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With Grimm Resolve – Grimm’s War #2 by Jeffery H. Haskell

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The second book in Grimm’s War science fiction series, With Grimm Resolve, follows about 6 months after book 1, Against All Odds. (Read review here.) Jacob Grimm, newly promoted to Commander, has just returned from command school to retake command of the United Systems Alliance navy destroyer Intercept.

The USA is still in a state of peace, with political leadership divided between those who want to avoid war at all costs and those who recognize that the impending conflict with the Caliphate is likely unavoidable and seek to build up the Alliance’s military strength. The USA annexed the Zuckabar system after Dr. Bellait discovered the wormhole in it that connects to the allied Consortium systems 900 light years away. The Interceptor also discovered that the Terraforming Guild is far more than simply a technically advanced corporation. Now in With Grimm Resolve the Interceptor must help derail the Guild’s immediate threat.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

With Grimm Resolve opens with the new governor of Zuckabar, an Alliance marine general, explaining the new facts of life to the Guild man Mr Albatross who wants to collect their delinquent payment for the terraformers. When the Alliance took over Zuckabar they discovered that the Guild had placed firmware within all the computer systems that meant the Guild could spy on and control events. Further, the Alliance discovered the same chips in the Alliance-produced hardware. Since the Alliance and Zuckabar had bought systems from completely different suppliers, this means the Guild has tentacles throughout. More damning, the Guild had to know that the Caliphate had a base in Zuckabar system and had run a slaving ring from Kremlin station. Mr. Albatross no longer can access the terraformers and the governor kicks him and all Guild employees off planet and out of the Alliance.

Interceptor moves to interdict cargo ship Komondo which darted into the Zuckabar system and is immediately leaving. It’s a little odd and Jacob Grimm decides to check them out, if nothing else to give the crew a chance to practice. The Komondo does not respond when hailed, or when Intercept shoots just in front of them, in fact Intercept must send a torpedo very close to get their attention. Grimm sends a boarding party. The other crew is scruffy, acts nervous and then attacks, leaving the executive officer Yuki badly burnt and the Komondo crew all dead. Grimm decides to head back to Kremlin station to get Yuki further care, resupply the ship and allow short leave.

His in system commander instead orders Grimm to take the Intercept to check remote mining station Gamma 7 that sent a distress. This next part of the plot, covered in 3 paragraphs here, doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

It takes 50 hours to get to the station and they find it seemingly deserted, but with no apparent damage. Grimm takes a small group over to check and they run into some mercenaries with a battle drone. They manage to shoot the mercenaries but the station explodes, sending the group off into space while the still-active drone jams all communications. The mercenary ship tries to attack but Intercept’s crew destroys it then searches for the people, including Grimm, who were onboard the station when it exploded.

Grimm’s helmet is cracked and he’s losing air and the emergency beacons don’t work with the jamming. He triangulates the jamming source and begins to move towards it, also finds Sargent Jennings who shares her air supply and together they find and destroy the still-active drone which is jamming communications. Once jamming ends Interceptor can find and retrieve the group.

The crew left onboard Interceptor noticed that the rail delivery arms, which were to shoot the mined materials towards Zuckabar, were out of alignment. Grimm wants to find out what happened to the mining crew, they were not on station. He decides to trace the rail arms trajectory as it is the only clue he has to the missing crew’s location.

Grimm discovers an automated station way way out on the mining station’s delivery trajectory. The station is set up for stealth and does not look finished. They wait a day or so when another ship arrives. Following the other ship they discover a previously unknown starlane – something that is nearly incredible given its location and the fact new lanes have enormous value.

They also run into a ship that attacks with a nearly invincible weapon, a gravity laser. The ship damages Interceptor but cannot destroy it before it in turn is destroyed. The weapon has one weakness; it must be aimed directly by moving the ship into alignment and there is a distance limitation.

The starlane ends at a most unusual system that initially appears empty, which would be fatal since the Intercept would have no way to return home. In fact there is a star, but it is a dark star, a stellar phenomenon known only in theory. Further there is a large planet orbiting the star with thousands of satellites set to illuminate the surface to grow food. The planet has a space elevator with a small station. Grimm and crew are extremely curious and know the missing miners are likely either on the station or the planet which they call Wonderland.

They realize the Guild owns this place and likely has extremely good security and can repel a straightforward attack, plus they aren’t there to hurt people, just to retrieve the missing miners. The marines land on the station in power armor (after a multi-hour drop in space, ugh), manage to secure it before the Intercept’s shuttle arrives with help. They find a low level, disgruntled Guild employee, Vesper, who volunteers to help them. He shows them where the miners likely are on the planet and provides the information they need to access the elevator.

The marines take the elevator down, cause mayhem to distract from the miner rescue, get the miners and leave with Vesper and the miners. However the miners are missing all the females, wives, daughters, crew because the Guild’s mercenaries spaced them. Vesper says the Guild’s policy is to separate the sexes and since Wonderland is men-only, they killed the ladies. The Guild’s on-planet bosses kicked off the self-destruct too, leaving the planet-side facility in ruins.

Intercept and Grimm’s crew gets away but runs into the Guild’s armed patrol. Four of the Guild ships get into the starlane and manage to inflict more damage on Interceptor. Now those same ships, all armed with the gravity laser, are in the Zuckabar system.

Interceptor was running low on food even before Wonderland – they had planned to replenish supplies at Kemlin station – and the extra people mean everyone is on short rations. Cook Mendez makes stew which lasts them until back to the Zuckabar system, albeit millions of miles further out than they had hoped.

Simultaneously with all the Interceptor action Nadia Dagher is on Kremlin station looking for more Guild infiltrators. She finds one, Mr. Pelican, but it takes her a while to figure out what he is up to. Then she realizes he is trying to control the space access system, disabling it to allow an attack.

Also simultaneously, Mr. Albatross and the Guild are not happy with the Alliance. They want it to surrender, and to that end have offered a stealth ship to the Caliphate. Guild thinks the Caliphate will attack a few minor places on the Alliance capital planet Alexandria and force a surrender but the Caliphate instead uses nuclear weapons from orbit to destroy the capital city and its surroundings. The death count is over 12 million. The stealth ship is visible immediately once it fires on the planet and the defenders destroy the ship but too late, the seat of government and much of the industry and commerce and millions of civilians are dead.

Back to the Interceptor whose crew is out of food and knows the Guild is vastly more powerful and ruthless than anyone realized. Interceptor faces four Guild armed vessels that are between them and the very far away planet and station. They must warn Zuckabar the Guild is attacking and hopefully, get some help for themselves.

The Guild ships are capable, well-armed and defended, but the crews have little experience since the Guild heretofore had not fought anyone. Grimm’s crew is able to exploit this, sends a message torpedo to warn Kremlin and Zuckabar planet and destroy three Guild ships. The fourth Guild ship surrenders. There is a one-line statement that the Guild did bombard Kremlin station, presumably from the automated stealth station.

Nadia is waiting for Jacob in Kremlin station and they spend several blissful days together before news of the nuclear attack on Alexandria reaches them.

Plot Puzzlers

I reread and re-reread this novel because I couldn’t figure out the Guild. We learn their board of directors loves loves loves complicated plots with lots of moving pieces that use their technical superiority. Even so this book stumps me on a few counts. I am probably overanalyzing this.

  • Why did the Guild need to re-aim the rail delivery arms? The mining crew leader says the Guild took over his station to get the codes to get its bombardment past Kremlin’s automated defense. So what did they need the Gamma 7 rail for? It points to their stealth station, but why? If it is solely to delivery minerals from Zuckabar that seems awfully complex.
  • Why use an automated drone on Gamma 7 once the miners were gone?
  • Once the Guild got the delivery codes, what were they going to do with the miners?

You don’t need to know the answers to enjoy the story but these points distracted me enough that I stopped in mid-flow to go back and trace through Jacob Grimm’s thoughts.

Characters and Why With Grimm Resolve Works

Sometimes the second book in a series is weak, with the author either adding in a bunch of extraneous characters or setting new distractions and not developing the world or the characters. Author Haskell avoids this by spending the most time on the same characters he used in the first book, Grimm, marine Jennings, cook Mendez. Nadia gets some page time but is a minor player in this book.

The story works in part because the plot moves fast and the characters are good. Even more important, the plot is interesting and offers realistic challenges and comprehendible problems. We can relate to the boarding party drifting in space after Gamma 7 explodes, and we can appreciate Grimm’s determination to find the missing mining crew and we can definitely understand the Intercept running out of provisions.

Some of the solutions to the conflicts, such as sending the marines down to the space elevator in their armor, are more sci-fi than the simple problem of no supper, but Haskell explains the background well enough we can get the picture. He also doesn’t wave a wand and make the armor suits fun or exciting, at least not when stuck inside for almost a full day.

Just as with the first book, Against All Odds, Haskell makes people the central players. The technology is there, it’s sketched out with enough detail we can understand it and its limitations and it is not boring. Based on a lot of science fiction I’ve tried to read, this must be difficult for authors and Haskell does an excellent job.

