More Books than Time

Book Reviews - Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction - By an Adult for Adults

Jilted by Sally Romance

by Leave a Comment

How do you get over being dumped by your fiancé in favor of your best friend? Not only do you lose the man you love, you lose his family, the life you planned together, your dreams, your self-respect and to top it off, you lose your best friend, the girl you grew up with, the girl who knows you as well as you know yourself. It’s hard. It’s hard but ladies do it all the time. It is not such an uncommon story to lose your fiancé or your husband to someone else.

Alexa, the heroine in Jilted, feels this loss. When her fiancé, Mark, tells her that he is in love with her maid of honor and best friend Elaine and they want to marry, she is devastated. She fights to keep Mark, which only makes it awkward. Alexa is an orphan and was close to Elaine’s family and likes Mark’s parents and looks forward to joining their family. Now it is all gone.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

Alexa attends the wedding out of pride and is counting the hours until she can leave when she meets Scott, Mark’s older brother, who doesn’t know she is the jilted ex She drinks way too much and notices how much Scott resembles Mark. He gives her a ride back to London and she invites him in. Scott comments how hard it was for Mark and Elaine since Mark’s original fiancée kept clinging and would not let him go. Scott seems to think that the original girl should have faded off to the sunset. Alexa doesn’t say anything and Scott doesn’t realize who she is.

Alexa can’t stop imagining Mark and Elaine making love and she eventually goes to bed with Scott, pretending he is Mark. She calls him Mark which infuriates him, he discovers who she is, she runs to the bathroom and tries to take a whole bottle of aspirin. Scott stops her. He is devastated and brutally tells Alexa she is doing this to blight Mark and Elaine’s marriage, that she must stop.

Alexa is miserable, apathetic, sure she will never be happy or care about anything again. Scott tells her he is marrying her, taking her back to Brazil where he works. She pushes back a little but doesn’t care enough to bother.

Back in Brazil Alexa falls in with “the crowd”, a group of youngish married couples including a bunch of gossipy, bored wives. She drifts along for a while, makes no attempt to learn Portuguese, nor takes any interest in anything around her. Scott doesn’t show how annoyed he is but he’s getting fed up with the pity party. They do not sleep together but Scott presses her several times whether she had slept with his brother. Alexa will not answer.

Finally Alexa gets a letter from Elaine which she finds sad, but sad in the same way one is sad after watching a movie. She’s beginning to recover her spirit and also growing up. She gets interested in the wild orchids, starts to grow some and paints them, and stops hanging around with the worst of the bored gossips, stops going to the club every day, starts learning a bit of Portuguese. She realizes she loves Scott, that Mark will always have a tiny part of her heart but that she no longer loves or is in love with him.

She and Scott go to a remote camp where Alexa gets lost a bit in the jungle and they have to stay overnight in a small bunkhouse. The howler monkeys wake her up and she gets Scott up because it sounds as though someone is dying. Scott starts to make love to her. Alexa tells him that this time she knows it is he, not Mark, yet Scott starts pushing and pushing for her to tell him whether she had made love with Mark. She yells that yes, they had, many times and Mark was wonderful, far better than Scott. He’s infuriated and forces her. She pushes him off and he then is tender and they make love.

The next morning Alexa is so happy, convinced she and Scott have a future, but Scott is completely distant with her, treats her as a stranger. She feels jilted once more.

This time Alexa starts drinking and smoking until Scott hides the booze. She can’t figure out why he would care what she does since obviously he doesn’t love her, that once he got what he wanted – her body – Alexa ceases to matter. She gets drunk and crashes her car. Scott arranges to go back to England a month early, although Alexa tells him not to bother, to just send her back by herself. Scott tells her that she has every right to expect him to come back with her, to take care of her, because she is his wife.

Alexa thinks they should divorce and Scott should let her go her own way. Instead he takes her to his parents’ house where Mark and Elaine come too. Elaine is pregnant and Alexa is happy for them; Scott says that he would like nothing better than to start their family. Now Alexa is confused. Scott doesn’t want her or does he? Finally she goes to his room and does what she should have done right after the jungle camp incident. She asks him. Scott fell in love with her when they met and took her to Brazil hoping she would start to love him. Happy ever after. The End.

Characters and Emotions

It is hard to read Jilted. Alexa suffers intensely from Mark jilting her, suffers again when Scott seemingly rejects her after they sleep together. She is emotionally all over the map, probably more miserable than many people would be, in part because she lost family as well as a husband-to-be, then loses her self-respect when Scott rejects her. She works to grow up, to get over Mark, she succeeds then Scott acts like he detests her after they make love. She is devastated.

Scott calls Alexa a coward and he is right. She kept choosing the easy way out, to suicide in London after the wedding, to drink herself to oblivion in Brazil. She refuses to engage with her new life with Scott for about 2 months until she finally realizes she must.

Alexa grows up during Jilted. She learns that strength must be internal, that she cannot live off others, that she must learn to stand alone before she can stand with someone else. One telling scene is in the car when Scott gives her Elaine’s letter and she reads how wonderful Mark is. Scott tries to anger her, asks her whether she isn’t jealous, whether she doesn’t resent that Elaine sleeps with Mark now. Alexa responds by asking “Why are you trying to goad me into losing my temper?” That is the first time she is calm and can distance herself from the tumultuous emotions. She recognizes that Scott wants to prevent her from depression, from torturing herself imagining Mark and Alexa and she can appreciate what he does, and recognize that she no longer is obsessed with Mark.

I get impatient with Alexa. I want to tell her to snap out of it. Get over it. Discover how to fill the hole in yourself. Scott is brutal with her a few times but no more so than I wanted to be. I had a hard time believing he could love someone so self-pitying, so wallowing in misery. But he does.

Dealing with Rejection

Jilted makes it clear that Alexa was particularly hurt that Mark turned to Elaine, her best friend. She had trusted both of them, and they spent a month or two behind her back. Mark should have broken off with Alexa immediately, not waited. It wasn’t fair to Alexa to keep pretending, to break dates, to act evasive, to essentially sneak around and dupe her. Alexa would have felt less betrayed had Mark and Elaine waited a month or two to tell her.

Overall

I’ve been all over the rating map on Jilted. The heroine gets 1 star for letting herself get so worked up about a fiance and best friend who cheat on her, about a husband who rejects her after first raping, then making love (?) with her but who has never acted particularly loving towards her. The sheer level of emotional misery is off the scale, all the way to STUPID.

The hero Scott is not much better. He can’t see why Alexa would have tried to keep Mark, nor why she would have attended the wedding, nor why she would have pretended she was with Mark when they started to make love after the wedding. I admire him for taking care of Alexa and doing what he could for her.

Neither of them asked the other what went wrong after they slept together in the jungle camp. Scott later says he thought she cried because she realized she had made love with Scott and not Mark, but he doesn’t ask, not even when Alexa starts drinking like a wanna-be dead drunk. Alexa also doesn’t ask him why, right until the final page she thinks Scott rejects her. She brings misery onto herself.

The emotional intensity gets 5 stars. Too bad the emotions are so over the top.

It’s painful to read about someone so messed up and so willing to stay messed up and so happy to dive into a bottle to avoid more hurt. What will Alexa do when Scott dies before she does? Or if they have children who go off the rails? She needs to stop being a drama queen, to develop some strength and some character.

On Goodreads I gave this 2 stars, then 4, and now after reading the third time I think I’m going to stay with 4 stars. The story and characters are not worth that much, but the fact Sally Wentworth manages to write a book that I have read three times makes up for the too stupid to live emotional drama.

I got my copy from Thriftbooks and you can read for free on Archive.org here. Amazon has used copies as do other used sites and eBay.

All Amazon links are paid ads.

Return to Yesterday – Reunion Romance by Robyn Donald

by Leave a Comment

Return to Yesterday is an intense story about a husband who wants his young wife back while she is determined against further emotional devastation. Catlin married her husband when she was only 17 – he was 26 and widowed with a young daughter, Jennifer, – just before her father died. She was deeply in love with her husband Conal but far too young to be his wife and unable to cope with his high powered, upper echelon Auckland society life. She found him in bed with another woman. That night she called him every name she could and he got angry and assaulted her, raped/forcibly seduced her. She ran away to Australia.

