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

The Girl with Green Eyes – Betty Neels Romance

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The Girl with Green Eyes is part of The Best of Betty Neels collection from Harlequin Romances. Heroine Lucy Lockitt, is not a nurse, nor is she impoverished nor homely. In fact her family is well off and she is quite pretty, although her parents and two dashing sisters find her somewhat backwards and disappointing.

Lucy works as a child minder at an orphanage (“your little job” per her mother) and has assimilated her family’s view of herself as rather dull, certainly not someone likely to attract handsome, successful Dr. William Thurloe. Nonetheless Lucy falls for him and he finds her delightful, kind, a good listener, not conceited, interested in other people.

On the surface there should be no conflict. Dr. Thurloe proposes to Lucy and she wants so badly to accept, but instead asks for thinking time because he doesn’t say he loves her. Fiona Seymour is widowed, well-off, beautiful, well-dressed and completely selfish. She has also decided that she will marry William Thurloe (or his money), and makes mischief between William and Lucy, telling both lies, stealing William’s love letter to Lucy.

Of course Lucy and William end up together, kissing and planning to marry within a week or two.

I liked that Lucy is not a nurse nor poor or unattractive. She has little self-confidence and knows she isn’t terribly bright or witty. She believes in herself enough to care for children at the orphanage despite her family gently deprecating her work, and radiates gentleness and kindness and character strength.

William could have avoided a few weeks of heartache if he had simply told Lucy he loved her. We wouldn’t have had much of a story then!

Overall The Girl with Green Eyes is written well, easy to follow plot, reasonably interesting and developed characters. Keep in mind this is a romance novel so we aren’t talking great literature, but also realize that Betty Neels’ novels remain popular even 19 years after her death. I along with many others enjoy her clean romances with likable characters, warmth of characterization and good descriptions of setting.

4 Stars

The Course of True Love – A Most Enjoyable Betty Neels Romance Novel

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Anyone who writes 134 novels over 30 years is going to author many enjoyable books with a few clunkers, and most Betty Neels’ romances are good to very good, a few are mediocre and she wrote a number that stand out as highly enjoyable, peopled with interesting characters who feel real, a heartfelt love story, warmth and her excellent sense of setting and mood.  The Course of True Love is one of those standouts, a novel I will purchase and read again.

Claribel is a physical therapist and Marc van Borsele is an orthopedic surgeon based in The Netherlands who travels frequently to England and is good friends with the senior consultant at Claribel’s hospital.  They meet when she is shoved in a puddle and he offers her a ride.  So far we have the classic Neels’ backstory:  rich Dutch doctor, young(ish) English nurse/therapist, an accidental meeting where he helps her and a growing attraction.

The unusual part of The Course of True Love is that Marc realizes early on that he is falling for Claribel and sets out to court her in a more-or-less straightforward fashion.  Claribel doesn’t like him very much – or so she tells herself – but increasingly enjoys his company.  Somehow she doesn’t realize he takes her out for walks, for dinner and dancing, for trips to the countryside, to his home for lunch, drives her home to her parents for a weekend, because he likes her.  She thinks he views her in a sisterly fashion, as somewhere to drop in for coffee.  Indeed he is casual and a bit pushy, dropping in without an invitation.

Marc comes over from Holland solely to take her out for the weekend, bangs on her door, asks for breakfast then takes her out.  Since he doesn’t tell her that he came over just to see her, she somehow doesn’t realize that he isn’t doing anything but spending time with her.

Marc does nothing to clear her confusion.  He tells her early on that he’s intending to get married and implies he knows whom he wishes to marry.  The story proceeds more or less as we’d expect from there.  We get to know both Marc and Claribel; often romance novel men are hazy characters, foils for the love interest.  Neels does a good job with both of the main characters and I enjoyed Marc more than most of her rich Dutch doctors.

Neels handles settings particularly well.  I’m not at all familiar with English villages or London or the Dutch cities Claribel visits, but I felt like I could walk down the street and recognize the slightly untidy garden and gray urban hospitals.  Neels describes clothes with gusto, she obviously enjoyed wearing pretty things herself and understands how we all have to balance durability with fashion and comfort and we readers easily put ourselves in Claribel’s shoes.