Further, the bad guys in With Grimm Resolve are people, flawed people yes, but recognizably human. The Guild characters are doing what they believe is right based on their training that the Guild is more important than they are, and we see the lower level employees actively transgressing the company’s policies. Vesper works hard to make his life bearable and jumps at the chance to leave with the Intercept, giving heartfelt aid. The station operator who sees the Intercept decides to ignore it, as he doesn’t want the supervisor yelling at him and he’s more interested in watching a movie. The captain of the last Guild ship has his crew wipe the computer and destroy the gravity laser but he surrenders, preferring to live despite his training.

Both Mr. Albatross and Mr. Pelican strike me as villains who would happily twirl their mustache and gloat. Mr. Albatross was metaphorically rubbing his hands and cackling when he anticipated the Alliance caving in to the Guild’s monetary demands and later their surrender to the Caliphate’s threat.

Contrarily the Caliphate characters are as thoroughly wicked as one can imagine. The first fellow, to whom Albatross offers the stealth ship, mistreats several ladies and has one lady who has not yet lost herself to the slave collar. He sends that one – whom he knows is well aware of everything – to his soldiers to amuse themselves with. Evil. The Caliphate captain attacks the Alliance cities with nuclear bombardment. Evil.

The ending is a little abrupt. We know the Guild sent ships to the stealth station to install a huge power reactor and there is a sentence that the Guild did try to bombard Kremlin, but essentially the book ends without tying up those ends.

Also, just as with Against All Odds, the language is clean, no blasphemy or profanity or vulgar swearing. Yay!

Overall

I rated Against All Odds 4 stars, very good. With Grimm Resolve is not quite as good due to the plot questions and abrupt ending but it too is good enough to be

4 Stars.

I got my Kindle copy of With Grimm Resolve from Amazon. It is available in audiobook and paperback if you prefer.

All Amazon links are ads that pay commission to the blog owner.

Against All Odds – Grimm’s War by Jefferey H Haskell

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Against All Odds is science fiction during the lead up to war. The main character serves in the United Systems Alliance (USA) space navy. The author of this series has written readable fiction with a military theme and managed to convey the horror of warfare, space flight, service to a cause, and made the characters more important than the ships and equipment.

One of the reasons I read very little military science fiction is that too many authors make the inanimate more important than the people or their conflicts. I prefer books – stories – about people where the fighting and the ships and weapons are backdrops, props for the people to interact with each other. Kudos to Haskell for doing this with his Grimm’s War series.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Avoid Spoilers

Jacob Grimm is an officer on a routine mission checking star systems for suitability for training exercises when his ship is fired on by ambushing gunboats, destroying one of the other USA ships. Jacob warns the other ships and shoots down the gunboats, exploding all but one. Unfortunately the gunboats had children onboard. The opposing government, The Caliphate, exploited the children’s death with the USA media, causing Jacob to be a pariah to his navy and his family and friends. Apparently no one thought the true evil was putting kids on poorly shielded gunboats in an ambush, or at least no one with any media clout. The powers that be painted Jacob as the sole person responsible for killing kids and painted him as irresponsible, a cowboy, too aggressive, The Butcher of Pascal.

Jacob refused to resign and spent several years in obscurity on a ship repair base, his career dead. When the story begins he knows that the navy will kick him out in the next year. Fleet Admiral Noelle Villanueva needs someone for a special mission, someone aggressive and someone expendable. She picks Jacob.

Navy intelligence, Admiral Wit DeBeck, knows something is going on or going to start going on in a remote system, Zuckabar, which is loosely aligned to but not part of the USA. The USA has a small fleet operating several star systems away, but one ship, the Interceptor, is missing a captain and the Wit and Noell think if they send Jacob, perhaps he can prod something just by being there.

Jacob travels on the ship Dagger, captained by Nadia, an independent small trader, and the two become close friends. He believes he will report to Commander Zin on the small fleet, but when they arrive at Zuckabar the fleet is not there. He gets new orders, assigning him temporarily to captain the Interceptor as a temporary lieutenant commander.

Nadia is former navy on the intelligence side. She resigned after a very difficult mission getting an ambassador to safety, and although she misses the game, she is glad to captain her own ship. After Nadia lets Jacob off she takes two new passengers, Professor Bellaits and his former student and helper Daisy. Professor Bellaits is searching for something but won’t say what. Daisy is actually a deep undercover Caliphate agent who realizes the professor is looking for a wormhole. She alerted her controller earlier and now some Caliphate ships are in the system waiting for her to signal if/when he finds the wormhole when they will swoop in and take over.

Zuckabar is extremely cold, way below zero, and is that warmth due to 300 years of terraforming. The planet has the usual motley mix of miners, adventurers, grifters, ship support people, and the enormous orbiting station has all the same, minus miners. The Interceptor’s grav coil has been on station getting repaired for months and the crew has gotten negligent. No one has followed up on the repairs including the executive officer, Kimiko Yuki.

When Jacob arrives he makes it clear that he’s not going to hold anything that happened prior to his arrival against the crew or officers, but they need to get back to work. He does several training and action tests with them to get everyone back working and eventually the crew and officers trust him and each other.

He takes a couple marines with him to investigate the grav coil. The repair people are superb at giving the runaround and Interceptor is going nowhere nor is mission capable without the coil.

The station people have been stealing and grifting, are almost ready to pack up and leave, and realize that the coil is not on the station and the navy will have a fit if they realize the situation. They attack Jacob and his marines, gravely wounding one.

Finding no coil in the warehouse the Interceptor’s crew combs through the seized warehouse records and figure it is likely on the merchant ship Madrigal, in system waiting for the final load. The thieves had planned to have their pirate friends attack the Madrigal, kill the crew, sell the ship and its cargo, including the stolen navy grav coil.

Jacob sends a team to board the Madrigal by force and retrieve the coil. The mission is successful but they discover the cargo includes several thousand ladies in cyro suspension, meant for the Caliphate slavers. Slavery is strictly against USA law and the crew could be executed – if the Interceptor is able to get the Madrigal intact to USA space without running afoul of the pirates who obviously intend to take the ship.

At this point there are three conflicting factions plus four others that play in later books. The USA and Caliphate are multi-system governments that went to war about 20 years ago and have a sketchy peace now. The Consortium is a loosely aligned group located between the USA and Caliphate that plays little role in this book and is closest to Zuckabar. The last group is pirates, and the Zuckabar station leadership works with them. The pirates are ruthless, vicious, completely immoral. The Caliphate runs off slave labor, including sex slaves, and the pirates love to strip goods from ships and enslave the crews and passengers for sale. Not nice people, hmm?

The next three things happen simultaneously.

1. Nadia and the Dagger. Daisy realizes that Nadia suspects her. She isn’t sure Dr. Bellaits found the wormhole but knows he is close. She alerts the hidden Caliphate spy ship which attacks, kills all the crew, slaps an obedience collar on Nadia to make her a sex slave. (The collars prevent higher brain function and enforce obedience, but do not stop awareness or pain. Nadia is well aware that they are abusing and raping her.)

They tiptoe around Dr. Bellaits, as they are not sure he found the wormhole and he’s old and absent minded, probably easy to fool. In fact he is not so oblivious as Daisy thinks and he realizes that Caliphate troops took over the Daggar and that Daisy must have alerted them. Bellaits found the wormhole and doesn’t want it to end up in Caliphate hands and even more he wants everyone to recognize that he found it. He slags his equipment, notes the coordinates on a tiny chip and goes off to see what’s going on in the rest of the ship. He gets into Nadia’s cabin, gets her gun, kills one Caliphate, gets the collar off Nadia who manages to kill the soldiers infesting her ship’s bridge and seal it off, then has Dr. Bellaits call for help.

2. Jacob and Interceptor. The Interceptor has its grav coil back and can resume patrol when they see another freighter, Bonaventure, flying out of control, nearly at the limit of their gravitational tolerance. They manage to board and get the nearly-dead crew out and find that pirates had attacked Bonaventure causing their damage. Oddly the captain was not on the bridge at the time his ship was attacked and no one, including him, has a good reason as to why. XO Yuki, suspicious, checks the route the Bonaventure had taken in the prior month, discovers it had coincided with Madrigal and had transferred all its cargo to Madrigal – including the slaves-to-be.

She further unravels the ownership of the two ships, Madrigal and Bonaventure, and discovers that the Zuckabar leader Rasputin owns both, via multiple shell companies. Jacob and she realize this means Rasputin and the Zuckabar government are complicit in the slave ring. Jacob knows he needs to arrest Rasputin but since he heads a foreign government it is dicey; he decides to talk to Nadia since she is familiar with Zuckabar. They cannot find Dagger. It has disappeared, at least there are no transponders. Since the Interceptor’s mission is to protect USA people and ships they find it and zoom towards it.