The story opens 6 years later when she wants Conal, as her trustee, to release funds so she can buy a small bookshop, and he insists she return to Auckland before he will even consider it. Conal has her come to his home where he works to inveigle her into resuming their marriage.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

There is not a lot of plot here. Essentially the story is how Conal convinces Catlin to come back to him permanently as she struggles to understand her own emotions.

Robyn Donald tells us what happened 6 years prior via Catlin’s memories. She never understood why Conal married her in the first place. Catlin lived on a remote sheep station in New Zealand’s South Island and was not ready to be anyone’s wife, much less a successful, rich, handsome, brilliant and cold man’s. Conal initially treated her well, almost as a loved young sister, but over time got impatient with her inability to adapt, and his mother did everything she could to undermine the marriage and destroy Catlin’s confidence. He seemed to think she was stupid, gauche, unattractive. He didn’t sleep with her. Instead his friends made sly comments and his mistress acted proprietorial, effectively shutting Catlin out.

One afternoon she drove to Conal’s beach house to find out how she could improve. She walked in Conal and his girlfriend in bed, left before they could see her. That night she went into his room and yelled at him, furious and hurt. Conal sexually assaulted her, although it turned into passion for both of them. That frightened Catlin and she left the next morning, saw a lawyer, went to Australia and concentrated on turning herself into everything Conal thought she was not.

Six years later Catlin is educated, articulate, well-dressed, attractive, poised and confident. She believes she is well able to deal with Conal and comes back to Auckland to discuss the bookshop purchase.

Once Conal has her back in his home he turns on the charm. His mother has a mild heart attack and Conal asks Catlin to stay and help him with his daughter, now 9. Catlin and his daughter become friends and Catlin realizes she loves Conal more than ever but she doesn’t trust him.

Conal tries to seduce Catlin several times, then when she’s finally willing, says that he won’t make love until she agrees to come back to him. They have a near-miss car accident and Catlin decides she would rather live with Conal, even if he doesn’t love her, than without him. He takes her sailing up to his cottage and they make love and have the final resolution.

Characters and Emotions

The crux of the book depends on why Conal wants Catlin back. Catlin thinks it might be:

  1. Conal wants to pay her back for leaving him, embarrassing him and causing worry.
  2. He would like a wife and thinks it’s easier to keep the new improved Catlin than find someone else. His daughter Jennifer needs a mom and his mother isn’t up to caring for her.
  3. He wants to get rid of his ex and fend off the many women who chase him.
  4. Lust

Catlin believes it’s a combination of all 4 reasons, mostly #2 and #4, practicality and lust. She never suspects he loves her. Conal doesn’t help matters. He threatens physical retribution when she angers him. Catlin realizes Conal would never hurt her and forgives the cruel comment.

There are some clues though: He lets her get rid of his other women, past and wanna-be lovers. He lets her believe her father’s estate provided her income, before his mother informs Catlin that Conal provides the funds that she lives on. He tells Jennifer that he wants Catlin back. He encourages the growing liking and trust between Jennifer and Catlin. He tells Catlin several times he wants her back. He tries to buy her gifts, takes her out, ensures his friends see her now and realize how Catlin has grown. When Catlin confronts him about providing her income Conal tells her that he made the best investment possible by helping her grow into a confident, educated, beautiful woman.

Catlin of course is afraid to believe Conal. When they finally make love in the grass at his cottage she dares to believe he feels something, but she has to challenge Conal with his feelings before he tells her he loves her.

Catlin is an excellent character but it is Conal who carries the book. Catlin describes him as cold, brilliant, ruthless, charming, an intriguing combination! When she sees him first in her Auckland hotel Catlin wants to feel indifferent, tells herself for a couple weeks that she is over him, that it had been infatuation. Conal works to get her back, first, back in his bed and second, back in his life for all time. (Of course it’s a Harlequin Presents so we expect a happy ending, but how will they get there?)

There are several minor characters, the ex-Other Woman, the wanna-be OW, daughter Jennifer, Conal’s mother, Conal’s friends, Catlin’s old friend, her current roommate, the kinda-OM whose sister is the wanna-be OW. All of these have distinct characters, more than foils for dialogue.

Setting

Return to Yesterday begins in a Sydney apartment, moves to Auckland hotel, then to Conal’s warm and beautiful home in Auckland suburb, several friends’ homes, restaurants, last Conal’s yacht and beach cottage. Author Donald describes the settings and helps us see why Conal’s home is so beautiful and how Catlin could have felt overwhelmed 6 years past. Conal’s mother decorated Catlin’s room in a rather overpowering style that didn’t fit with the rest of the gracious combination of antiques and good contemporary furniture. The settings enhance the story.

Overall

I didn’t like Return to Yesterday when I first read it, but when I re-read it to write this review I realized how well Robyn Donald created her believable characters and plot, how she wrote emotional conflict and tension that crest right at the perfect point in the story. Pacing and language are good.

The bad points are very bad. He raped/forcibly seduced her 6 years ago, he threatens to do it again now. She was a very young, innocent 17 when they married; he says now he married her because he wanted to drag her off to bed every time saw her. Ick. He could have helped her find a place to live in Auckland and get an education, grow up, before he courted her, but he didn’t.

I still don’t enjoy reading Return to Yesterday and probably won’t re-read, but do admire how well Robyn Donald handled the back story and the emotional growth for both characters.

It’s hard to rate a book when I don’t much like it but realize is well-written and has a good story and character development. 3 Stars is a bit of cop out, but it’s either 1 for the ick factor or 4 for the story.

3 Stars

I got my paperback copy from Thriftbooks. Amazon has used copies and most likely you can find this on eBay or other used book site.

Moth to the Flame – Intense Romance by Sara Craven

by Leave a Comment

Sara Craven has a near-miss with Moth to the Flame. On the plus side this is intensely emotional with rich visual imagery and three vivid main characters. On the minus the romance does not satisfy because it is not believable. The hero, Santino, does not act as though he loves the heroine Juliet. At the end he claims he intends to marry her but he never says he loves her. And I do not think he does.

Plot Synopsis (Click here to skip spoilers)

Juliet’s younger sister Jan works as a model in Italy. She is beautiful, shallow, selfish and the apple of their mother’s eye. Jan hasn’t written for three weeks and mom worries and insists Juliet must go to Italy to find out what is wrong.

Jan tells Juliet she intends to marry Mario, but his older brother Santino adamantly disapproves and intends to stop the marriage. Jan is pregnant and claims Mario is the father although she doesn’t seem to love him. Brother Santino shows up unexpectedly while Juliet is alone in Jan’s apartment, believes Juliet is Jan and demands that she agree to take the buy off he offers her to leave Mario alone. Juliet doesn’t know what he’s talking about but she’s annoyed at Santino’s nasty comments, doesn’t believe Jan would take a payoff, and decides to play along to divert his attention while Jan and Mario supposedly are off getting married. He walks in on her while she’s dressing and makes lewd comments to embarrass her.

They have dinner together and Juliet fends off Santino’s insulting demands that she take his money and acting on Jan’s behalf, refuses to leave Mario, claims she loves him. Santino slips a sedative into her coffee and instead of driving her to Jan’s apartment, kidnaps her to his remote Castillo on the coast. He takes some of Jan’s glamour outfits along but misses Juliet’s more normal clothes and leaves her purse with her passport, return ticket and money behind.

At the Castillo he tells Juliet that he has notified the scandal media that he has brought Jan to his home, expecting this will cool his brother and turn him from marrying Jan. They have several near seduction scenes and Santino, all along believing Juliet is Jan, alternately calls her a prostitute and acts as though he’s attracted himself. Santino shocks Juliet, tells her about several Jan escapades, including one time where she did a striptease dance at an exclusive party.

Juliet found Santino attractive during that first dinner and over the next two days at the castillo she is horrified to realize she’s on the verge of falling in love with him. She knows they are from separate worlds and he’s not likely to fall for her, so she fights the attraction. It doesn’t help when Santino keeps trying to lure her into bed. Juliet believes he’s after her only because she’s there and he thinks she’s Jan, available, not because he’s interested in her.

Finally Juliet has enough, decides that Jan has had plenty of time to marry Mario if that is indeed what they were doing together, and reveals that she is not Jan, she is sister Juliet. She’s dumbfounded that Santino laughs this off as fairy tales. He’s in the middle of seducing her when his mother and stepfather arrive along with a nasty aunt by marriage whose goddaughter is engaged to Mario, and who collects gossip to sell to tabloids. Santino knows this aunt would like the goddaughter to marry her son instead of Mario, but he thinks the intended marriage will help Mario grow up and doesn’t want the engagement broken. He claims Juliet and he are engaged, that the story he planted about Jan was actually a misprint and was supposed to say he had Juliet with him.

