the absurd idea. But the seed is planted…
Jason's sister returns, and Jason drives Araminta to her cheerless home. She thinks "that's that," and resumes her unsatisfactory life, picking up another assignment immediately because her sniping, ungrateful father and sister have run up the household bills in her absence. (They are up there on the list of shittiest relatives in a BN book--which is saying something.) The job she takes is awful, and she's still weaving daydreams around meeting Professor Lister again, to her self-derision. She thinks he must have forgotten all about her..."But he hadn't."
He's thinking about her even more--what an ideal companion she was, sensible and unobtrusive and that trait most desired by a BN hero (when they're not setting themselves up for disaster with convenient social butterflies): restful. He decides to look her up to see how she is doing--particularly since he has an inkling that her home life is not very happy.
He's waiting one evening when she finishes her work for the day and he more or less springs his offer on her: a typically prosaic and rather insulting RBD/RDD MoC proposal that Araminta is rightly a little indignant about:"I suppose that, like most men, I have hoped that one day I would meet a woman I would want to love and live with for the rest of my life, but she seems to have eluded me, so I must settle for second-best. After all, many love matches come to grief, whereas a marriage founded on friendship and compatibility may well prove very successful....I consider it right to explain my feelings before I ask you to marry me, Araminta."
She was to be second-best, was she? If--and the idea was laughable of course--she should marry him, she would make him eat those words, even if it took years. It was, in fact, a good reason for marrying him... She tells him she would like to think about it and will let him know the next day. She decides to talk to her vicar, who listens carefully and asks if she loves Jason. She admits that she doesn't but that she really really likes him and they are compatible in important, serious ways. She thinks they'd be happy. The vicar tells her he thinks she should marry Jason--trust, respect, and liking can grow to affection, and it would be good for her family to have to take responsibility for themselves.
When Jason shows up that night, they tell her father and sister together that they are getting married. Sister Alice's reaction: "Marry Araminta? But that's ridiculous…she's not even pretty, you'll be ashamed by her." Jason’s look scares her and shuts her down instantly. Dear old Dad goes with "We shall have to manage as best we can without you, Araminta," a remark which made her feel guilty, as he'd intended. Dear old dad doesn’t even plan to attend the very modest wedding to give his “lesser” daughter (in his eyes) away until the hero writes him a pointed note—and includes some money so the heroine can buy a decent dress for the wedding, which he tells Araminta’s father to pretend is his own money to avoid humiliating the heroine. Dad keeps back a good portion of the money—Alice deserves some of it, he figures—but does give Araminta a hundred pounds, which she uses to buy a nice wedding outfit.
Araminta and I both start to really fall for Jason from this point, as he becomes protective and intent on making sure she’s not unhappy. ”…I want you out of your father’s house as soon as possible…I do not mean to be unjust, Araminta, but they are rapidly turning you into a doormat. You deserve better than that. I don’t promise you an exciting life, but I shall do my best to make you happy.”
They marry, a very quiet church wedding. He does have to go to the hospital that night for an emergency, and she realizes that her life with him has begun as it will go on, but she’s happy when he talks to her about his work the next morning. He’s busily back to work, though, although he promises to go with her on a shopping spree in a few days. Our heroine gets the BN clothing makeover via Harrods to kit her out for her new life.
But she’s disappointed later when he doesn't seem to notice her new pretty outfits and at his habit of retiring to his study to immerse himself in work and reading, although she knows it was what she had agreed to. Ah well, there’s always tapestry work and knitting and the dogs to keep her occupied. But she is a little sad and before long has her Dawning Realization: she’s in love with him, and probably has been for a while. Now this was a pretty kettle of fish, since he had shown no sign of even a mild romantic thought about her. The obvious answer was to get him to fall in love with her….it seemed unlikely, but with patience [and the help of beauty products, hee—that BN faith in fashion!] she could at least have a good try.