This is one of my favorite Betty Neels romances.  The characters and their attraction and growing love make this one of the most enjoyable romances I’ve read.

Three Betty Neels Romances That Disappoint – The Fifth Day of Christmas, Saturday’s Child, Heaven Around the Corner

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I enjoy most Betty Neels’ romance novels; she builds in warmth and happiness and of course all the stories have happy endings.  Here are three that disappointed me, all with implausible romances and nasty men.

The Fifth Day of Christmas

Neels wrote The Fifth Day of Christmas in 1971, making it one of her earliest novels, and it shows.  The plot is implausible (as are most but we can slide right over that when the stories are good) but the part that disturbed me is when heroine Julia makes a nasty comment about hero Ivo’s supposed semi-fiance Marcia.  He grabs Julia and shakes her until her teeth rattle – and then Julia thinks she is at fault but doesn’t want to apologize!  Even back 50 years ago this was wrong.

2 Stars

Saturday’s Child

Neels usually provides us with likable characters.  The man may fight against loving the lady, but he is always polite and usually kind.  Not so with Saturday’s Child.  Here our hero, Professor Dominic van Wijkelen, doesn’t trust women and doesn’t want to believe Abigail can truly love him and doesn’t want to love her either.  The problem is that Dominic is mean, even cruel.

While Abigail is in Holland, Dominic hires her to nurse a friend, then another friend, then to work in the hospital, but never actually pays her.  When she finally says something to him, only after making her own way back to England and only after he asks her to come back for yet another round of nursing, Dominic arranges her to get her money.  All well and good, but we expect people to learn from mistakes.  Dominic re-engages Abigail and once again does not pay her.  And once again she doesn’t say anything despite being penniless.

Maybe he could forget once. But twice?  And she could be wary of asking for her wages once.  But twice?  To me this makes Dominic untrustworthy and unkind and even a little abusive.  And it makes Abigail a patsy.

The rest of the plot and story are fine.  The conflict is Dominic’s distrust and unwillingness to believe in Abigail; he overhears something, jumps to conclusions and once more shoves Abigail (still unpaid) out of his life and out of Holland.  She doesn’t have any money and goes to live with a friend of a friend and takes a poorly paying job in a store before Dominic once more shows up and wafts her away with rapturous kisses.

If I had been she I’d have demanded he pay me, then leave and inform him that he needed to get control of his distrust and get over himself, get off his high horse before he bothers to come see me yet again.  Even in 1973 I think most self-reliant ladies would have been a little less trusting.

2 Stars

Heaven Around the Corner

Heaven Around the Corner has two romances, both unsatisfying.  Our primary romance is Louisa Evans, newly qualified nurse, falling in love with the unpleasant Simon Savage.  Simon is well-named.  The second involves Louisa’s patient, Simon’s sister, the alcoholic Claudia Savage and Lars, a banker.

Both romances lack credibility.  Claudia and Lars barely know each other and Lars surely should be wary of hitching his life to an alcoholic wife.  Louisa and Simon also don’t spend much time together and Simon spends most of it being obnoxious and Louisa is self-righteous.  Ugh.

Neels describes Norway with loving detail and as usual for her novels makes one want to visit and enjoy the breathtaking scenery and friendly people.

This is one of the few Betty Neels novels I had a hard time finishing; it is boring with unlikable characters and unsatisfying plot and story.

2 Stars  (It would be 1 star without the excellent setting.)

The Final Touch – A Romance by Betty Neels – Marriage of Convenience

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Betty Neels wrote 134 romance novels, all perfectly clean, most featuring English nurses and rich Dutch doctors.  The Final Touch fits Neels’ classic mold:  Dutch resident doctor Cor entices Charity with sweet nothings when he is in England on a course, convincing her that he loves her so that she follows him to Holland where she takes a hospital  job and eventually realizes Cor is a nasty flirt, and has never been serious about her.  Rich Dutch consulting physician Tyco finds Charity crying in the hall and takes her out to supper.   He eventually proposes a marriage of convenience because his two young daughters need a mother.