3. USA Navy leadership receive Jacob’s initial reports on the Caliphate spy ship and the huge pirate/slavery operation that is allied to the Zuckabar government. Admirals Noelle and Wit confer with the Alliance president and decide to send a task force. Meanwhile the president and a Senate ally will prepare the ground to announce annexation of Zuckabar instead of continuing the unstable protectorate arrangement.

Interceptor manages to take back Dagger and learns where the Caliphate spy base is.

The Caliphate has given a capable warship to one group of pirates, hoping to spur trouble. Jacob’s crew spots them coming, puts Nadia and the Bonaventure crew on Daggar and sends the smaller ship off to safety back in the USA. Jacob and the Interceptor crew realizes that the opposition is not the typical pirate ship, it is a frigate, stronger and better armed than Interceptor. However, Jacob has a trained, professional crew while the others are used to chasing unarmed civilians. The Interceptor manages to destroy the pirate ship.

Jacob sends marines to arrest Rasputin, but he suicides first,

Jacob is called to meet with Admirals Noelle and Wit when the Alliance battleship arrives. They present Jacob the highest Naval award and the highest ship award to the Interceptor. Plus promote Jacob and send him to the command school, meaning his career can continue. Nadia is back at the Alliance capital getting treated for severe injuries, physical and mental.

Against All Odds is a complete novel, does not end on a cliff hanger although set up for sequels.

Why Against All Odds Works

Pacing, Tight Plot. Against all Odds is FAST. This gives a great sense of immediacy and we feel like we are there. A lot happens and author Haskell is able pull off events happening in parallel without confusing us readers. I felt carried along, almost as if I were on a raft in a fast current, still able to look at the scenery, enjoy the personal interactions, but not questioning events.

Parallel Plots. Haskell uses plot events that happen simultaneously to create the fast pace and also by switching among main character groups he creates tension and a bit of suspense. We can be pretty sure Jacob will have a happy outcome, and probably Nadia and many others, but we don’t know how and by switching event lines Haskell slows the pace a bit and keeps us guessing “what happened??”

Characters. Against All Odds has good character development although be aware some of the people have some stock characteristics. The captain, Jacob, takes over a ship with demoralized crew that has basically given up. I got that far and thought ugh. One of those canned novels where the noble leader manages to get the rag tag bunch to outperform. That is NOT what we have here. Jacob makes mistakes, the crew is demoralized but not down and out and there are many challenges that force them to perform well. It’s amazing how well someone can improve when the alternative is death!

Haskell has many characters in this story but wisely focuses on just five or so, Captain Jacob Grimm, executive officer Yuki, marine Alison Jennings, crewman/cook Mendez, and Nadia the ex spy who captains her own small cargo ship. Other characters play roles as needed and are surprisingly convincing as people.

We get the points of view of several main characters, including their inner thoughts. This helps develop the characters, get us invested in the story and keeps the plot pacing to a manageable speed.

The characters are realistic too. We can recognize bits and pieces of people we might know and no one is so perfect that it is a turn off. Jacob is noble, but that in part is because he was raised to value duty and because he suffered being blamed unfairly. (He mentions that the debrief after the ambush quickly turned into an inquisition where the investigators tried to get him to admit he knew the ambushing gunboats had kids onboard.) Never mind that is ridiculous, it happened to him and he’s been keeping his head down and doing his job. His commanding officer at the maintenance base commends him for not ever having to kick discipline problems up to her; Jacob concentrated on people since he couldn’t concentrate on a ship. He takes that learned skill to his next assignment on Interceptor.

World Building. Haskell creates a complex world that in many ways reflects our own, with goodness and evil, freedom and slavery, indepence and tyranny. He does spend more word count describing weapons and such than I prefer but he doesn’t go overboard with it and probably could not have left much out. We do need to know that the ships travel faster than light only by using starlanes, defined corridors between systems, and we also need some awareness that his ship’s weapons have limits.

Decency. Against All Odds has a happy surprise with language. There is zero blasphemy, no swearing and very little vulgarity. Huge kudos and thanks to the author.

Overall

I was impressed with Against All Odds. I didn’t have much expectation going in since so very many of this genre are very bad, but I quickly got engrossed in the story and read this and the next four sequels over a weekend. It is well-written with good characters, a plot that moves and is a lot of fun. I’ll keep buying future sequels.

4 Stars

I got my Kindle copy on Amazon where you can choose hardcover or paperback instead. I did not see any of Haskell’s books on Barnes and Noble.

All Amazon links are paid ads.

A Note on the Political Situation in the Series

The Caliphate seems almost too barbaric, too brutal, too savage to be real. I believe Haskell based the regime on ISIS and similar groups.

Note that the USA is shown to have internal weakness and corruption, it is imperfect. The governance is similar to our United States with an elected president and senators from each system in the alliance. The number of senators relates to the population. The economy is free market and there is apparently freedom of speech, religion, so on.

The Consortium is allied to the USA but both have strict laws restricting ownership of companies to their own citizens. Asian groups settled most of the Consortium systems originally; while many speak English that is not the predominate language. Consortium is known for its technological innovation.

The Corridor includes some quasi-independent systems such as Zuckabar. Several of these are under the protection of the USA, the Protectorate. (Think Micronesia after WW2.)

The other groups get almost no mention:

Terran Republic was allied to the USA in the war and is disintegrating.

Iron Empire apparently was allied to the Caliphate in the earlier war.

The Terraforming Guild is a vastly powerful, multi-system corporation that in this first book plays no role.

Makeshift Marriage by Marjorie Lewty

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Makeshift Marriage is a marriage of convenience between a loving, pseudo-doormat heroine and a too-stupid-to-live hero that veers off into I-want-to-dump-you, family pressure, Hong Kong, drug dealers, hair salon, Other Man and Other Woman. It is an odd romance that I had to squint and look sideways at to believe completely.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Avoid Spoilers

Makeshift Marriage opens with our heroine, Maggie, summoned to the big chief’s (aka the hero’s father’s) office for the chief to grill her on his son’s romance with Fiona, a red-haired manipulative, unfaithful bitch of an Other Woman. Seems sonny Blake has been dating Fiona extensively but his dad and the board of their construction/engineering company has serious reservations about Fiona and her sleazy connections to some drug dealers. Dad states he won’t approve Blake’s position as boss of a new development in Hong Kong if he marries Fiona.

Maggie and Blake are both engineers and Maggie works for him; Blake relies on her very much. He is supposedly brilliant, Maggie less so but more in tune with nitty gritty as one must be in the engineering world. They make a great pair and Blake is devastated when Maggie declines his offer to come to Hong Kong with him.

Maggie loves Blake; he is not indifferent to her, knows she’s pretty, is attracted to her, likes her very much, trusts and relies on her, his feelings are very close to love but he puts it off when he thinks Maggie isn’t interested. She’s managed to hide her feelings too well.

Maggie has weathered several Blake girlfriends before Fiona but it’s obvious Fiona is different, Blake is smitten. Fiona puts on a good show of sweet, slightly helpless which ensnares Blake; Maggie sees through the act to the cold, hard steel inside. Blake invites both ladies to dinner (he’s clueless) where Fiona gushes over how smart Maggie must be, etc., etc., thus defusing any romantic thought Blake might have about her.

Finally we’re about a month from the Hong Kong adventure when Fiona marries the race car driver she’s been dating in between Blake. Blake is devastated, gets drunk, Maggie helps him home, covers up his drunkenness. He asks Maggie to marry him since he needs a wife and he really doesn’t want to go to Hong Kong without her. (Clueless as noted.)

Of course Maggie agrees and her family is happy and excited. The day before the wedding Blake calls to meet her away from her home. Fiona’s husband died in a car accident and the poor girl is heartbroken and of course Blake can’t possibly marry Maggie now that Fiona is free. (Can we say STUPID???) He wants Maggie to jilt him by not showing up at church the next day. He can’t do it because his dad would be mad (and what about Maggie’s family and their happiness and expense?) nor is he willing to marry and then annul/divorce in a month because that would look bad too. Nope, Maggie has to do the dirty work. She is very unhappy and extremely reluctant but as usual agrees to what Blake wants.

That night she just cannot face the situation and goes to London to meet Blake, to tell him he has to tell his Dad the wedding is off, then she’ll tell her family. Blake isn’t home but Fiona is in his apartment and is quite open with Maggie about how she has no intention to go to Hong Kong, that she’ll divert Blake, that she is stone broke and needs Blake’s money. Maggie is appalled. She’s in a hard spot now.

If Maggie allows Blake to dump her and go off with Fiona his career is over despite being the boss’s son. Further Fiona is not welcome in Hong Kong and Maggie knows Blake will eventually realize what poison Fiona is. She’s finally angry now. Blake is always expecting her to pick up after him and she’s tired of it, tired of being the bad guy, doing his dirty work. Plus she wants to marry Blake and is pretty sure they could be happy together.