Mother is there because Mario is in the hospital after crashing his car with Jan. Juliet goes with the family to the hospital and finds Jan is quite annoyed with the set up. Mario did not marry her, she’s two months pregnant, she has no job and will lose her apartment. And now her boring, stick in the mud, less pretty sister is engaged to the rich and gorgeous Santino. Santino wants her to go along with his story that Mario was bringing Jan to a family party to celebrate his engagement to Juliet, but if Jan spills the truth, it will cause a great deal of gossip and hurt Mario’s fiancée. Jan agrees to keep silent if Santino takes her along with Juliet to stay at his Castillo.

Once the three are together Jan mounts a relentless campaign to supplant Juliet as Santino’s fiancée. Juliet finds herself pushed to the side and Santino doesn’t seem to mind this at all. In fact when Juliet joins them on the beach and insists on talking to Santino in private about getting her passport and ticket to return to her job in England, he is cold, acts as if he was interrupted and sneers at her. He says he knows why she is going and Juliet thinks he means he knows she is in love with him; she does not know that Jan took magnified Juliet’s tepid friendship with another teacher into a huge love affair.

When Santino returns to Jan on the beach he runs his finger down Jan’s spine. That evening he takes Jan to Rome and comes back a day later after his mother has visited again. Juliet tells his mother that they never were engaged, that it was fake and that she’s going home. Mother is fed up with both her sons and cannot understand why Santino took Jan to Rome. Neither can Juliet, unless Santino wants an affair with Jan.

When Santino and Jan return Jan has “all the appearance of the cat who has had the cream and intends to make the saucer hers as well.” Jan tells Juliet that she’s wearing her heart on her sleeve, that Santino is bored with their engagement and Juliet was undignified when she dragged Santino away on the beach and he didn’t want to go. “Learn to be a good loser” she advises. Santino tries to talk to Juliet but she shrugs him off and goes upstairs to her room. She’s convinced that Jan got what she wanted from Santino, either marriage or an affair.

Back in England Juliet is miserable. She now knows she loves Santino, that it wasn’t just infatuation. Walking home after work Juliet sees Santino’s car parked by her home. Jan walks in wearing an enormous diamond. She’s married and brought her husband and wouldn’t Juliet like to come and greet him? No way. Juliet tells her that is a pleasure she must forgo and wishes them both every happiness. Juliet walks up the steps and Santino comes up behind her, picks her up and carries her to her room. He’s not going to watch her walk away up some stairs again. Jan is married to a former lover and Santino wants to marry Juliet. He tells her he wants her, he has always wanted her. He even agrees to wait to marry until she works out her notice at the end of term.

Why Is the Romance Flat?

Juliet’s Side. Juliet felt she knew Santino, as though she had always known him, had been waiting for him all her life. That could be love. That could be infatuation. Both feel wonderful at first but only love lasts. She did not spend much time with Santino, one dinner where he insulted Jan non stop, two days at his Castillo where he insults and tries to seduce her, a drive to Rome, a month at his Castillo when he leaves for days at a time on business and Jan is always there.

Love at first sight romances can be completely believable – Sara Craven’s The Unwilling Wife is a good example from the man’s side – so that is not why this doesn’t work for me. The main reason is Santino.

Santino’s Side. Why did Santino allow Jan to push Juliet aside? More damning, why did he continue to flirt with her and touch her as he did on the beach when she had her bikini top off? I thought of several reasons:

  1. He’s trying to make Juliet jealous.
  2. He knows he hurt and scared Juliet and wants to give her time to grow accustomed to him
  3. He doesn’t think Juliet cares for him and wants to pay her back for it.
  4. Jan is so blatant that Santino is laughing at her internally when he allows her to play up to him.
  5. He wants to keep Jan sweet so she doesn’t spill the beans to the gossipy godmother
  6. He is physically attracted to Jan.

Santino says reason #2 is why he devised the fake engagement and implies it is why he left Juliet alone so much. Frankly, I don’t buy it. True he wanted to give her space but that does not mean letting Jan have the space – all the cream and the saucer to boot – and it certainly does not mean stroking her back when she’s lying on the beach with her top off. I think it was a combination of #4, 5 and 6.

Santino thought Jan was little better than a prostitute, certainly she was promiscuous and accepted an apartment and fancy clothes from the man she eventually marries. All along Santino thought Juliet was Jan and tried his best to seduce her into bed which says it all. Santino was too proud to allow a sleep-around to marry his brother but he wasn’t too proud to take advantage of physical proximity. Santino acted revolted when Juliet revealed she believed he and Jan had an affair and had possibly even married. Santino would never marry someone like Jan, but he was all too willing to have an affair.

Writing Style

I like Sara Craven’s style. In Moth to the Flame she lets the action and dialogue show the emotions and drive the story. We see everything through Juliet’s eyes, and there is quite a bit of introspection when she worries about falling for Santino, when she’s sickened by Jan’s behavior, when she’s desperate to get back home. The author uses Juliet’s thoughts to help explain Juliet’s reasoning and her behavior and doesn’t rely on them to make the story real.

Moth to the Flame is set mostly in Italy, either in Rome at an apartment or restaurant, or at Santino’s old Castillo. The settings are part of the story and described well enough that we can visualize them. The Castillo is built from stone by a cliff so it has some atmosphere that Juliet notes but doesn’t obsess about.

Overall

Moth to the Flame is a decent read albeit not a great story and far from one of Sara Craven’s best. The romance between Juliet and Santino doesn’t work because he spends far too much time insulting her, trying to seduce her, or flirting with Jan, and far too little time developing any connection between them.

3 Stars

I got my used paperback copy of Moth to the Flame from Thriftbooks. Amazon has copies and most likely you can find it on eBay and other used book sites.

All Amazon links are paid ads.

Bond of Vengeance – Harlequin Presents Romance by Jessica Steele

by Leave a Comment

Jessica Steele writes rather good romances that have semi-believable plots and characters. I could feast all day on her books except for one glaring problem. When her heroines worry out their man problem they think through things in a bizarre way, with illogical thinking and illogical, convoluted sentences that are hard to follow. The rest of the narrative and the way the other characters talk and think (when we can see their thoughts) are reasonably straightforward and use normal English sentence structure, not Yoda-speak. I think Jessica Steele uses this to show us that the heroine is all mixed up and miles down the wrong road.

Plot Synopsis

Keely’s widowed mom works as a housekeeper for a widower, Lucas Varley. Now she is so excited and joyful; Lucas has asked her to marry him. They love each other which thrills Keely. Keely rushes down to Lucas’s country home to find her mom is tense and worried because Lucas’s son, Tarrant, offered her money to leave, he assumed she was after his dad’s money and tried to buy her off. Keely dashes back to London and insists on seeing Tarrant in his office where she tells him off and smacks him hard. Tarrant implies that not only is her mom after a rich man, but so is Keely!

The newlyweds plan to stay at home – alone – for a few weeks but Tarrant plans to stay there too; he cynically expects his new stepmom to reveal her true, gold diggery colors and wants to be around when it happens. He’s rather nasty. Keely points out that his dad and his new wife want to be alone and tries to persuade Tarrant to leave, he agrees on condition that she spends the weekend with him at his apartment.

Clearly Tarrant is intrigued and attracted to Keely but she’s not seeing that, she sees only that he wants to humiliate both her and her mom. Tarrant insults her a few more times, they have a heavy make out session on the couch but he leaves her to sleep alone, saying he refuses to allow her to trap him. Did I mention insults? Add conceited and convinced of his own never-fail sex appeal.

Another weekend Keely decides to get her own back at Tarrant and tells Lucas and her mom the exact, literal truth, that she spent the weekend with Tarrant in his apartment and slept in his bed. She omits that she slept there alone and of course dad and stepmom have things to say to Tarrant. That makes him even madder – by this time he’s realized new stepmom loves Lucas and is not after his money – and he’s even more attracted to Keely and frustrated. He decides to forcibly seduce her and does.