I enjoyed The Final Touch because Charity is a fairly strong character, marrying Tyco because she likes him and his daughters, not quite realizing that she is beginning to love him.  Tyco also is more developed than some of Neels’ rich Dutch doctors, feeling vulnerable because he is older than Charity and fears she may still be attached to Cor.

Much as with any romance we readers can’t be too fussy about the plot.  Sometimes the conflicts in Neels’ stories are silly; lying old girl friends (or wanna-be girl friends), or foolish misunderstandings and often he or she jumps to conclusions and makes everyone miserable.

The Final Touch has two conflicts.  Neither Tyco nor Charity realizes they are falling in love and thus step ever so carefully around each other, worrying about the other’s feelings.  Also, Charity’s very beautiful model step sister decides to make a play for Tyco and Charity believes her lies.

Read The Final Touch – indeed, any of Betty Neels’ novels – for pleasure, to see two people fall in love and wade through a few challenges to have a happy life together.

Three Betty Neels Romances – The End of the Rainbow, The Bachelor’s Wedding, The Little Dragon

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Betty Neels wrote gentle, clean romances from 1970 to about 2000, many featuring English ladies, often nurses, and Dutch or English rich men, often doctors.  These three novels are good examples of her writing.

The End of the Rainbow

Olympia is a trained nurse who works for her aunt at below-minimum wage in her very profitable London nursing home.  When Olympia was young her nasty aunt convince Olympia to promise that she would work for her aunt forever, unless she married, and Olympia feels bound by this promise.  Olympia encounters Dutch doctor Waldo van der Graaf whose wife is dead, leaving him with a young daughter.

Waldo proposes marriage under the guise of wanting a mother for his daughter.  Elizabeth, a long-time friend of Waldo’s secretly sabotages Olympia, finally convincing his little girl to run away while blaming it on Olympia.  Of course everything ends up happy.

Neels created a sympathetic character in Olympia and built her well.  Often Neels creates female characters who effortlessly adapt to a completely different lifestyle – foreign country, marriage, being rich and living in a home with servants and plenty of money for clothes and flowers – and Olympia actually has to learn how to act in this new environment.  Waldo and the other characters are less well-crafted, acting more as a cipher and respondent.  The End of the Rainbow is one of Neels’ enjoyable stories.

4 Stars

The Bachelor’s Wedding

I liked The Bachelor’s Wedding the best of the three novels reviewed here, in part because our heroine is not a nurse but a an emergency home helper, and neither of the two protagonists is secretly in love with the other.

Araminta lives with her “delicate” (aka lazy and selfish) sister and feckless father who dotes on her sister and views Araminta as unpaid help.  Professor Jason Lister hires Araminta to care for his niece and nephew when his sister must leave the country with no notice for an emergency.  First Araminta cares for them in Jason’s London home, then she goes with the two teens to their country home and stays a couple of weeks.

She doesn’t see much of Jason but finds him intriguing and kind, but intimidating.  When she returns home her sister hasn’t cleaned or done anything except spend all the housekeeping money on herself and her father expects her to user her earnings to pay the bills they both ran up.

(On a side note I’m appalled at the times Araminta mentions having to make other people’s beds.  Why doesn’t everyone make their own?)

Jason hasn’t fallen in love with her, nor she with him, but they like each other and he decides it’s time to marry and get a buffer against all the demanding young ladies he knows.  She likes him well enough and accepts, which causes her father to call her selfish and her sister to not attend her wedding but rather to wish her ill.

Of course everything ends up happy in the end.

4 Stars (Judging only Neels work I’d give this 5 stars)

The Little Dragon

I couldn’t finish this as the entire premise is nauseating.  Constantia worked as a private nurse for many rich people who were nasty and selfish and concluded all rich people were icky.  Dutch doctor Jeroen van der Giessen falls for her and constructs an elaborate charade of being poor and gets her to marry him in order to care for two children.  Constantia is supposedly so gullible and stupid that she believes this and assumes that Jeroen must be living in a rich uncle’s lovely home.