Maggie shows up at her wedding. Blake marries her then launches a tirade in the car afterwards, calls her nasty names, yells and has a tantrum that she did not do as he wanted. But he’ll show her! Blake takes her to Hong Kong, dumps her in a hotel room, asks a friend to take her around and goes back to London to sweet Fiona. (At this point we readers wonder what planet Blake lives on. What does he think will happen with Fiona? That he can bring her to Hong Kong as his mistress, leave his wife – a respected fellow employee – in an apartment and ignore her and still have the project workers respect him??)

Blake’s friend Nick, shows Maggie over Hong Kong. They had dated before; Maggie liked Nick a lot and he is the Other Man, half in love with her. A coworker sees Nick comfort Maggie and spreads vile rumors they are having an affair, which brings Blake hot foot back to Hong Kong.

This time he’s scared he might lose Maggie and is angry about the rumors, they sleep together. He meant it brutal force but Maggie, in love with him, gives herself with joy and Blake discovers she was a virgin.

Cranky Blake ignores Maggie, stays out all night, refuses to have her work with him and she follows up on a tentative friendship with the lovely Ling Sang who is opening a beauty parlor. Maggie helps her set up the salon and is her first customer.

She gets all dolled up for Ling Sang’s grand opening fancy party to which Blake agreed to go with her. He comes late and stays only long enough to tell Maggie she looks nice and he’s sorry, something came up and he can’t stay.

Maggie sees Blake with Fiona and decides she’s had enough. She gets Nick to get her a flight home and goes to her sister in law’s Scotland home. She discovers she’s pregnant. Blake shows up and confesses all. When he went back to London the first time he found Fiona in his bed in his apartment with another guy. He had a heart to heart with his dad, learned that Maggie had known Fiona was unwelcome and Blake would have destroyed his career had he kept her. Meanwhile he missed Maggie, missed talking to her, spending time together, all the things he had thrown away.

Blake met up with Fiona in Hong Kong because she had chased after him, was arrested in connection with another drug dealer guy and she needed his help to clear her name. Supposedly he’s done with Fiona and will devote himself to Maggie. I love you and Happy Ever After.

Can We Believe Blake?

The entire premise of the Makeshift Marriage happy ever after is Blake loves Maggie and will remain faithful and loving in the future. Do we readers believe he is sincere and that he will keep his promises and continue his sincerity in the future?

I find Blake sincere at the story close. I’m not convinced he will stay sincere, that he will remain loving and faithful (emotionally and physically) to Maggie; the odds are 50/50 or 60/40 that his turnaround will last. I give such low odds of future fidelity and happiness because:

  • Author Lewty tells us Blake had never fallen for anyone before Fiona. He fell for her hard.
  • Even after seeing her in bed with someone else Blake puts Fiona’s need ahead of Maggie’s clear, strong desire for him to come to Ling Sang’s party. One could argue a legal problem trumps a party, but this is a big deal for Maggie, she spent a lot of time and expense making herself beautiful and Blake knew it was important to her.
  • Fiona had come to Hong Kong to get Blake back, yet we’re supposed to believe he helps her out of kindness and wants to get her out of their lives.
  • Blake takes Maggie for granted. He assumes Maggie would stop the wedding, would understand even his choice to help Fiona vs. go with Maggie. This attitude is hard to change.
  • He claims he wants to make love to Maggie, that he missed her, that he wants their baby. Even Maggie has to stifle her doubts and she does mostly because she loves Blake.

I’m not sure Fiona herself will continue to be a problem, but it is strongly possible that Blake will keep finding other Fionas – ladies who appear delicate and needy and lovely and soft – a complete opposite from his strong, intelligent, capable wife. Blake shows he is susceptible to that sort of person.

Their future happiness depends on Maggie gently steering Blake, giving her strength to him. She becomes less understanding and less willing to accept his lack of character through the novel, first when she refuses to do his dirty work and jilt him, then when she makes herself enjoy Hong Kong with Nick, and last when she walks away after he chooses to help Fiona vs. keeping his promise to go to the party. She’s beginning to hold Blake accountable to get himself right, not rely on her, but I think she will always have to be the strong one in their marriage.

Overall

I like Makeshift Marriage. Author Lewty developed Maggie into a believable, realistic character and contrasted her strength to Blake’s supposed brilliance that devolved to stupidity and cluelessness. It would be easy to see Maggie as a doormat, in fact she sees herself that way in the beginning. We see her grow and take ownership for herself and forces Blake to take responsibility for himself as the book progresses.

Maggie’s main flaw is she will do anything for Blake, she’s his to command. She confronts that flaw when she decides to go ahead with the marriage, when she is alone in Hong Kong, when she gives herself to Blake in bed, when she dumps him even though pregnant. By the end of the book she’ll still do many things for Blake but she is done with lying for him, hiding his problems, taking the blame for his actions.

Most of the reviewers on Goodreads find the happy ever after unbelievable, don’t like Blake, and think Maggie is a doormat. Agree on Blake; he is an immature jerk who needs to grow up. I disagree about Maggie. She starts as a doormat but gets tired of having Blake wipe his feet on her and will not allow him to do so any more.

4 Stars

I got my paperback copy of Makeshift Marriage on Thriftbooks, it was not available on Archive.org at the time I read it nor is it available in E format from Harlequin, Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Amazon has paperback copies and you can probably find this on eBay and other used book sites.

All Amazon links are ads that pay the reviewer a small commission.

Guilty Passion – Romance by Jacqueline Baird

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Author Jacqueline Baird manages to tie 3 Harlequin Presents topes – Revenge, Second Chance, Secret Baby – into one excellent and enjoyable story. Guilty Passion succeeds despite a nutty backstory because the characters show themselves and drive the plot. There is very little introspection or mental whining; the heroine gets up and takes care of things.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

Benedict pursued and won Rebecca for revenge because she supposedly had rejected his younger brother Gordon who then drove off a cliff in despair. Rebecca met Gordon when she was 18 and had fun with him that summer with no talk of marriage. The papers painted her as a heartless Lolita who drove Gordon to suicide, but the autopsy and inquest showed Gordon had an inoperable brain tumor and accidentally hit reverse instead of drive. It was not suicide, although Gordon’s mother convinced herself it was after she read Gordon’s diary entry that he loved Rebecca.

Benedict was pursuing his anthropology hobby when he was hurt and spent a few years with Indians in the Amazon jungle. His family thought he was dead. While he was gone his father and then his brother died, and when he returned he believed his mother’s version of Gordon’s death even though his uncle told him it was an accident.

Four years after Gordon died Rebecca goes with Rupert, the Oxford professor who employs her as a part time researcher, to Benedict’s lecture about his time in Brazil. Rebecca has a double first and wants to be a teacher; her father died and she lives with Rupert and his wife Mary who were her dad’s good friends. Rebecca is entranced with Benedict. At first he’s uninterested until Rupert introduces her with her last name, then he is extremely interested in her and they spend quite a bit of time together after the lecture and the next few weeks. Rebecca is in love and thinks Benedict loves her. He gives her an inexpensive garnet ring and she is thrilled and starry-eyed about being engaged, although Benedict never actually proposes.

Rebecca goes shopping in London, stops by Benedict’s house. She’s surprised he has such an expensive home. They sleep together and it is everything Rebecca dreamt, right until Benedict is furious afterwards that she had been a virgin, that she cheated Gordon, that she’s nothing but a heartless gold digger. He frightens Rebecca because she doesn’t know what he is talking about, why he is so angry that she hadn’t slept with Gordon, why he is accusing her. Benedict explains Gordon was his half brother, that Rebecca dumped him and caused his death, and that he never had any intention to marry her. And on and on. Rebecca is desolated and furious. She takes her shopping, dumps the ring and leaves. Benedict drives her to the train station and she goes back to Rupert and Mary’s home and tells them the engagement is broken.

They meet again when Rupert and Mary have their baby baptized and they both are godparents, but Rebecca refuses to have anything to do with Benedict. She later discovers she is pregnant. She has the baby, gets her teaching certification and starts teaching older kids. She has a little money from her dad and has good friends who help and she does not tell Benedict about their son Daniel because she knows he despises her. There’s a bit of payback here too.

Five years later we are in the present. Rebecca is chaperoning a bunch of students in France with two other teachers (who are no help) when Benedict spots her. Rebecca is tiny, very pretty with good figure, and fearless. Her students do what she tells them. Benedict takes her to dinner one night, then inveigles himself to help drive the kids’ bus (this would never happen nowadays) and Rebecca feels like maybe she ought to tell Benedict about Daniel. They are together when Rebecca buys a bottle of cognac for Josh; it’s a thank you for taking care of Daniel while she was in France but Benedict assumes Josh is her lover. The last evening Benedict breaks a date with her because the lady Rebecca thinks is the Other Woman called. Rebecca is glad she didn’t say anything.