A few weeks later, when Tarrant comes back from a long business trip Keely tells him she’s pregnant and says to herself but out loud, that she cannot have this child. Tarrant assumes she plans an abortion and has another fit, insists they marry. While she’s supposedly engaged Keely moves a bunch of heavy furniture around and miscarries, an all too frequent occurence in her family. Tarrant again insults her, yells at her for having an abortion, and Keely is too tired and sad to tell him the truth.

Next visit home Keely’s mom mentions that her neice miscarried and that it is sadly something that all the women in her family face. Tarrant realizes he goofed, and once again insists Keely marry him, but this time for love.

Characters

Tarrant is quite well done. We readers can see him falling for Keely, getting himself twisted in knots trying to avoid the attraction, frustrated because he wants her, angry because he thinks she doesn’t want him and doesn’t want their child. It’s almost funny.

Keely, in typical Jessica Steele fashion, jumps to all sorts of silly conclusions. For example Tarrant calls her from the airport the morning after they sleep together and Keely immediately assumes he wants her to get all of her mom visits done so he can go to his dad’s house on the weekends when he’s back without seeing her. I re-read this section and have no idea how anyone would conclude that’s what he meant, but Keely is in a swivet and not thinking clearly. She knows she’s in love with Tarrant, convinced he does not and never will love her, and her internal musings reflect this.

Mom and new husband Lucas are standard casting central characters with little development or personality. Lucas seems nonchalant when Mom mentions she suffered several miscarriages and that her sisters hae the same problem; it’s rather unnerving to see a man, who supposedly loves someone, listen to that without caring.

Overall

If this were written in straighforward English I’d give it three stars without question. Being as it is, written to show Keely’s illogical thinking, full of split infinitives (and split everything else!) it’s closer to two stars. (That sentence is my attempt to write Jessica Steele-speak. It’s a lot harder than it looks.)

2 Stars

I got my copy in a book lot on eBay and you can find copies on Thriftbooks. Many of Jessica Steele’s romances are available on Harlequin.com or from Amazon in E format, but this one, Bond of Vengeance, is not. Amazon has the comic version as of this writing.

All Amazon links in my blog are paid ads.

The Bright Side of Dark Harlequin Romance by Jeneth Murrey

by Leave a Comment

Jeneth Murrey has become one of my favorite romance authors because she writes strong-willed heroines who aren’t about to be subsumed by their equally strong-willed heroes and includes plenty of humor and romantic tension plus settings we can visualize.

The Bright Side of Dark is her only novel set in Spain and features Victoria, a 20-something English lady who wakes up in hospital with amnesia after a bad car wreck. She knows her first name, not her last, nor where she lives, why she was driving the mountain road in the dark, where she was going. Victoria has plenty of fortitude but she is anxious about who she is and her place in the world.

Victoria is fretting when the nun nursing her gets her cleaned up for a special visitor. Her husband, Rafael, has come to claim her. Victoria doesn’t recognize him at all, but she does recognize that he is dangerous, someone who would run roughshod over her and she’s not at all glad he is claiming her. Or is she? She also recognizes that he’s strong and caring and just the sort of husband she would want. Yes, she’s mixed up about this. In fact Victoria remains mixed up in her feelings towards Rafael all story long.

Plot Synopsis

Rafael is charming and insistent, brushes aside the doctor who would like Victoria to stay hospitalized another week or two, offers to build a new children’s ward and donate to the nuns’ order. Now Victoria smells a rat. She’s nothing special, yet this man who claims to be her husband badly wants her home now; she already cost him an expensive car, now a new children’s ward and a fat donation. Hmmm.

Rafael takes her home, back to his young daughter Isabel, cousin-in-law Inez, grandmother Abuela, housekeeper Pilar, assorted maids and a chauffeur. Victoria recognizes none of them but all are delighted to see her back, except perhaps Inez who makes little barbed comments all through dinner. Victoria still doesn’t understand the set up. Why did Rafael marry her? Who is Inez? How did Isabel injure her leg and can it be cured? As she learns near the end of the book Rafael hired Victoria to teach Isabela after an illness and when Isabel recovered enough to go back to to boarding school, he asked Victoria to marry him. Since she had no one and loved Isabel it was easy for Victoria to agree.

Various day-to-day events help Victoria re-establish herself in this new, unknown world and draw closer to Isabel, Abuela and Rafael. She’s still wary of Rafael although she’s starting to love him. They enjoy sleeping together and she knows he cares about her but doesn’t think he loves her. He hasn’t spoken of his feelings and Victoria is well aware he could have married almost anyone. She alternately melts with love or throws things at Rafael in a flaming temper, she just doesn’t understand him and she’s determined not to let him know how much she loves him because she’s sure he will take advantage of it to control her.

Juan, a young, spoilt son of neighbor friends decides to languish after Victoria which she finds annoying. He languishes after Inez too before she decides to move back to Madrid and resume her social life. Before she leaves Inez warns Victoria that Juan is not only spoilt but vicious, to beware of him.

Victoria, who is now pregnant, and Rafael take Isabel to England to consult with an orthopedic surgeon about her damaged leg and they enjoy touring London, seeing all the sights with an indefatigable Isabel who is especially fond of riding on the double decker buses and seeing all the umbrellas. Isabel buys souvenirs for all her school friends and people at home and has a wonderful time. Victoria enjoys it too.

The plot peak comes when Juan has a servant ride a mule 10 miles through a torrential rainstorm to deliver a melodramatic note to Victoria about his heartbreak and how she will be sorry she turned him away. She is so angry that Juan mistreated a servant and the mule that she doesn’t even bother to read the whole note, she’s disgusted he’d do that to someone for no better reason than to posture. Then it dawns on her that although Juan can’t do anything to her, he could perhaps do Rafael some mischief. She calls Rafael’s office in a panic. Rafael left his office a couple hours before but he’s not yet home and she is scared to death.

Victoria dashes out the house – in her slippers and without a coat – to her car, hops in and drives through the downpour like a nutcase to find out what happened to Rafael. Her memory comes back during the drive, she pulls over and pushes it out of her head so she can concentrate on finding Rafael. She sees him walking through the fog and rain, slams on the brakes, runs barefoot (since the slippers disintegrated and fell off back in the garage) and throws herself into his arms. He is thrilled and takes her home. She tells him she remembered everything, that she crashed the car driving back home to tell him she loved him. He explained that when he asked her to marry him, suggesting it was for Isabel, and she agreed and said they would have a normal marriage he thanked God and took what she offered.

Characters

Victoria has mixed feelings about Rafael. Right at the beginning lying in her hospital bed she recognizes him as a domineering male who would trample all over her if she gave him an inch. On the other hand “she didn’t mind being married to him in the least. If she must have a husband, he was just the sort she would have chosen.” She loves Rafael but is wary of letting him know because she’s quite certain he’ll take advantage of her feelings to get his own way even more than he already does.

Victoria is essentially kind and loving, treats Isabel as her own daughter, and Abuela as her own much-loved grandmother. She’s considerate with the servants and gets along well with everyone although she finds Inez a trial. Inez is a snob, looks down on Pilar for her peasant attitudes. Victoria shares many of those peasant attitudes and is quite happy about it. Inez is too sophisticated to show her feelings but Victoria has no qualms; when she’s happy she smiles and laughs and when she’s angry she throws things. Rafael tells her that they quarrel every couple of days but the quarrels don’t mean anything. It’s Victoria’s way to ensure she retains some independence.

Author Jeneth Murrey creates believable characters, especially Rafael and Victoria. Abuela and her maid Sancha have small vignettes that show Abuela as an older lady, considerate of her grandson and his wife, who takes care not to intrude. Sancha is devoted to Abuela and frets about small things, little treasures she has collected and she knits constantly.

Rafael is more complex. He obviously cares deeply about his family including Victoria. He makes it evident he enjoys sleeping with Victoria and enjoys her mercurial temper. He informs her that his commands to his wife are the next best thing to Holy Writ and that she cannot go anywhere unless he allows it. That’s like lighting a gasoline fire, sets Victoria off in fury. She picks a fight with him and defies him simply to make him angry, he retaliates by squeezing her hand mercilessly to the point where Victoria had bruises.

Conflicts

There is one overriding conflict and a few smaller ones.