1 Star

Five Betty Neels Romances – Making Sure of Sarah, Waiting for Deborah, A Suitable Match, Right Kind of Girl, All Else Confusion

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Betty Neels was unusual Harlequin romance author.  None of her books has any smut, profanity, blasphemy, vulgarity or even innuendo; all of her novels feature youngish ladies who are kind, warm hearted, sensible, resourceful, self-reliant and who range from plain to gorgeous.

All the novels have a Cinderella feel to them although all of the heroines are capable and willing to go it alone – even against hardships, uncaring family, bad luck, and even against their own heart.  I enjoy them and am glad that Hoopla digital now offers most of her 134 published novels.

Making Sure of Sarah

Making Sure of Sarah, published in 1998, has a lovely digital cover showing a house set on a hillside in gently rolling country marked with the colors of fall.  Most of the action takes place in London or in the Dutch city of Arnhem.

Sarah lives in London with her ineffectual mother and nasty stepfather and the three get into an accident when her stepfather drives their car into a ditch in the Dutch countryside.  She meets Litrik ter Breukel when he operates on her stepfather’s badly broken leg.  Litrik falls in love with Sarah, gives her a place to stay until her stepfather is able to travel, then pulls strings to help her get a job when they return to England and her parents vacation for several months.

The main conflicts are emotional:  Sarah falls for Litrik too and is reluctant to marry him when she doesn’t think he loves her; he thinks she is involved with a young English doctor and Sarah isn’t sure how to tell him that she is not.  There are no ex-girlfriends.

Story ends with Sarah marrying Litrik and moving to Holland.

Waiting for Deborah

Waiting for Deborah starts with redhead Deborah needing a job.  She took care of her stepfather until he died, now her stepbrother and stepsister tell her they inherited everything, she gets nothing, but she can stay rent-free (and income free) in their father’s house until they sell it.

Deborah says phooey to this and gets a job caring for an older lady recovering from a stroke and where she meets Sir James, consulting doctor.  After the lady’s niece fires Deborah, she gets temporary work in a hotel – about 14 hours a day – until Sir James takes her away to care for a friend’s elderly uncle for a few weeks, followed by a week at Sir James’ old nurse, followed by a stint as a mother’s help.

Eventually Deborah moves to London to learn typing and shorthand, fails at both, her landlady dies and again Sir James shows up, this time to take her back to his nurse’s home and ask her to marry him.

Neels wrote lovely characters in Waiting for Deborah, especially Uncle Oscar, the crochety elderly uncle with the tastes of a lively kid.  He spots the budding romance between Deborah and Sir James before James completely realizes it himself, and he comments just enough to get the ball rolling.

The conflict here is whether Deborah and Sir James will realize they love each other and whether Deborah can make a go of supporting herself.  No ex-girlfriends make trouble, the selfish step siblings make little inroads and all action takes place in England.

A Suitable Match

A Suitable Match is one of Neels’ more complicated novels, where the hero and heroine marry before one of them realizes they love each other.  Eustacia takes a job as bottle washer and errand-runner at the local hospital’s pathology lab to help her and her grandfather survive in London.  Eustacia runs into Sir Colin who is caring for his two young nephews and going slightly crazy with the responsibility.  Sir Colin offers Eustacia a job caring for his nephews, and both she and her grandfather can live in his country home.

Sir Colin becomes the boys’ guardian when their parents die in a plane crash and he asks Eustacia to marry him to strengthen his guardianship against the claims of his brother’s unpleasant in laws.  Of course they have the usual misunderstandings as both love the other without realizing the other loves them.

The main conflicts are misunderstandings as to true feelings.  One scene in the novel disturbs me.  The younger boy acts up and his grandmother punishes him, at which the older boy smacks her.  Eustacia is angry at the grandmother and does not agree that the boy should be punished for hitting her.  This is wrong.  Obviously the grandmother doesn’t remember how to care for youngsters but no child should strike his grandparent.