She goes home, picks Daniel up from her friends, and is doing the laundry when Benedict arrives. He’s furious. He realized that if Rebecca calls herself Mrs. then she probably has a child, and he hired an investigator who found that indeed Daniel is just the right age to be his son. Benedict demands she either marry him or he will seek full custody in court. He states right off that he probably couldn’t win on the merits, but he’s got a lot of money and can tie her up for years. Plus Daniel bonds with him immediately. He tells her to dump Josh, doesn’t listen when she tries to tell him who Josh is, gets her school to release her from her contract, takes her and Daniel off to his country home.

They marry. At the reception Daniel mentions Josh which infuriates Benedict and he drags Rebecca back home to consummate the marriage immediately. Finally he listens to Rebecca and believes her that she had no lovers, Josh and his wife are good friends and no, she never got his apology letter and yes, she loves him. He loves her too. The final scene has little Daniel coming in their bedroom banging on a drum his uncle gave him. (Obviously the uncle has sadistic tendencies.) Happy Ever After.

Characters Make This Work

How does the author pull this hodgepodge of crazy plot and nutty backstory and over the top problems into a believable story? Characters are excellent. Jacqueline Baird uses dialogue and events to show the people and drive the plot, she does not rely on introspection or self pity.

Rebecca Rebecca is consistent throughout the story. She Is warm, loving, emotional, loyal to friends. She trusts almost everybody – at first any way, until they prove they cannot be trusted – and then she will remember that distrust even while she looks for mitigating reasons. Benedict hurt Rebecca terribly when he turned on her after they made love, accused her of wanting his money, of leading Gordon on and cruelly dumping him, claims he never proposed (true, he simply gave her a ring and seemed to agree they were engaged).

When Rebecca learned she was pregnant with a child by a father she couldn’t trust she didn’t waste time whining or feeling miserable or plotting revenge. She got on with things, got her teaching certificate, had the baby, bought a place to live, found day care and took care of her child, got a job and taught.

Rebecca is wary when she meets Benedict 5 years later yet she is willing to spend time with him, to listen to him, to get to know him. She plans to tell Benedict about Jonathon when he casually breaks their last date and she realizes that she is still not important to him.

Benedict calls Rebecca a firecracker. She is physically tiny, beautiful, with an outgoing, sunny personality, high energy and strong will. She keeps the teenagers in her student group under control and deftly manages the other teachers who are less assertive even though the teens are all much larger than she and full of the usual teen mischief.

She knows what she wants and works to get it. Rebecca turned down a lucrative banking job in the US because she wanted to teach. She teaches at a big school in London – apparently kids around 16, not small children. She wanted a decent place for Jonathon to live; she invested her small inheritance in a place with a small garden (aka yard for us Americans) and she furnished it to be comfortable and private. Even Benedict is impressed despite himself when he comes there.

Rebecca stands on her own yet is not too proud to accept help from friends, such as when Josh and his wife take care of Jonathon while she is with her students in France. Rebecca takes good care of her son, is careful not to spoil him and is careful with the money she has. She is smart, and moreover, rather wise. She doesn’t date and isn’t interested in guys after Benedict.

Benedict seems to veer crazily emotionally, swinging from berating Rebecca and acting hateful to quickly regretting his behavior. After he turned on her when they made love he insisted to take her to the train station, then watched the train leave and ran after it. His whole emotional responses to Rebecca is like this; he loves her despite not wanting to do so and is at constant loggerheads with himself, despising her, then despising himself for loving her then despising himself for rejecting her.

He felt terribly guilty when he learned the truth about Gordon and tried to apologize to Rebecca but he didn’t try very hard. He sent a letter but did not follow up when he got no response. My inference is that he regretted his behavior and felt guilty, wanted to make amends but was relieved when he could let it drop while telling himself Rebecca didn’t want anything to do with him.

Benedict acts the same way 5 years later when he finds out about Jonathon. He is initially furious, then he realizes he still wants Rebecca (still won’t admit he loves her), realizes she had some good reasons to keep away from him. He tells her with some self-righteousness that she owed it to tell him about their, after all he had tried to apologize, etc., etc. Later when he calms down Benedict knows he was just as much to blame if not more so than Rebecca.

I foresee a somewhat stormy future for these two strong-willed people!

Overall

It’s somewhat off putting to read Benedict’s constant disparagement that runs in parallel with his constant attempts to sleep with Rebecca. We see the turmoil in his heart all though the story. Rebecca is steadier but she too has a temper and a strong will. These two play off each other and make the story. Author Jacqueline Baird is wise to skip over the struggle that Rebecca must have faced as a single mother, especially since she had not gotten her teaching certificate before she got pregnant. Instead she shows the emotional swings both Benedict and Rebecca endure.

On the down side, the putative Other Woman stirs the pot for no discernable reason. From Benedict’s perspective the OW has no reason to feel jealous because she is simply an employee, but she nonetheless is nasty to Rebecca and tells her that Benedict will dump her the minute Jonathon no longer needs her. There doesn’t seem to be a good reason for the OW to be in the story.

Guilty Passion is believable despite the trope mash ups and thus

4 Stars

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

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The Baby Secret – Second Chance Growing Up Romance by Helen Brooks

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Why I like The Baby Secret by Helen Brooks:

  • She grows up
  • He never lies
  • He realizes she needs and wants to be fully part of his life and tells him so
  • He’s forceful but not a bully, determined to keep her, loving
  • She learns to trust
  • And she grows up, stops looking for the easy answers and sees the complexity in people, in herself, in him.

The Baby Secret is worth reading to see a heroine visibly mature in 180 pages. Victoria fled her husband the morning after their wedding because her mother told her things about her husband that were true but so slanted to make him look like a womanizing, manipulative creep, not the loving man he is. Victoria must accept that some things that are not pretty nonetheless do not taint and that knowing facts is no substitute for knowing her husband.

Plot Synopsis – Click Here to Skip Spoilers

The story opens about 3 months after Victoria marries Zac. She is in Tunisia, staying at a villa her best friend’s brother William owns, and has just learned that her illness and fatigue are because she is pregnant.

Victoria married Zac because she loved him and believed he loved her, but he had to leave their hotel room during the night to attend Gina, a distant cousin and guest at their wedding, who tried to commit suicide and called him for help. Tory’s grasping socialite mother told her about it and that the cousin is Zac’s mistress. Further, Zac married Tory because he wants a well-bred wife and to cement a business deal. These statements are misleading but true, except that William broke off his affair with Gina before he met Tory and has not been with another lady since.

Tory asks Zac about each statement in isolation, refuses to listen when he tries to explain that he loves her, that he had to help Gina in all humanity, that he has no mistress. Zac confirms each statement and tries to explain but Tory decides that he is too much like her mother, part of the seedy world she wants to leave. She thinks Zac only wants a pretty doll that he could bring out when he wants and put aside when he does not, much as her parents and their friends act about people. She wants to be real to her husband, part of decisions, part of his life.

Tory and Zac return to London and Tory rents a charming mews house that Zac arranged through her mother unbeknownst to her. Zac sees Tory with William and thinks the baby might be his, which Tory does not dispel. Zac keeps trying to see Tory, to take care of her, to show her how much he loves her, but he’s afraid she might prefer William and Tory can’t bring herself to trust him.

They have a lovely afternoon on the river and Zac tells her that he saw William and knows for certain that he is the only man Tory has slept with, that he knows Tory loves him, that he loves Tory, explains about Gina and that this nonsense has to stop. Tory believes him but she’s still afraid.

Tory has a temporary job in a florist shop and falls hard, gets a customer to call Zac. Zac scoops her up, takes her to the hospital to be checked, then home to their house, the home they bought together and decorated for their lives together. Tory is still rejecting Zac but she’s beginning to realize the problem is hers, not his, that she may not be cut out for marriage. After she heals from the fall they have a wonderful afternoon of love and passion; Zac tells her how much he loves her, how beautiful she is and how pregnancy makes her look wonderful. Tory thought he might simply be saying that to be kind, but finally believes him.

Tory is about 5 weeks from her due date and Zac informs her that he intends they will live together after the baby, or if she cannot do that, then they will separate but remain married and he will take care of her and the child. This makes Tory think about herself, her parents whom she found cold and unloving.

Tory goes to see her father’s long time lover, Linda, who explains that her dad loved both herself and Tory and stayed with her mother for Tory’s sake, that he was not cold and uncaring, nor did he play games.

Tory decides she has to grow up now, that she has to start trusting Zac and herself, that she must believe he loves her, she loves him and they can be happy together. The baby starts to come when she arrives home to a frantically worried Zac in a snow storm. They make it to the hospital, baby is born and they see their happy ever after.

Characters and Why This Story Works

Many, maybe most, category romances have characters who need to grow up before they can be happy in a marriage. Usually the characters flit around the issue or perhaps work to develop trust or to communicate, but it’s a rare Harlequin where the heroine knows she must mature and then does it.