Victoria simply cannot and will not accept that Rafael should control her. Rafael is not a bully (except when she deliberately angers him in the hand squeezing incident) and he’s not unreasonable. But he does recognize that Victoria is prone to impulse with a ready temper and lives life on emotions. He enjoys fighting with her – up to a point – and seems to say things to set her off. They have a constant struggle, not for supremacy exactly, but to balance independence with alliance. Rafael doesn’t want to control Victoria, he does want her to behave as his loving wife, to be reasonable, not go off half-cocked, not argue about everything.

It will take Rafael and Victoria their entire lives to resolve this push-pull conflict and they will enjoy it. By the end of the book both said “I love you” to the other which converts the question from one of control to give and take, the normal friction of two strong-willed people who love, respect, trust, honor each other.

We see this in how Victoria decides to give birth. She’s pretty sure the baby is coming when she smiles at Rafael and gayly sends him off to work. She knows it will take him at least an hour to first get to work, get the message and then get home (this is before cell phones) and in fact she has the baby while he is gone. As she says she “wanted to surprise him…the father is not necessary at times like these.”

Victoria compares herself to a jigsaw puzzle where the edges are done but not the middle. She tells Rafael that she feels just like the puzzle, an outline and empty, because she doesn’t know who she is or have any memory from before the car accident. Rafael tells her she’s hungry. He knows she is a real person, he realizes she’s hurting because she doesn’t have her past but he doesn’t think she should make it so important. The Bright Side of Dark is one of the few amnesia stories that are believable, and I think it’s because the amnesia is simply there, it doesn’t drive the story.

Setting

Author Murrey creates detailed short descriptions; we can visualize the setting. For example she doesn’t describe everything the family sees in London, she concentrates on Isabel riding on the top of the double decker bus to look down at the umbrellas. She describes Rafael’s home, from the austere fortress front to the warm, inviting rooms where the family lives, and she shows us the department store where Isabel and Victoria splurge on t-shirts and jeans for Isabel and Rafael buys Victoria a very expensive evening dress.

When Victoria is hospitalized she can’t see much beyond the obsessively clean rooms, the starched and clean nun/nurses, the screens the nuns place around each bed in the ward to give privacy to visitors. Still we get the feeling of a healing place that offsets rigid cleanliness with care and warmth. Two nuns and the doctor are given enough word count to make them memorable and this helps make the scenes feel real.

I contrast the detail here with the cursory treatment the modern Harlequin Presents authors give setting. The newer books are shorter and intensely focus on the two main characters, not minor players or setting or mood and I miss that. Jeneth Murrey lets all the characters have their time in the sun and includes setting to give mood and lets actions and dialogue drive the story and add humor.

Overall

I read my paperback copy while we were moving to a different country, not the best situation to enjoy subtle humor and character building. I re-read it 5 months later and enjoyed it far more the second and third time. The things that make this for me are:

  • Story comes alive with vivid characterization and funny plot
  • Humor. I laughed at some of the scenes and dialogue
  • Excellent character development
  • Likable characters, both Rafael and Victoria are decent people that I would enjoy meeting
  • Setting is always present but The Bright Side of Dark never becomes a travelogue
  • Good writing
  • Characters play off each other
  • Genuine love story, a romance that strengthens and becomes clear
  • Minor characters who add to the story
  • Plot that is simple and doesn’t get in the way of the people
  • Romantic tension
  • More showing than telling
  • Emotionally engaging

I liked both Rafael and Victoria but both had times when I wanted to smack them upside the head, Rafael when he got mean squeezing Victoria’s hand and Victoria when she decided to have hissy fits for not much.

4 Stars. The Bright Side of Dark is close to 5 stars, but just misses that high bar.

I got my copy from Thriftbooks, do check eBay, other online stores and Amazon for copies.

All Amazon links are paid ads; blog owner receives small commission if you purchase.

The Sweetest Trap. Harlequin Presents by Robyn Donald

by Leave a Comment

I usually like Robyn Donald’s Harlequin Presents for their strong stories, interesting well-developed characters and good dialogue. The Sweetest Trap is disappointing. I made myself finish it despite stopping every few pages to do fun things like dishes and laundry. The plot was simply not enticing enough to overcome wooden characters, continuity problems, spotty dialogue and the cheesy idea of a 35 year old man seducing an 18 year old, unworldly girl.

Plot Synopsis

Cressida, just 18, sails with her domineering father all over the world, gaining him raw material for his philosophical musing/travelogue books that sell well, until her dad has a fatal heart attack off the coast of New Zealand during a dangerous storm. Cressida radios for help since she cannot handle the yacht alone and Luke arrives in his fishing launch to help her bring the yacht into shore.

Luke takes her to his New Zealand home which he shares with his mom, helps her with the inquest, financial settlements, emotional turmoil. Cressida has longed to live the way Luke does, settled in a home surrounded by country yet close enough to the ocean to sail or swim for fun. She had wanted to go to college, had never wanted to accompany her father, but he had promised his dead wife to keep Cressida with him. Now she’s unable to grieve and can feel only bitter regret.

Luke has a long time girlfriend, Paula, who visits several weekends. Luke’s mom tells Cressida that Paula has not wanted to marry Luke since it meant she would have to give up the law career she loves. Later we see that Paula does want to marry Luke and Luke tells Cressida that he had thought seriously about marrying Paula since he cares greatly for her.

Cressida is wise enough to realize she has a crush on Luke and is hoping that it is nothing more, just the usual adolescent strong feelings that dissipate in time. They are physically attracted and Luke kisses her, makes it clear that he wants more. Eventually they take her yacht out on a farewell cruise before she sells it, get caught overnight in a storm and make love. Cressida is horrified afterwards because she knows that was the worst thing to do when she does not want to love Luke and does not want to be pregnant and there’s Paula. Luke says he’ll marry her but it doesn’t sound to Cressida or to me as though he wants to.

When they get back Paula is waiting for Luke in the garage, throws herself in his arms and says “You have to help me. I think I’m pregnant!” Exit Cressida.

She ends up sharing an apartment in Auckland with a nice girl, Jan, who’s pretty fed up with guys – at the moment. Luke shows up and Cressida delivers a great self-sufficiency speech: She wants to find out who Cressida Godwin is and all she’ll ever be if she marries Luke is Mrs. Luke. He’s angry and tells her Paula has been having an affair with someone else, admits he loves Paula, leaves.

Luke’s mom calls Cressida when Luke is hospitalized. Cressida charters a plane to get there and sits with him while he’s unconscious. Paula arrives too and agrees with Cressida that one of the two of them can stay with Luke, and it will be whosever voice he responds to. Luke ignores Paula but reaches for Cressida’s hand. Paula leaves, banished to the cold reaches of discarded HP Other Women. Luke then wakes up and kicks Cressida out.

Things proceed until Luke shows back up one evening when Jan is out, informs her he loves her, won’t take no for an answer, they sleep together again and agree to marry.

Characters and Dialogue

Luke starts his role in The Sweetest Trap by jumping in the ocean during a storm to reach Cressida’s boat, grinning and having a wonderful time playing Viking. Later Robyn Donald tries to show Luke as a thoughtful, emotional, warm and kind man but it doesn’t quite work. Luke is extremely kind to Cressida, supporting her through the horribleness of her dad’s death, offering her a home, helping her gain some basic skills, but he also rides over her and ignores what she wants when it conflicts with what he wants.

Case in point: Luke asks one of his employees to take Cressida shopping since all her clothes are suited to sailing in warm weather, casual or outgrown. Cressida has some money the lawyer for her father’s estate advanced her and she intends to budget only part of that for new clothes. Luke goes behind her back and has his employee go back and get all the other things that Cressida liked but didn’t buy. True, the new things are wonderful and Cressida wants them, but her whole point throughout the story is she wants to be independent, at least long enough to prove to herself that she is a separate person and can take care of herself. Luke was disrespectful.

Let’s not even go to the age difference. The experience gap is even larger and more momentous than the age gap. Cressida went to a convent school in England when she wasn’t cloistered on the yacht with her dad. She met people yes, including a repulsive guy who wanted to buy her for a short term affair, but she was completely under her father’s control. Luke has been an independent adult for almost 20 years.

Cressida had the dubious pleasure of being in the room behind a bookcase when Paula and Luke came in and started kissing and making out. Luke claimed later that was Paula’s last attempt to show him they could make marriage work, supposedly because she didn’t want the affair with the other man. I don’t buy this. This little passionate interlude took many minutes and neither one spoke. It sounded as if Luke enjoyed having Paula try to persuade him, even if he ended up rejecting her.