The Right Kind of Girl

Emma lives at home in a small country town with her mother and works as a companion where she meets Dr. Paul Wyatt.  Her mother has a stroke and Dr. Wyatt takes her to the hospital and cares for her.  Emma has to leave her job to care for her mom, who dies after a few weeks.  Paul falls in love with her while caring for her mother and asks her to marry him.   They marry after a couple minor contretemps.

Sadly Emma runs afoul of Diana, who either wants to marry Paul or just likes to make trouble.  A few scenes in the book are a bit hard to take; for example Paul believes Diana’s lies about Emma helping some tinkers without even trying to ask Emma about the situation.  He also tells her that Diana is worth a dozen of her.   Needless to say events work themselves out and both end up happy.

All Else Confusion

Here is another Neels novels where the two marry without realizing they both love each other.  In my mind this is by far the weakest of the five described here because there is no reason for Jake to rush Annis into marriage.  There is no crisis, no poverty trap, no lack of family and no real good reason for such a fast wedding.

Here the conflict is mostly one of misunderstanding, both of oneself and one’s spouse.

Overall

I enjoy clean stories with happy endings, and I’ve no problem with a touch of Cinderella – provided that the girl doesn’t just sit in the ashes and whine but actively seeks to better her life on her own.  All of Neels’ heroines try to handle life’s ups and downs as best they can.  Deborah for instance takes several menial jobs to support herself; Sarah is reluctant to marry a man who doesn’t love here and abhors pity.

On the other hand a couple of the heroes tread close to being mean, and the hero is actually quite nasty in The Right Kind of Girl.  Some of the girls allow their men to push them around just a little while others accept guidance but don’t accept manipulation or bossiness.

I recommend these if you want an easy to read novel, perfect for a cold evening by the fire.  I didn’t care for All Else Confusion but the others are lovely light romance reads.

Nline Women, One Dress: Fashion Meets Love and Hope

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Nine Women, One Dress, Jane L Rosen’s novel of contemporary life in New York City ties nine women together by their experience wearing The Dress.  You know The Dress, the one everyone wants, the dress that makes every woman look good and feel her best.

Four of the women find love because of the dress; one finds her dream job; one discovers her life isn’t what she wants; one discovers her future as a Broadway star; one escapes failure and one finds death.  The novel is unusual in that it tells seven of the stories from the viewpoint of the men who fall for the girl in The Dress or those involved in its creation or sale  Only two of the women narrate their own story, Andie the private detective and Sophie Stiner the wannabe.

Writing Style

Nine Women, One Dress is a fast read.  Author Rosen creates a fast pace by showing us snippets of each relationship in quick vignettes, then moves on to the next one, then circles back.  Even with the multiple characters and points of view the novel is easy to follow and the chapter headings help keep each story clear as we cycle through.

The book was funny.  I smiled most of the way through, especially with Sophie and her wannabe approach to life and the Diva’s Mancubine. The two Muslim girls and the final owner of the dress didn’t have such happy outcomes.

Characters

I  liked the people in the novel.  Felicia, the older secretary in love with her boss, and the actor Jeremy Madison are the most interesting and Rosen spends the most time on their stories.  But the characters I liked the best were Morris Siegal, the pattern maker responsible for The Dress and his grandson Luke.  Rosen tells their stories with great economy but I felt like I would recognize them in a crowd.

Rosen did a very good job coming up with characters that felt real and having their lives touched and changed by one little black dress.  The only character and romance that felt off to me was Andie’s as I think it improbable that so many lies could turn out so happily.

Overall

One of the blurbs described Nine Women, One Dress as chick-lit.  That’s unfair.  Rosen deftly uses multiple points of view and interesting people – not all of whom are looking for romance – to write a novel that is about people.  Men might not quite get The Dress the way we ladies do.  Any of us who hunt hours for just the right outfit instantly understands the appeal of the perfect little black dress.