Their placid, platonic life continues, although our limited hero PoV shows Jason becoming increasingly aware of and attracted to his bride. She likes his friends—except for Vicky, who has been making plays for him for years but never achieves OW status. His friends and family find her charming, he tells her after a party, and she’s glad but It would be nice…if Jason found [her] charming too. Love, if this was love, wasn’t at all what she had expected…Something would have to be done, and quickly…How, she wondered, did one get a man to fall in love with one—even show an interest….? Something which the professor was doing, if only she could have known…
He’s noticed something different about her—“as though she had made a discovery of some sort.” He is glad that she’s slotting so conveniently into his life and he looks forward to spending the weekend with her at his country cottage. We get critter rescue, always a BN bonding event: There’s a half-starved cat at the cottage, which they take in. They have a nice weekend, pottering in the garden and taking walks, and sharing domestic tasks. Araminta is carefully friendly but reserved, though which, while it might have concealed her true feelings, caused an awkwardness which the professor was quick to notice and wonder about. He had to admit to himself that in the short time in which he had known her, she had become a part of his life which was becoming increasingly important to him, but he was aware that…Araminta had retreated and he couldn’t think why.
Back in London, Vicky invades their domestic peace their first night home, to their annoyance, although they politely ask her to stay for dinner. “What a chatterbox you are, Vicky,” Jason tells her when she rambles on about people Araminta doesn’t know, and he shuts her down sharply when she sneaks in a few jabs at Araminta. Vicky is disposed of from that point on—“a wasted evening,” Jason says to Araminta afterward, and when she thanks him again for their lovely weekend at the cottage, he gets downright testy: “Thank me?” He sounded harsh. “Why should you thank me? I found every moment of it delightful.”
Only a few days later, our hero has his own Dawning Realization: He was staring at her so intently that she looked down at her person. “Is something wrong?” she asked him. “No, no, something is very right, and I’ve only just discovered it.”
Sister Alice shows up, “fingering the small silver ornaments set out” (which I wouldn’t put past her to pocket) and boasting that dear old dad got a better gig in Bournemouth and they’ve sold the house and are moving. Araminta says to Jason afterward that it seems like a miracle and then realizes he’s the miracle maker: “I wanted to make you happy, Araminta.” Her father doesn’t know Jason was behind this uptick in good fortune, and they agree it’s better that way. They meet dear old dad and Alice for dinner (one last time, hopefully!), and dad leaves his elder daughter with this charming farewell: “Of course, you have treated us very badly…I am surprised that any daughter of mine could be so coldhearted and ungenerous, leaving us to manage on our own.” Jason presses her later about what her father said, and although she glosses over it, he says harshly: “Unless you wish to do so, you do not have to see your father or Alice again. They have treated you badly, used you as housekeeper and bread winner and not shown one jot of gratitude. They do not deserve to have their circumstances improved but it was the only way I could think that would set you free.”
With Vicky and Araminta’s crappy family disposed of neatly, we have only the Big Reveal to get past. They sat, the pair of them, each concealing their true feelings, entirely at cross purposes, Betty tells us. Clearly we need a Precipitating Event!
And we get one—nephew Jimmy is missing during a big storm! Araminta insists on going with Jason to search for him. They find him in a well—no, just kidding!—with a broken leg near the rising river, where our RBD does some emergency first aid, taking a moment to hold brave Araminta close and kiss her cold nose, and take Jimmy to safety.
They arrive back home to the tender care of the FFRs, Araminta resolves that she’s done hiding her feelings: Something would have to be done. It wasn’t honest to go on as they were; she would tell him that she had fallen in love with him and leave him to decide what to do. She had never been good at pretending…
She flies downstairs the next morning, prepared to tell all, asking if he can spare a moment, and he tells her that he can spare a lifetime for her, his “own dear heart.” Awww. He confesses his love for her first, and she starts to do the same, but he interrupts her to kiss her “gently at first, and then with a fierce enjoyment that took her breath.” Our RBD has that gleam in his eye betokening the kinds of things that lead to babies, and Buller, our FFR, spying them in a clinch in the hallway, is only to happy to report back to Mrs. Buller: “Happy ever after, that’s what—didn’t I tell you?...Happy ever after, and about time too!” (hide spoiler)]...more
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