Cressida has the best dialogue and develops a spine although she berates herself for being weak and easily intimidated. I didn’t think she had allowed herself enough time to discover who she was but overall she was characterized as a person we could visualize being happy. The author tells us instead of showing us a little too much. Cressida is described as feeling empty, bitter, afraid several times but we don’t really see that.

I didn’t like the huge age/experience difference nor that Cressida and Luke sleep together even when Cressida believes he is in love with Paula. She doesn’t seem able to think clearly when Luke is around with his manly self.

The big romance between Cressida and Luke is inconsistent, varying from almost completely physical to metaphysical. Luke says he recognizes Cressida as bone of his bone, part of himself, but this is after he’s tried to push her away, after he’s seduced her, after he’s hurt her, after she’s seen him first make love to Paula then later reject her, after Cressida has escaped his hand. As for Cressida it’s possible for a young lady to truly love a man so much older and more experienced, but it’s far more likely to be a short term crush. Cressida was wise to leave to find out the difference; I was not convinced that she knew what she felt even at the end.

Luke uses Paula. He tells Cressida that he’d seriously considered marrying Paula, that they both cared for the other, that he didn’t love her but knew they could have a happy life together. He keeps seeing Paula and seems to swing between chasing Cressida for physical delight and clinging to Paula for emotional comfort. He finally dumps her, which is when Paula turns to her married co-worker.

The minor characters, Luke’s mom, gossipy neighbors, the young lawyer and his wife, roommate Jan, are nice touches and all have some depth, but are essentially spear carriers, foils to carry the action. I couldn’t visualize any of them.

Style and Continuity

Robyn Donald did not make me care about the characters nor believe any of them are real people. The pace is slow. Sometimes a slow pace with a slow tension build works great with romance novels but this one doesn’t have the tension.

The novel lacks a clear emotional peak. Was it when Luke and Cressida make love in the yacht? When Paula throws herself at him begging for help with a suspected pregnancy? When Luke is in hospital and Cressida and Paula joust over who he will respond to? Is it when Cressida tells Luke she needs to be on her own to find out who she is? The ending is not the peak; in fact it simply happens. Time to sleep together, yay!

I picked a page at random, #104, right after Cressida tells Luke about the degenerate rich guy who wanted her for a couple weeks. There are 6 paragraphs on this page, all quite short. Four paragraphs are tell paragraphs, Robyn Donald tells us what Cressida thinks or describes inconsequential action. Two are mostly dialogue. That ratio is pretty typical, a bit more telling than showing and that, along with the slow pace and icky age difference make this story bland and less interesting than Donald’s usual.

There are at least two glaring and some smaller continuity problems.

  • Luke broke ribs and hurt his arm in a bulldozer accident but Cressida asks him several times about his leg, does it hurt, can he walk OK? Luke says it aches.
  • Cressida doesn’t earn a lot in Auckland yet she charters a plane to get to Luke in the hospital instead of taking the bus.
  • Luke and Cressida make love in the apartment she shares with Jan. I can see Jan having a fit when she comes home and finds them both there, especially if Cressida and Jan share a room.
  • A small problem is when the yacht sells. The buyers are getting it refitted so Luke and Cressida take it out for a last sail. The boat must have been docked near Luke’s house yet we never hear that the buyers came to see it in person. I noticed that which means either the story was weak or the problem was glaring; I usually forgive small problems in a good story.

Overall

The Sweetest Trap combines the big age and experience gap with a domineering man and girl who wants to grow up and develop a spine and personality. I think this should have caused tension and conflict all on its own, and indeed that is so. However the tension is mild and Donald does not develop the conflicts. Instead we have a lot of Luke chasing Cressida around the couch (more or less) and Cressida bemoaning that she has a crush on Luke, a most unsuitable crush object.

The story does not come together.

2 Stars, OK

I got my paperback copy of The Sweetest Trap in a lot on eBay. It is available on Thriftbooks here, and Amazon here, both new and used. I didn’t see it available in E format except in pdf format to borrow on Archive.org.

All Amazon links are paid ads.

Married by Christmas Marriage of Convenience by Carole Mortimer

by Leave a Comment

Married by Christmas was one of the first books I ready by Carole Mortimer; the intense emotional connections delighted me and I noted it on my books to buy list. I reread it now, about two years later, and I still enjoyed it, but after reading so many other romances I found it closer to good, not great.

Everything happens in London, in the main characters’ homes or hotel. The story is compressed to about a week and a half.

Plot Synopsis and Characters

Lilli lost her mother to a 5 year long bout with cancer just a few months ago, and her fiancé Andrew dumped her right after. She’s had a miserable last year. Tonight her friend Sally convinces her to go to a party given by a lady she knows slightly but doesn’t much like, Gerry. Gerry has a terrible reputation for men, Lilli calls her a man-eater.

Sally points out to Lilli an older, very handsome man who is obviously enraptured with Gerry. The man is Lilli’s dad, Richard. Lilli can’t believe her dad is chasing the man-eating Gerry so soon after her mom died and is disgusted and furious. She wanders around the house where she meets Patrick in the kitchen who clearly is someone special to Gerry. They flirt a bit, Gerry and Richard walk in and Lilli sees that she can get back at both of them (and herself) and having drunk a little too much, gets Patrick to take her to a hotel. Richard and Gerry both try to dissuade them but Patrick isn’t listening and Lilli is too angry and hurt to care.

Lilli is horrified the next morning when she wakes up to Patrick singing in the shower. She goes home where she and her dad have a short argument. Several fast meetings later Lilli learns that

  • Richard owes Patrick’s bank several million pounds that he cannot pay because Lilli’s former fiancé had embezzled the money before dumping Lilli in favor of a another man and her dad doesn’t want to humiliate Lilli by prosecuting him.
  • Patrick wants to marry her.
  • Lilli doesn’t want to marry Patrick

Lilli is no dummy and realizes Richard could go ahead and prosecute Andrew if Lilli marries Patrick. So she agrees but is not too happy about it, especially when Patrick gives the usual Harlequin Presents Hero speech about not believing in love. He wants her body and he wants kids and he intends to marry forever.

Patrick’s ex-wife shows up at the wedding reception and is nasty until Lilli – not Patrick – routs her. The next morning Richard shows up, yes the morning after their wedding night. How tacky! Patrick is not amused and he’s even less thrilled when Richard tells them that Andrew insists on speaking to Lilli. Andrew gives Lilli the money he embezzled and all should be well, except Patrick is in a real tizzy. Lilli walked out! Lilli went to her former fiancé!! Lilli is at Gerry’s house drinking champagne!!!

Patrick races there, they have the usual I Love You scene and a nice epilogue where Lilli has twin girls and Gerry and Richard, now married, have a baby son. There are several explanations in there too, all to show that Richard and Gerry and Patrick and Lilli all are blessed with true love.

Surface Emotions

The main problem I see with Married by Christmas is the characters seem to feel everything on the surface. Author tells us what Lilli thinks underneath her superficial gaiety and sparkle but the emotions don’t feel solid. She tells, not shows us Lilli’s heart.

Patrick has the typical reasons for his anti-love outward stance: He lost his mother when 15, later his dad, had to raise Gerry, had a horrible first marriage with a wife who chose an abortion rather than gaining weight with a baby. Yet he loves Lilli and supposedly fell in love with her when she fell asleep the moment she lay down when they got to the hotel room. He hadn’t slept with anyone since his first marriage broke up although he’d been looking for a solid gold lady, and Lilli completely ensnared him.

This is plausible but not all that likely. Lilli is 17 or 18 years younger than Patrick, beautiful, charming and he wants her very much. Sure. But love? Love a lady who happily leaves a party with a man she never met before and begs him to take her away to make love to her? Maybe. Or maybe he simply finally felt ready to love someone and Lilli is lovely and available, in the right place at the right time.

Carole Mortimer presents the secondary romance between Richard and Gerry as fact. She later has Gerry explain to Lilli how she and Richard met years earlier before his wife got cancer and how the man-eating rumors are false. This is nice but doesn’t add much to the story. The reason Lilli was in despair and left party with Patrick was to spite her dad and Gerry, but it doesn’t advance Lilli’s story to learn how they knew each other.

Summary and Overall Rating

Carole Mortimer is usually a 3 star author for me, some are better, some are worse, some are very much worse. After rereading I would give Married by Christmas a skimpy 4 stars; it’s good to very good.