4 Stars

84 Ribbons – 1950s Ballet and Romance by Paddy Eger

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84 Ribbons by Paddy Eger follows Marta, seventeen, alone in Billings Montana in 1957 and just starting her career as a professional ballerina. All Marta ever wanted to do was dance. Dance when her feet were a mass of blisters, dance when she was exhausted, even dance on stilts with little kids pushing against her legs.

This is an unusual and very enjoyable book. Although Marta and her friends are all young, the book shouldn’t be considered YA fiction. Young people will love it for the characters and the underlying passionate love of dance; older adults will appreciate the characters, setting and the plot that has no perfect ending.

Marta falls in love with Steve, a college student trying to build a journalism career, but she’s committed to ballet. She cannot give Steve her heart because she gave it to dance long ago.

Some of the best parts of the story happen with Mrs. B, Marta’s landlady and soon her friend, and Marta’s fellow boarders. Mrs. Be is said to be a wonderful, warm-hearted woman and proves that true, over and over. She allows Marta to pay part her rent by helping in the kitchen and helps her set up a basement room as a practice studio and she helps Marta after a bad accident.

Marta’s matter of fact daily grind should be mandatory reading for anyone thinking of a career in dance, theatre, art or music. Marta has practice with the ballet company for 7-8 hours a day, 6 days a week, then she practices in the basement on the off days and some evenings. She has little time or money and no energy.

Marta is 5 feet tall and weighs 100 pounds and doesn’t dare gain weight. She starts using diet pills to get an energy boost – this is in 1957 when diet aids full of caffeine and dangerous ingredients like amphetamines. The diet pills work for a while but she has no underlying physical strength and isn’t able to heal after an accident. She is an emotional wreck too, unable to tell Steve her feelings and covering up her diet pill use from her best friend, Steve and her mom. I was impressed with Steve for seeing beneath the crabbiness and being so patient with Marta.

It’s only after Marta loses her position in the ballet company, for at least the next year, that she is able to admit to Steve that she loves him. She’s still only 18, and wisely decides to go home to Bremerton to decide what comes next. She and Steve don’t get engaged and they don’t make plans. Instead Marta tells him “I’m trying to figure things out. One thing I do know is that I love you.”

The title “84 Ribbons” comes from Marta’s goal to be a solo dancer. Dancers must practice and practice and go through shoes after pairs of shoes. She cuts off the ribbons from her worn out ballet shoes with the hope of getting a solo part by the time she collects 84 ribbons. She has 20 ribbons at the beginning of the novel and 84 at the end, but no solo. Instead Marta, no longer a professional dancer, must now decide her future.

The enjoyable characters, realistic ending, grueling daily routines, snubs and nasty comments make 84 Ribbons come to life. I recommend this for anyone who enjoys coming of age stories, dance, or squeaky clean romances.

I was given a copy of 84 Ribbons. My opinions are solely my own.

Ask Bob: A Novel by Peter Gethers Can a Vet Find Love Writing a Pet Advice Column?

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Before Ask Bob: A Novel the only books I read by Peter Gethers were about Norton, his wonderful cat. I loved the Norton books although I wasn’t quite sure I loved the author; he’s a bit fond of himself for my taste.

Ask Bob: A Novel substitutes Dr. Robert Heller for Peter Gethers narrating, but it is otherwise unmistakably by the same author. They are stylistically similar and the main human characters share common qualities and attitudes.

Dr. Bob is a young veterinarian beginning his practice in Manhattan. He and his beloved wife Anna live in the small upstairs apartment above both the practice and his partner’s larger apartment. Bob takes in strays that show up at the practice, human and animal, beginning with Rocky a small cat.

He begins to write a pet advice column in “New York’s most popular newspaper”. I enjoyed reading the introductions to each Ask Bob letter to see how he progressed, from an occasional appearance on television to a regular appearance, and from one book to three. The pet advice column was great, especially the grammatical lesson.

Ask Bob: A Novel moves quickly through the early years. Bob was so very happy with Anna and devastated when she dies of cancer. He does find love again, twice in fact, but you do have to wonder about his heart. The relationship with the last lady puzzled me. It started with instant desire but I never could see where the true love, the love that is based on one’s will and heart, vs. based only on one’s emotions and lust, was built. I did not find the character believable or likable.