Tory is only 20 when the book opens and Zac is 35 and far more worldly and experienced. Tory had a miserable childhood with parents to avoided her, a mother who is angry that Tory is pregnant (apparently she got pregnant solely to ruin mom’s life), a few friends and not much self knowledge. She is smitten with Zac from the beginning, loves spending time with him, the laughter and kisses and she had eagerly looked forward to their wedding, wedding night and married life.

The wedding and wedding night were great, Zac was sensitive, caring and passionate. He admits later that he should have told her about Gina’s phone call, must include her in the rough part of his live along with the smooth. Zac makes it clear throughout the book that he loves Tory totally, forever, and tells her that he was incredulous when this wonderful girl loved him back, he couldn’t believe his luck.

Author Helen Brooks handles Tory’s increasing maturity with skill; this is not a heavy-handed coming of age story but a romance where the girl needs to grow up a bit, learn to trust. The turning point for Tory is when she realizes that is she who has the problem, that Zac didn’t betray her in any way, that she must learn to trust or she’s going to be miserable her whole life. As she puts it, if it hadn’t been Gina it would have been something because she was looking for something.

Tory could have tried to use OM/good friend William to play games with Zac’s head and heart but she does not. Instead she backs off from relying on William when she realizes that he’s a little in love with her. She could have been a brat about coming home with Zac after she fell, or could have stuck her head in the sand and refused to talk to him or to think through the problem.

Tory talked to Linda who helped her immensely. One reason Tory didn’t trust people was she didn’t think either parent had cared much about her, once she found her dad had cared she was able to step back and not let the past hurt so much. I doubt lack of parental caring would be sufficient all by itself to cause such deep distrust, but certainly it was a part.

Zac is a wonderful character. He is obviously deeply in love with Tory, doesn’t want her to leave him, and if she does leave him he doesn’t want to get revenge or see her hurt in any way. He arranges an inexpensive rental for her without touching her pride, he keeps tabs on her, he dates her, he courts her. (We all need a Zac in our lives!)

Tory’s mom Coral is a caricature of a rich socialite who’s grasping, cares only about herself, selfish, self-centered, bored with her daughter, fixated on status. She’s well-written; given the short length the author had to take some shortcuts with the minor characters.

Overall

I liked The Baby Secret a lot because it explicitly covers the theme of growing up within the context of a romance and without being a dull coming-of-age story. The characters are excellent and plot is simple enough that it doesn’t get in the way of the story.

4 Stars

I read this on Archive.org and purchased E book from Harlequin.com. You can get paperback copies at most used book sites and both the Kindle version and the E book on Amazon.

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Second Best Wife by Isobel – Marriage of Convenience

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Second Best Wife by Elizabeth Hunter is the same book as The Undesirable Wife by Isobel Chase. The second title is available in large print paperback which I bought without realizing it was the same romance. I enjoy the story under either title.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

Georgina’s lovelier, younger sister, Jennifer no longer wants to marry her fiance, William, and sends Georgina to tell him. Jennifer wants to marry Duncan now. William and Georgina have a long, hostile relationship, ever since 10 year old Georgina punched him in the nose for taunting her after she punched out young Duncan for picking on Jennifer. William called her Georgy-Porgie, as in “Georgie Porgie hit the boys and made them cry” mercilessly ever since and continually calls her a bully and complains about her bullying Jennifer. William is 5 years older than Georgina now, and she is 26, so she has lived with the nasty taunts for years.

Georgina has an odd relationship with sister Jennifer. Parents prefer Jennifer and most boys dump Georgina when they spot Jennifer, although Jennifer has very few friends except those who are Georgina’s friends. People like Georgina; she is warm, honest, transparent, while Jennifer is obsessed with her looks and showing up Georgina. William thinks Georgina is jealous of Jennifer when in fact it is the opposite. Their parents prefer Jennifer – as long as Jennifer is present. Her glamour fades with distance.

Georgina feels bad for having the unlovely errand to tell William his fiance has jilted him, but she’s also a bit gleeful that old frenemy is getting his comeuppance. She both likes and dislikes, loves and hates, William and she hasn’t been 100% honest with herself about her feelings. William tells Georgina that she must have bullied Jennifer into dumping him, so she, Georgina, can take her place and marry him.

After all, William has to keep Georgina from bullying Jennifer into dumping Duncan now! “You’ve pushed Jennifer around too long.” “You’d soon be casting an envious eye over Duncan, and we’d all be back where we started, making the best of things after you’ve broken them to pieces. No, Jennifer won’t be safe from you until I have you firmly shackled to my side. I may not be able to give her anything else, but at least I mean to giver her that!”

Georgina first is adamant that she will not marry William, but slowly comes to think it might be good. Her mother has a heart to heart with her that completely surprises Georgina. Her mother doesn’t think she ever bullied Jennifer, and is all in favor of the marriage.

Jennifer gives Georgina a letter, insists she gives it to William on the plane to Sri Lanka (called Ceylon in the novel) after the wedding, absolutely not before. Naïve Georgina follows directions and William is furious. Jennifer in her letter begs him to stay, she’s changed her mind and want to marry him and it’s all Georgina’s fault that they got separated and Georgina did everything she could to get William and keep him from Jennifer and, and, and. Naturally William, being a dummy about the sisters believes Jennifer.

William takes Georgina to Ceylon where he has a job running an engineering project for the British Commonwealth. One reason he wanted a wife was to help with his 20 year old ward, Celine, who appears mentally handicapped and unable to relate to people. Georgina mentions that it’s a good thing he married her and not Jennifer because her sister would not have gladly taken care of another young girl, especially one who isn’t quite right and gorgeous to boot. William shoots this observation down and threatens to take Georgina apart if she harms or bullies Celine. He also tells her that he would like to get rid of Miss Campbell who takes care of Celine, but when Georgina sends Miss Campbell packing the first day, William refuses to back her up and asks Miss Campbell to stay.

Eventually William takes Georgina to bed which they both enjoy and find physically and emotionally satisfying. Georgina discovers that Celine is terrified of some huge puppet masks that Miss Campbell uses to great effect to frighten her and keep her cowed and under control. This time William agrees and Miss Campbell goes.

Things are better. Celine is now alert and functioning and the local tea plantation manager, Stuart, has fallen for her. William of course thinks Stuart is chasing Georgina and that Georgina is flirting and encouraging him which she denies. Otherwise he seems to think better of Georgina than before.

Jennifer writes Georgina that she is coming for a visit and includes a note from their mother. Mom now says she doesn’t have any idea why William would have married Georgina or why Georgina would have broken up the big love affair between Jennifer and William and why would Jennifer think she should marry Duncan. Oh, and poor Jenny. She doesn’t have many friends of her own and Georgina’s don’t come to visit when Georgie isn’t there, even though Mom and Dad think Jenny has far the nicer character. William reads this and asks the humiliated Georgie whether Dad also prefers Jennifer.

Jennifer shows up with Miss Campbell and starts sniping and insulting Georgina. She tells her that their mom doesn’t want Georgina to thwart Jennifer’, i.e., to stop Jennifer from dislodging Georgie from William so he can marry Jennifer and get things back the way they should be. William hears quite a bit of this.

Celine is missing that evening and Georgie forces Jennifer to admit that she and Miss Campbell had met her on the drive up, that Miss Campbell had taken her away and that she, Jennifer, was just as glad because she didn’t like Celine and what was all the fuss about anyway? Jennifer guesses where Celine is and rushes to rescue her – Jennifer makes more nasty comments about Georgie always having to feel she is the one to do the rescuing – and they meet Stuart who found Celine. William kicks Miss Campbell out and Jennifer insults Georgie some more and commiserates with William on having such a lousy wife.

William by this point doesn’t see any need to commiserate about being married to Georgie. He takes her out for the afternoon to a lovely waterfall, apologizes and makes love with Georgie. Happiness ensues.

Characters and Conflicts

The Undesirable Wife is the story of William learning to love Georgina, realizing how wrong he was about her and her sister Jennifer. The first fifth of the book, before they marry, William continually berates Georgina and puts Jennifer on a pedestal.

William doesn’t know Georgina or Jennifer at all. He is blunt: Georgina is a bully, she bullies poor meek Jennifer, she is jealous of Jennifer, she has no friends and certainly no boyfriends because they all desert her for Jennifer, she pushed Jennifer first into agreeing to marry William and later, bullied her to dump William, she inveigled his mother to prefering her over Jennifer only because she “never made the faintest effort even to be kind to her (Jennie)”, she is deceitful, pretends to cherish Jennifer when she is undermining her. Some William pronouncements on Georgie vs. Jennifer make this clear:

  • Georgie as Bully
    • “Because you’ve bossed the poor girl about unmercifully ever since I’ve known you!”
    • “She (Jennifer) was afraid of you.” “If you can black my eye, what could you do to her?”
    • “Well, now she’sll see you as you really are, won’t she? As an intemperate, vicious little thug!”
  • Georgie as jealous of Jennifer
    • “Did you have to break it up? Couldn’t you have contained your jealousy for your sister just this once?
    • “I don’t believe anyone else has ever stormed your selfish little heart.”
    • “you won’t shift the responsibility on to anyone else, least of all that long-suffering sister of yours. Jealousy is a very nasty thing.
    • “Is it Jennifer’s fault that men find her more attractive than they do you?”
    • “Because you’re jealous of Jennifer and you hated anyone to like her better than you.”
  • Just before Jennifer arrives, about 2/3 of the way through the story, William tells Celine that Georgie never could compete with Jennifer, that Georgie’s pushy and he expects that Jennifer will be kind to Celine and be friends with her.