I bought my copy of Married by Christmas from Thriftbooks. You can find Kindle and new or used copies on Amazon and other used book sites and eBay.

All Amazon links are commission-paid ads.

Valdez’s Bartered Bride Harlequin Presents by Rachel Thomas

by Leave a Comment

This has an absolutely stupid plot. He and she either marry or he has to find his unknown half brother. Why? Because her dad owes his bank a ton of money and that’s what the contract he signed calls for and now the bank’s board of directors wants the loan repaid. Supposedly there is plenty of cash and property that dad can’t access without meeting the loan terms, but once that’s done dad’s skating.

Let’s see. He could have refused and let the bank flounder on without the infusion of cash or told the bank to suck it up and write off the loan since daddy couldn’t pay without meeting the ridiculous terms. Instead he and she spend time together, sleep together and eventually she talks to his mom to find out who his father had an affair and illegitimate kid with.

Everyone should be happy, right? Nope because someone (her dad) tipped off the tabloids who have lots of photos and embarrassing details and of course he blames her for the publicity. And nope because they both somehow decide they are in love and end up engaged to marry.

The plot is so convoluted and inane that it’s hard to take anything in the book seriously. I basically skimmed and read the ending.

1 Star

Devon Interlude Vintage Romance by Kay Thorpe

by Leave a Comment

Kay Thorpe’s Harlequin Romances have bossy men and ladies who stand up for themselves most of the time. Devon Interlude is one of the earliest novels she wrote for Harlequin, published in 1968, and it is a pleasant, easy to read story which, yes, does have her usual bossy guy and non-doormat girl.

After her play folds actress Gail goes to her brother’s home, an inn he is trying to make a go of, in rural Devon. Her brother and his wife had helped her to get started as an actress and Gail is aware she owes them big time and feels guilty because she let the odd letter substitute for visits. In fact her brother has been very ill but didn’t want to worry Gail so she does not know.

In typical Harlequin fashion the first person Gail meets on her way home is her bother’s best friend Mark, who makes no bones about his contempt for her. He accuses her of coming only to get more money from brother Steve, tries to shame her for being uncaring and distant and offers a check, presumably so she won’t bother Steve and wife Carol. Gail is furious with Mark but is honest enough to admit she has been at fault not coming to visit or even to do much to keep in touch with Steve and Carol.

Steve and Carol’s inn is not doing well. They are “foreigners”, outsiders to the closed neighborhood and the locals don’t patronize the inn nor are they able to get tourist traffic. Gail takes responsibility to find them much increased custom when she makes a deal with a tour bus operator in a nearby town. He will bring people to see a local attraction, then stop at the inn for dinner or drinks. This works great and Steve and Carol are pleased and happy their financial situation might improve.

Gail works evenings at the inn and meets a couple younger men who suggest she get involved with the local drama club which they claim is significantly better than the average amateur group. She is a little reluctant but agrees to step in when the lady playing the lead in the play they are rehearsing has to quit. She is impressed with the script and quality of the acting but nearly quits when she realizes that Mark is directing the play.

Mark apologizes for offering her the check and Gail agrees to start fresh with him. They go to the beach and spend time together and Gail realizes she is nearly over the infatuation she had with Paul, an actor she worked with several years. She’s not quite ready to fall for Mark though.

Right about this time Sandra, a neighbor makes it clear she’s targeting Mark and Paul shows up to try and convince Gail to go with him and an acting company to tour Australia. Gail realizes she’s quite happy away from the theater but doesn’t want to stick around and see Sandra and Mark get married. The next thing that happens is that the man who plays the lead opposite Gail in the play gets ill and Mark steps in. Gail delivers a passionate and truthful love avowal in the opening night performance and Mark and she both admit their love and agree to marry.

The conflicts in Devon Interlude are understated. Gail isn’t terribly emotional nor does she brood about Mark or Paul or Sandra. She is slow to realize she is falling in love with Mark – she’s a little afraid since she has just realized she never really loved Paul and doesn’t want to make another mistake. As she’s facing up to her heart she sees Sandra and thinks she cannot compete. Sandra isn’t obviously nasty, unlike some Other Women in later romances, but she is clear that Mark is hers and that Gail is no competition. Neither girl seems to realize that Mark is going to decide Mark’s future!

The family relationships between Steve, Carol and Gail are well done with a light touch that shows how much each values the others without having Gail wallow in guilt. Mark too has some family issues (don’t we all?) and Gail is surprised to see the animosity between Mark and his father.

Overall Devon Interlude is a happy story without a lot of the usual nastiness we see in some Harlequins. Mark is a reasonable person who willingly admits he was too fast to judge Gail and Gail is willing to admit she neglected her family and that Mark, although he was rude and made vile comments, is willing to find a way to get along with Gail since her brother is his very good friend.

Kay Thorpe is a good writer and this is a good story with people who feel like they could be real.

3 Stars

I got my copy from Thriftbooks and other used book sites and eBay likely will have copies as does Amazon.

All Amazon links are paid ads.

Betrayal in Bali – Intense Romance by Sally Wentworth

by Leave a Comment

Betrayal in Bali is one of my two or three favorite romance novels and every time I read it I am in awe of the author’s skill with strong emotions. Here Sally Wentworth converts betrayal to love and makes us believe it.

Characters and Plot Synopsis

Gael Markham’s brother in law skids on ice driving her home and hits an oncoming car, killing the two people in the other car. Gael takes the blame for the accident to protect her brother in law from losing his job.

A few weeks later Leo Kane meets Gael at the gallery where she works. He works for an international construction company and is home for a 3 month leave. He takes her to lunch, they date, she falls in love. Leo is older, more experienced, doesn’t show much physical attraction to Gael, nor does he tell her he loves her, yet dates her steadily. One weekend they go sailing and Leo asks her to drive home but she refuses, citing the fact she lost her license after an accident. He presses her on the accident and Gael won’t talk about it, “It’s nothing.” (She still has nightmares about the crash.)

Leo goes on holiday for 5 weeks and Gael realizes she needs to get over him. Then he returns to London and proposes. He will be in Bali to supervise a huge hospital construction project and wants her with him. He says, “I said I would give you a ring” when I get back.

The marry three weeks later just before their flight to Indonesia. Leo acts a little odd, abstracted, lost in thought during dinner when they arrive on Bali. When he comes to her bedroom he viciously tells Gael he won’t consummate the marriage, that he hated having to kiss and touch her, married her only because she killed his fiancée with her drunk driving, that she owes him, that he must have a wife for this job and she can jolly well play the part.

This brutal rejection devastates Gael, she tries to assert her innocence, and demands Leo let her leave. Unfortunately he got a joint passport and she has no money and cannot leave without him. The next day she’s rude to local queen bee Norah, claims she will continue to be rude until Leo lets her go. Leo threatens Gael physically and emotionally in private then turns into Mr. Sweet when they go to Norah’s for dinner, calls her darling, holds her. Gael proposes a bargain with him when they get back home. She will act the company wife for 6 months and Leo will treat her with some basic consideration, let her leave afterwards, then get the marriage annulled. They agree.

Leo continues to treat her with contempt in private, affectionately in public and Gael is emotionally devastated, bored, lonely, barely able to function after parties where Leo pretends to care. She can’t bring herself to socialize with the other wives after Leo rejected her so thoroughly and there is nothing to do, nowhere to go. About a month later she discovers there are bikes on Bali; she asks the servants to sell her camera and buy a bike for her, which allows her freedom to leave the tiny yard and house. She sketches the local scenes and slowly heals from the emotional shock.

About 6 weeks after they arrive in Bali Gael discovers a secluded plantation house on its private beach just a mile from their bungalow and is delighted with the place. Dirk Vanderman, an Australian now returned to Bali, surprises her there and agrees to rent her a room in the house she can use for a studio to paint. They get along great for about 3 weeks, work separately all day, take swim breaks and eat picnic lunches together.

Gael slowly recovers her confidence and joy in life and Leo comments she is eating and looks better, Gael tells him that she has gotten over his betrayal, that he no longer has the power to hurt her. He asks her to accompany him to a country club dinner dance. Gael agrees to go, stating it is only to fulfill her bargain. Leo says it doesn’t have to be like that any more, that he hadn’t realized how much he would hurt her, indicates he’s ready to have a more normal relationship, to stop hating each other. Gael loved Leo intensely and now must either hate or love, she cannot be indifferent and she refuses to love.