The book is structured as a series of vignettes that together flow from one to the next, with Letters to Ask Bob acting as dividers between mini stories and as counterpoint. The Bob letters usually have some tie in to the vignettes.

I found a few annoyances. One was the constant reference to dysfunctional families. Bob, Anna and Bob’s eventual second wife, all came from families one could call “dysfunctional”. But don’t we all have some degree of oddness in our families? Bob describes Anna’s family as atrocious and Anna herself called her parents abusive, but when he and Anna visit them the family comes across more as sad than as awful. Anna’s mother behaved terribly at her funeral, but the other members simply were different, not living as fully as they could. Dr. Bob, (apparently as does Peter Gethers himself) does not believe in God and doesn’t miss many opportunities to say so.

What made the book excellent was Dr. Bob’s growth as a full human, not only as Dr. Heller or as Anna’s husband, but as a son, as an uncle, as a friend, as a pet owner. The man who started out feeling vulnerable and alone finds happiness with people and in his ability to give to them and to take from them in love.

Overall I enjoyed this very much and give it 5 stars.

Beautiful Day: A Novel by Elin Hilderbrand Nantucket Romance Wedding Story

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Beautiful Day: A Novel is the first book I’ve read by Elin Hilderbrand. It is set on Nantucket, a location I found fascinating in Island Girls by Nancy Thayer. When I browsed Island Girls on Amazon this book, Beautiful Day came up as a “if you liked” recommendation.

I had a like / not-like reaction to Beautiful Day. I found the relationships and emotional conflicts interesting, especially in the oldest sister Margot’s guilt over her affair with her father’s partner and her betrayal of a job seeker.

But – and this is a big but – I didn’t like the characters. Bride Jenna is spoiled and silly. Supposedly she is dedicated to helping people, environmentalism, ethical mining, so on and so forth. In reality she spent $180,000 on her wedding. Really? I believe people have the right to spend their money as they choose, although I would never spend even a tenth of that on a single day, but is it consistent with a true champion of the poor? No, it is not.

Doug, Jenna’s dad, is unhappy. He is married to a woman he doesn’t love, Pauline. He misses his dead wife Beth so much it prevents him from being happy with someone else or even growing up enough to face the consequences of his rather aimless agreement to marry Pauline.

The rest of the group are no better. I didn’t like the characters and found the plot silly. There are other missteps.

For example, bride Jenna is a teacher at a low income school. She invited several of her fellow teachers to her wedding and they came. Yes, they managed to afford a 1) boat or plane trip to Nantucket, 2) a dress to fit in with a very rich crowd, 3) a hotel room on Nantucket in July on a weekend. Nope, I don’t buy that. Unless all her friends are the same as she, little rich girls playing at solidarity with the poor, it’s ridiculous.

Margot’s supposed lover, her father’s partner, turns out to have a very young real girlfriend. He used Margot and Margot, supposedly a super smart woman and great judge of character, fell for it.

Margot’s and Jenna’s mother Beth wrote Jenna the Notebook before she died with directions for her wedding.  It’s a lovely sentiment but the wonderful, loving mother that all seem to worship came across to me as careless, obsessed with material perfection and manipulative.  She suggested Jenna could wear her dress, but of course she didn’t have to, although she, Beth, was crying just thinking how lovely her little girl would be.   If Beth had been alive she would have been ghastly.

Lastly over half the bunch were cheaters.  Newlywed girl cheating with the best man.  Groom’s dad cheating with a woman, having a child.

Even the lovely Nantucket was scarcely shown.  Instead of seeing the gorgeous island sun all we read about is the 40% chance of rain.

Maybe it’s me.  This is not the type of book I usually read, but I found Island Girls by Nancy Thayer so enjoyable and liked the light, fluffy relationship story so much that I borrowed several by Nancy Thayer and similar authors from the library. I thought I’d found a new genre and new authors to enjoy.  So far all have disappointed. Guess I’m just not into wow ’em weddings, fancy clothes, cheaters and whiny brides.