William is all mixed up about Georgina’s attraction compared to Jennifer’s. He tells Georgie several times that men prefer Jennie (given as a reason for Georgie’s supposed jealousy) and that Jennie takes boyfriends from Georgina, yet he tells Georgie that he suspects she stole Peter (whom she claimed to be semi-engaged to) from Jennifer and that she stole Jennie’s friends and boyfriends.

William’s worst attacks are when he explains to Georgie that he intends to marry her. He believes Georgina is trying to ruin his and Jennifer’s lives by bullying Jennie into dumping him, and he has three reasons to marry Georgie: to punish her, to keep her from breaking up Jennifer and Duncan and inflicting her bullying and mean jealousy on her sister. And because he thinks that once he makes her fall in love with him that Georgina will be an acceptable, maybe even desirable, wife.

William sees Jennifer as sweet, kind, gentle, cowed by Georgina’s stronger ways. Even near the end of the story when Jennifer arrives with Miss Campbell, supposedly after he has realized he was lucky to get Georgie and not Jennifer, he says “I expect Jennifer took pity on her (Miss Campbell) because she’s ugly and unfortunate in her manner. She always had a kind heart.” It isn’t until he sees Jennifer again that he realizes that she is the jealous one, manipulating Georgie and everyone else, not caring at all for anyone besides herself.

The first few days of their marriage William continues the refrain, albeit somewhat muted. When Georgie figures out how Miss Campbell has terrified Celine and she sleeps with William, he backs off even more, then when he finally realizes what Jennifer is he apologizes for mistreating Georgie and tells her he now knows that she is the one who needs protecting, not Jennie.

Jennie is a champion manipulator, deceitful, vindictive, weak yet vicious. She pushes Georgie to tell William she’s dumping him (Georgie is glad to do this errand), then when William comes to confirm it she blames Georgie for first making her marry William, then breaking it up, and she acts fearful and convinced that Georgie only wants to make trouble for her.

She cons Georgie to deliver her letter to William only after the wedding and after they have left England and her tearful note makes William furious. If he thought about it he would have realized that Jennifer had no need to give him a letter via Georgie; she could have insisted on seeing him the night before or the morning of the wedding. Stuart mentions to Georgie at the end that William knows full well the Jennie lied in the note, but William had thrown the letter in Georgie’s face just a few days earlier.

Within a few days of William and Georgie’s wedding Jennifer has convinced her mother that Georgie stole William, that she had pushed her into dumping him for Duncan. Georgie is mortified that William reads her mom’s letter because it’s unkind and makes it clear that mom has little use for Georgie compared to Jennifer. Jennifer puts on the same act when she writes to Georgie informing her that she is coming to visit (this is within a couple weeks of the wedding) and that she sees Georgie as a thief, a backstabbing sister on par with Brutus.

The evening Jennifer arrives in Ceylon she attacks Georgie, tells her she will get her property (William) back, that Georgie cannot compete. William hears some of this and he is there when Jennifer admits she let Miss Campbell take Celine away and that she can’t see the fuss about a stupid girl, not when she’s there. The next morning she starts her flirtatious tricks and manipulation with Stuart, tries to get him interested in her and thinking badly of Georgie. Georgie tells her to stop it, then Stuart tells her off and later William makes it clear he’s not fooled any longer.

Georgie is amazed that Jennifer has such a thick skin, that rejection and even hard words don’t faze her at all. As William says, he doesn’t think his opinion would “so much as dent her self-conceit”.

William claims he loves Georgie in his big apology/seduction scene by the waterfall, but it isn’t terribly convincing. He finally realizes that his lovely sweet Jennifer is a mirage, but that doesn’t mean he now loves Georgina. He told Georgie before this that he wasn’t in love with Jennifer but thought she’d be an admirable wife, friends to Celine and loving to him, and now he knows that Georgie is all those things. He desires Georgie and is glad he can sleep with her and seems to want children, but I’m not convinced that he loves her.

Georgie is straightforward, except it’s a mystery to me why she would love William. She says she likes his masterful ways and she enjoys sleeping with him, and that she would not have married him without love. It’s hard to see how a girl as forthright and honest as Georgie would fall for someone who insults her every time they meet. The author makes it seem possible even if most of us would run for the hills rather than marry someone so ruthless and cold and insulting as William was with Georgie.

Celine grows up during the story. Once Georgie finds out that Miss Campbell used big demon masks to terrify Celine, and Celine and Stuart fall in love, Georgie is able to protect Celine and remove Miss Campbell. Once that baleful influence is removed Celine is able to mature. She may never be 100% normal but she’s no longer nearly catatonic nor screaming with rage and nightmares.

Stuart is a lovely young man who likes Georgie when they meet and he reads between the lines of William’s descriptions to see that she is the better sister. He tells Jennifer that William says she has “soft, gentle manners and a nice nature. Pity he was mistaken. Georgina has had a lot to put up from you in the past, but you won’t have hear around in the future to smooth your path.”

Stuart likes Georgie quite a bit but he’s enamored of Celine. William accuses Georgie of flirting with Stuart and even hints she might be bullying Celine or manipulating people to secure Stuart’s regard. William declares that he’s not going to allow Georgie to give herself to Stuart and he’s jealous of the fact Georgie likes Stuart and is on easy friendship terms with him. Stuart ignores this; he loves Celine and plans to marry her.

Miss Campbell fancies herself a witch and was culpable, if not responsible, for the fire that killed Celine’s mother. She sees Celine as her meal ticket and more, thinks she can steal Celine’s youth and beauty. Everyone is glad when Miss Campbell leaves!

Setting

Georgina and Jennifer live with their parents close by William’s mother’s house in England. Georgie loves William’s house; it is warm and cheerful and welcoming, the opposite of her own home. William is an engineer on a new assignment for the British Commonwealth in Ceylon to build a dam.

Author Isobel Chase writes about Ceylon’s tea plantations and the tea harvesting and processing, but this is not a travelogue. She shows Ceylon is a gorgeous country with mountains and beaches and waterfalls and tea. She mentions the problems that were growing in the early 1980s between the Tamil people who immigrated to Ceylon from India and the native Singhalese and that the British are building the dam and investing in the country.

Overall

I enjoyed this story quite a bit; I am fascinated by the idea of someone knowing they are second best in a marriage and making the best of it.

When you go into a situation knowing you are second choice, what do you do? Do you work to become first choice? Accept what you have? Rail against unfair fate?

House of Mirrors is another story with this theme although very different in style and plot and is an exceptionally good Harlequin romance. Second Best Wife has a different backstory and set up and Georgie has different challenges than did Liz in House of Mirrors.

In Second Best Wife/Undesirable Wife Georgie must overcome both William’s attachment (and idiocy) to her sister and his antipathy and dislike of her, while he believes she is a horrible person and insults her continually. Georgie doesn’t protest too much against his prejudice. She knows that although she is forthright she is not a bully, that in fact she has protected her sister all her life and taken many shots and unkindness from Jennifer and her family. They have been unfair and William is even worse, but she decides she loves him and will take what she can get while trying to capture William’s heart. But she doesn’t expect to keep William. She expects that William will choose Jennie over her; even if he does remain married to her he will have an affair with Jennifer.

William is bossy and expects Georgie to knuckle under, to let him rule her and make decisions for her. She enjoys his mastery in bed but she pushes when he tries to exert control or says he will take over and run her life.

Isobel Chase is the pseudonym of Elizabeth Hunter who wrote Harlequins under both names. The bossy, masterful hero is a staple in the 4 or 5 books of hers that I read; I don’t care for the hero being over the top dominant. It isn’t necessary in my experience for the man to always run the show and it’s a weakness in this author’s – and in many other Harlequin authors’ – work to have a super dominant hero. I think it’s evidence of sloppy characterization and plot, a handy shortcut to get the plot to the requisite happy ending.

Overall I enjoyed Second Best Wife/The Undesirable Wife. I read it under title Second Best Wife on Archive.org first, then purchased The Undesirable Wife from Thriftbooks without realizing is the same title.

4 Stars

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The Millionaire’s Prospective Wife by Helen Brooks

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This romance has some sweet moments, some funny dialogue and scenes and some emotional connections. Cory is a social worker who helps dysfunctional families, sometimes working far into the night when her clients need help. Nick is the typical Harlequin rich, gorgeous hero, except that he’s wise enough to realize that charm and beauty and sex appeal are not as important as a loving heart and strong character.