Dirk sees her at the dance and the next day talks her into going with him to tour some artist enclaves on Bali. Gael sees Nora, who has never forgiven Gael for snubbing her, and tries to leave unseen instead of greeting her. Of course Norah sees them together and tells Leo. Leo confronts Gael and accuses her of having an affair. He forcibly kisses her and tries to make her admit she hopped into bed with Dirk. Gael denies it, tells him to believe what he wants, she doesn’t really care as she vowed never to let a man touch her after Leo lied and cheated.

The next scene is the emotional turning point. Gael decides she cannot keep going to Dirk’s house to paint any more, even though she knows she will hurt even worse if she quits, bikes over, packs up her painting materials at the plantation house and is nearly ready to leave when Dirk comes and suggests they go swimming one last time. Leo comes as she gets her bikini off the balcony, sees her in her underwear and is enraged, dashes up the stairs. Terrified Gael shouts for Dirk and runs out, still in her underwear and Dirk holds her a second. Leo yells at him to take his hands off his wife. They hit each other and Gael tries to break it up but Leo can’t pull his punch and hits her in the face. She falls down the steps unconscious.

At the hospital Gael is still terrified and refuses to see Leo. Dirk hops through the window to see her and asks her to leave Leo and come to him, that he’s in love with her; Gael replies he’s a wonderful friend, but only a friend and that she can’t leave Leo yet. Leo forces his way to see her, tells her that all his bitterness and anger left when he saw her fall down the stairs, that he wants to try again, to start over as they were in London. Gael says bully for him, but she still lives in her hell and all she wants is to leave.

To us readers it starts looking as though Leo begins to care for Gael. Two weeks earlier he indicated he was no longer fiercely angry with her, that he could begin again, and now, after putting her in the hospital, reiterates this. Gael does not believe him whatsoever. When she leaves hospital Leo takes her out, they spend time together, explore the island, act as a couple. Gael doesn’t trust this and tries to pick fights but Leo works hard to control his temper and reactions, treats her as a wife, forces togetherness. Leo offers Gael the job of to design and select the art display for the new hospital. It’s a dream job that she is reluctant to accept.

They attend an evening coming of age ceremony for their servants’ son. Afterwards Leo says he’s fallen in love with Gael. She’s indignant, accuses him of saying that only because people suspect he beat her up, doesn’t believe him. She can’t resist the job though and is happy doing what she loves.

A few evenings later a close lightening strike startles Gael and Leo comes in her room and tries to make love to her. She responds momentarily then shoves him away, stumbles across the room to get away. He says he’ll leave her alone that night, but that they will make love soon because she wants it too.

The entire island is as tense as Gael and Leo. The rains are late, people are nervous about the political situation and unrest and unemployment. There is a small riot that blows up the propane storage at the hospital construction site that frightens Gael. She’s getting ready to ride her bike over to see what’s going on when their servant Kartini asks her to help to get medical attention for their son, shot in the riot. Gael gets a driver and car from the hospital and goes with Kartini to pick up the boy. During all this the monsoons start and everyone and everything, including the car’s spark plugs, are drenched and muddy. She gets out several times on the short drive to move big sticks, stands in the mud to push the car and finally manages to get to Kartini’s home, pick up the boy, get the car to start up again (remember, 1980 cars weren’t as robust as today’s), and gets halfway back when they almost plow into a big tree that blocks the road. She and Kartini’s husband get out to chop off branches so they can remove the tree. They hear a car and go hide in the jungle.

Leo is driving the car, looking for Gael. He and she meet and he takes Kartini’s family to the hospital then takes Gael home and into the shower and into bed. Gael tells him then that she was not the driver in the accident that killed his fiancée, and he apologizes again. We leave as they begin to make love.

Why Betrayal In Bali Works

Gael is neither pushy nor a pushover. She recognizes how devastated Leo is from losing his fiancée and she even understand why he wants to punish her for it and force her to stay with him so he can keep his job. She might have agreed to stay as recompense had she truly caused Julia’s death but as it was she vehemently denied Leo had any right to lie and cheat and was adamant that she would learn to stop feeling hurt.

Gael is blunt, says what she means and states how she feels. When Leo courts her in London Gael is completely open about her feelings. After being gone 5 weeks Leo tells her he will leave for 3 years in Bali in just a few weeks. Gael doesn’t – can’t – hide how she feels. In Bali she tells Leo he hurt her.

Gael loves Leo. She truly loves him, not just in London or before he betrays her. She loves him despite how he treats her and that’s why she channels all her heart into hating him. She can’t help respond when he tries to kiss her the night he accuses her of sleeping with Dirk or during the storm or in London or at the ending. She must love or hate Leo, nothing between.

Leo is emotionally complex. Does he love Gael at all before she falls down the stairs? I think so. In London he seems torn between keeping emotional and physical distance and caring. He obviously finds her attractive and the fact she’s in love with him adds to her appeal. Yet he doesn’t want to feel anything for her beyond getting her to Bali helping him. When you think about it, it makes sense he would want her to come act the wife since he must be married for his job and she’s readily available. Yet marrying someone for revenge is incredibly stupid. Buddy, you will be married. Stuck with someone you dislike. Stuck in the same house, stuck living together.

He said he didn’t much care how he got Gael to come with him to Bali. If he had explained the situation would she have come? Maybe. Then we’d have had the typical marriage of convenience novel instead of this one full of emotional passion from betrayal.

Leo says he searched his conscience when he realized how much he hurt Gael. That tells me he’s normally a decent man, and now he has to feel guilty. Does guilt turn into love? Not usually. Guilt might make him treat her better, to try and make something of their marriage, but he has to have some will to love her or some emotional connection to stay the course.

Dirk Vanderman is more than a possible Other Man, he’s a true character in his own right. He is kind to Gael and fun, they get along great without any emotional or physical demands yet he expects Gael to do her best. Gael swims better and further to meet Dirk’s challenge.

Norah is a typical obnoxious Queen Bee. Norah doesn’t like that Gael technically outranks her in the closed European company community because Gael is married to the boss and Norah is not. Norah loves to cut Gael down and make spiteful remarks. Gael simply dislikes Norah. She doesn’t like her snobbishness, her condescending attitudes to the natives, she doesn’t like being patronized or treated as a dope. We’ve probably all known Norah types and they aren’t much fun.

Sally Wentworth makes Bali as a setting come alive. This is not a travelogue Harlequin Presents. Wentworth describes the flowers and the beach and the heat and the tiny homes in small villages and the children without making the place as important as the characters. She keeps Bali as the setting, important to the story since we must understand how constrained Gael feels when trapped in her home and yard. There was a lot of political unrest in Indonesia around 1980 when she published Betrayal in Bali, and Wentworth explains enough to make the riot believable.

Emotional connections are strong. Even without knowing Leo’s feelings we see Gael’s heart and Wentworth masterfully shows how one person connects to another and forms an emotional bond between her characters and us readers. I’m not sure how she does it. I’ve read several books by her that have this bond and I can’t quite see why some books connect so strongly with me and some do not. The common denominator seems to be that I can empathize with Gael in Betrayal in Bali and Genista in Rightful Possession, but not so much with Lyn in The Judas Kiss or Casey in Ultimatum. Those ladies seem more vindictive or controlling, not people I can relate to.

I’m in awe how Sally Wentworth creates characters and stories that convert events that should have and did cause immense emotional devastation into growth and emotional healing and finally into love. She converts betrayal into love in Betrayal in Bali and rape into love with Rightful Possession, and both are believable. Which is incredible when you consider the agony the heroines must feel.

Rating

5 Stars. Betrayal in Bali is one of the best Harlequin Presents novels I have read, believable, emotionally fulfilling, delightful characters, enjoyable.

I read Betrayal in Bali back when it was published – I used to borrow some Harlequin romances from our library. There were six that stuck in my mind for years, although I remembered only snippets. It’s funny that I recalled that Leo blames Gael for the car crash because she took the blame although innocent because I had forgotten the entire rest of the novel, even that it was set in Bali. Sally Wentworth wrote three of those six books I remember 40 years later. Which I think says a lot for the depth of her characterization.

I got my copy from Thriftbooks and you can find used paperback copies on Amazon and many other used book sites or eBay.

All Amazon links are paid ads.