Nick never committed before and he has let Cory know this, and she, being rather emotional insecure and full of self-doubts, does not realize that this time NIck is committed, that he has committed himself to her. It is so refreshing to read a story where he says “I love you” before she does.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

Cory takes her aunt’s big, untrained dog Rufus to the park and makes the mistake of letting Rufus off his leash. Rufus instantly takes off, runs after all the other dogs and knocks Nick right off his feet. Cory is horrified, especially when Rufus then runs back and starts eating Nick’s expensive cell phone. Cory insists that she pay for the cell phone and Nick’s suit; he refuses but recognizes that Cory is determined that she owes him and that she pays her debts. Nick needs a date for a business meeting he is hosting that night. Will Cory accompany him to atone for Rufus’s damage?

Cory reluctantly accepts, tells him that if he finds someone else to not feel obligated to take her. (I think this is when Nick realizes he has found a most unusual lady.) Her aunt insists on buying Cory a designer dress which makes the most of Cory’s looks, which combines with her personality and character to completely blow Nick away. Nick kisses Cory when he takes her home which sets the world on fire for both of them.

They date. Nick eventually worms it out of Cory that she had dated an older, rich guy once before who only wanted to sleep with her, and that she’s frightened of falling for rich, handsome guys as a result. She’s also emotionally insecure, convinced she’s not lovable because her parents never gave her attention or cared.

Nick takes it very very slowly, but steadily works his way into her heart and mind. Cory realizes she loves Nick, but is still convinced he’s a love ’em and leave ’em type and she knows she would be devastated if she sleeps with him then he dumps her.

Cory gets a migraine one night, a very bad attack, and Nick puts her to bed, then stays to make sure she’s ok. She’s still not getting the picture that Nick wants all of her, not a short term sleeping arrangement. Cory is even more terrified when Nick tells her he loves her; she cannot believe he means anything permanent.

The big blow up happens when Nick takes her to his country home, then to his mom’s birthday party. Cory meets his sisters and his mom, all of whom like her, but she also meets Margaret, his mom’s goddaughter who hunts Nick. Nick’s sister tells her that Margaret and Nick had a short no-strings affair a few years earlier, that neither wanted commitment, now Margaret wants Nick back. Nick rejects Margaret, but even this doesn’t clue Cory in.

The next afternoon Cory tells Nick that she cannot keep dating him, that they need to break it off. He breaks all the speed limits to dump her back home where she stews whether she should have taken what she could get, even a short affair, vs. the misery of no Nick. Nick shows up at 3 am, she throws herself into his arms and they end up agreeing to marry and have lots of kids.

Emotional and Character Development

The Millionaire’s Prospective Wife works because Nick gently keeps pushing. First he finds out why Cory is so afraid of dating, then he discovers her parents’ cold attitude, then he realizes she’s a caring, genuine person with a great sense of humor and determination. He never stops pushing Cory to realize she loves him.

Despite the heavy sounding emotions this story has relatively little angst. Nick is never cruel, he never tries to seduce Cory (although he has a hard time stopping himself), he clearly respects her and values her. Cory is also not mean, or vindictive or hateful, she’s simply afraid and knows herself well enough to realize she could not survive an affair. She never dreams that Nick intends marriage.

There is no Other Man except for the cad Cory dated a few years before, and he never appears except in dialogue. Margaret is not a Other Woman because Cory heard Nick tell her no. The other minor characters are good but not particularly fleshed out.

The story is set in London, in Cory’s head, and at Nick’s country home. Author Helen Brooks uses various dogs and cats mostly for humor, first Rufus who brings Nick and Cory together, then the dog in the apartment below Cory’s, then Nick’s mom’s menagerie of dogs and cats, all of whom are a little goofy.

Overall

The Millionaire’s Prospective Wife is a sweet, mostly happy story with a little bit of plot, some humor and some character growth. It’s good and I enjoyed it.

3 1/2 Stars, rounding to 4

I got my ebook copy from Harlequin.com to read on Glose and you can borrow the pdf version from Archive.org here or buy the paperback at Thriftbooks and likely other used book sites. At the moment Amazon does not have this.

Jilted by Sally Romance

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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.

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The Bright Side of Dark Harlequin Romance by Jeneth Murrey

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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.

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Count Valieri’s Prisoner by Sara Craven Harlequin Presents

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Oh boy. You know the author is good when you read right by the idiotic plot because you care about the characters. Count Valieri’s Prisoner (#ad) is the story of (surprise!) Andrea, Count Valieri, an Italian businessman, and Madeline Lang, an English researcher for a television company. Madeline is engaged to Jeremy Sylvester, an up and coming man with a driven autocrat for a father. Andrea detests and despises Jeremy’s father and wants to use Madeline as leverage to force him to document how he framed Andrea’s father for embezzlement. Andrea uses the bait of a soprano who suddenly stepped away from music to entice Maddie to Italy where he holds her in his mansion.

At this point you are rolling your eyes and thinking Melodrama! Stockholm Syndrome! Inane Plot! but don’t. Hold your fire and read this. Count Valieri’s Prisoner (#ad)is very good!

First Maddie is no whiny Wilma. She’s tough and uncompromising with Andrea at first, tells him that eventually he’ll have to let her go and then she’ll press criminal charges. She knows that Jeremy’s dad won’t pay a penny for her release, and since Jeremy himself has no money she tells the Count he’s not going to get anything he wants out of this, only a world of hurt when the police arrest him.

The Count holds her in a bedroom with trompe l’oeil scenes and doors that confuse and disorient her and he hid her clothes, leaving her nightgowns and robes to wear. Her room is in a high story so escape is difficult. Nonetheless Maddie persists and manages to get to an abandoned village where – guess who! – is waiting for her. She has encountered a big snake and a wolf by then so Andrea looks pretty good in comparison.

Andrea and Maddie develop first a reluctant friendship, then a type of love for each other, but both are tiptoeing around the fringes of emotion when Andrea takes Maddie to meet his mother. Mom is the singer Maddie came to Italy to interview; Mom is also the lady who’s first husband – Jeremy’s dad – betrayed. Needless to say, Mom isn’t too happy with Jeremy’s family and although she likes Maddie, she and Andrea suspect Maddie is as bad as the family she intends to marry into.

Eventually Andrea convinces Jeremy’s dad that he has incriminating documents and unless dear old dad confesses all in writing and gives up his expected knighthood, Andrea will release everything. Dad complies and sends a toad flunky to bring the papers and get the girl. Maddy takes one look at Toad and decides to make her own way home.

By the last week of her imprisonment Maddie agrees Andrea is justified and once past that hurdle she allows herself to feel the emotional connection and physical attraction that flows between them. However, Maddie is still engaged to Jeremy and still convinced she loves him and will marry him, faith sorely tested when Toad arrives, not Jeremy. She is dumbfounded when Andrea pushes her away to go back to England and he never acknowledges the emotional connection she feels so strongly. She leaves.

It is only when she’s back home she sees Jeremy again and this time he’s pressuring her to marry now, at once. And his mother, who is going to be the mother-in-law from hell, has told the dressmaker to finish the wedding gown NOW. By now Maddie is confused. She believes Andrea. Maddie’s getting suspicious about Jeremy and she’s wondering how much he loves her when he never tried to come to her, and she’s wondering how much she loves him if she could fall for Andrea. She visits future mother-in-law and learns that Jeremy isn’t just a passive dupe with his dad, but a real, bona fide contributing partner and he knows all about the corruption and theft years ago. And it doesn’t bother Jeremy a bit.

Now poor Maddie is in a bad spot. The Count is gone. He pushed her aside and onto a plane. Jeremy is gone. The man she loved didn’t exist and she cannot love the man he is now. Of course a couple months later the Count comes to London and professes eternal love and they have their happy ending.

Let’s look at this story as story.

  • Plot is ridiculous. Who would kidnap the future daughter-in-law of the man you want to destroy? Anyone else see any flaws with this plan? Especially since it should have been obvious to the Count that father-in-law cared nothing for Maddie and Jeremy was not all that keen either.
  • Setting and clothing choice are gothic. A room with painted doors that don’t open? Satin nightwear?
  • Characters are lively and engaging; I was sympathetic to the Count even before learning why he kidnaps Maddie and of course Maddie makes a great heroine, a girl who wants to run her own life and doesn’t roll over either for Jeremy or Andrea.
  • We feel the emotional connection between Maddie and the Count.
  • Somehow the overall story works. It just does. Yes, the plot is nuts but the combination of goofy plot and great characters and strong emotional interactions makes Count Valieri’s Prisoner another winner from Sara Craven.

4 Stars

I got my Ebook copy from Harlequin.com, reading it on the Glose app. You can get the Kindle Ebook from Amazon and the Nook book from Barnes and Noble too. If you prefer a printed book then look at Barnes and Noble or Amazon or used books from Thriftbooks.com or eBay. All links are paid ads.

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