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Angst Galore! The Greek’s Forced Bride – Michelle Reid

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Calling Angst Junkies! Yes, the hero Leo is Greek. Yes, he marries the heroine Natasha. Forced? Not exactly. More blackmail and manipulation. And it works! If you like emotions, passion and angst The Greek’s Forced Bride is a winner.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

Let’s do a quick sweep through the plot – which is skimpy to allow plenty of room for emotion and character development.

Blonde and curvy Natasha wears baggy, prim clothes and is engaged to useless Greek playboy Rico. Rico sleeps his way around Europe, pursues stick thin blonde model types, never ladies with curves and never ever ladies who wear baggy clothes and avoid the spotlight. Rico is shallow. We see just how shallow he is when his stepbrother, Leo, who runs the family business, barges into Rico’s office to confront him for embezzling millions. Oops. Rico is busy fornicating with a blonde on his desk. Natasha arrives to challenge Rico on cheating, enters right behind Leo, just in time to see Rico with her own sister, pop singer Cindy.

Cindy is 18, thin, blonde, petulant, spoilt, greedy, spiteful, vicious to her proper and morally upright sister Natasha whom she has hired to run her business affairs for a few months until Natasha marries Rico and Cindy’s new professional management company steps in. Natasha knows darn well Cindy doesn’t even like Rico, she simply can’t stand the idea of Natasha having something she does not. Cindy set up Natasha to visit Rico’s office and staged the scene for the fun of hurting her sister.

Natasha flees. Leo kicks Rico out – “and take the slut with you” and chases after Natasha. She’s throwing up. Leo stuffs her in his car and takes off for his apartment while they both ignore frantic phone calls from the cheats who are desperate to keep things smooth. Leo kisses Natasha which ignites; she decides she wants someone, even Leo, to want her and tries to seduce him but he realizes that she’s simply using him to get back at Rico and pushes her away.

Leo confronts Natasha as she leaves Leo’s home. He wants her to return $2 million Euros that Rico stole. Rico stashed it in an account in her name and Leo wants her to give it back then get out of his life. Leo is disillusioned, the woman he has lusted after, is nearly in love with, is a thief. Natasha had not realized Rico had stolen the funds and agrees to give it to Leo, except she cannot access the funds for 6 weeks. Leo threatens to get her arrested for fraud unless she comes with him to Greece for the 6 weeks, and oh, by the way, keeps him sweet with sex. Natasha is appalled but terrified by the threat of jail and overwhelmed with Leo’s sexual attraction. She agrees.

Leo accompanies her to Cindy’s apartment to get her passport and clothes; Cindy attacks her the second she arrives. Rico panicked, called their parents who are on the way and Natasha had better darn well take the blame for everything (?? I’m at a loss here how that would work) and do some major damage control or else Cindy would do it herself and throw Natasha under every bus, train and plane she can. Leo tells Cindy to shut up and threatens to ruin her singing career if she makes Natasha look bad. Cindy’s and Natasha’s parents arrive and are all over poor Cindy, completely ignore Natasha – who in one swoop lost her family, her fiancé, her home and future. Who cares? It’s CINDY who must be protected and cosseted.

Leo takes Natasha to his home in Athens, seduces her (she’s willing but not happy with herself or with him). He tries to shame her first, refuses to believe she’s never slept with anyone, then discovers that oops, yes, she was a virgin. In fact when Natasha gets up and showers Leo sees the blood and changes the sheets himself to protect her from seeing the evidence herself. He proposes marriage to save his honor and she tells him to stuff his honor, stick to the deal, she’s not interested in marrying him, he’s tacky.

Leo alternately acts as protector and as seducer. His ex-wife Gianna barges in when he’s kissing Natasha and shrieks at them both, insults Natasha. Leo introduces Natasha as his future wife which restarts the shrieks until Leo manhandles Gianna out. He tells Natasha “‘I do not have a relationship with my ex-wife,’ he spoke finally. ‘I do not sleep with her and I have no wish to sleep with her, though Gianna prefers to tell herself I will change my mind if she pushes long and hard enough…In case you did not notice,’ he continued as Natasha turned to look him, ‘Gianna is not quite—stable.’”. ” Natasha is more than fed up by now.

When they eat dinner Leo grabs Natasha’s breast which sends her out the door to find a quiet private spot to crumple and cry. Leo knows – has known all day – that he’s acting horribly. He comforts Natasha, puts her to bed.

The next day Leo sends her shopping at a friend’s store. Although he he had instructed his friend to outfit Natasha in elegant, refined clothes, he first accuses Natasha of being an easy victim for all the self-confident harpies like her sister or Gianna. Natasha takes the challenge and buys elegant but very sexy clothes which infuriate Leo. He tells off one of his friends who’s ogling Natasha, “Get your eyes off my future wife’s breasts”. Natasha has it out with him that night, or tries to. Leo won’t fight with her as he has a fail-safe strategy in his back pocket to get his way.

The next morning Leo drags Natasha out of bed. The tabloid headline looks awful. “Love Cheat Chooses Riches over Rags.” Cindy got her damage control and it’s a doozy. Poor victim Cindy knew nothing about Natasha dating Leo behind poor Rico’s back and oh, by the way, look at her new single that her new management company is releasing. Leo is impressed with the job Cindy’s management company did to whitewash her and promote themselves at the same time. The lies are sordid and will hurt Natasha. But not to worry! He has a plan.

He, Leo could dump Natasha, thus enhancing his own reputation for ruthlessness, or Natasha could leave him and look even worse or yes, they could marry. And incidentally, here’s the notice of their impending marriage in the reputable papers. Natasha reluctantly agrees and they marry the next week. Leo takes her on a tour of his businesses in several countries where she and he draw closer and she gets familiar with his world of big business and fancy socializing.

Their lovemaking is working its magic on Natasha. She knows she’s falling in love with Leo, she isn’t very happy about it. “And if this was real love, then it made her hurt like crazy, because, no matter how profoundly she knew she affected him, she also knew deep down inside her that the mind-blowing sex was as deep as it went for him.”

Leo and Natasha return to Athens about two weeks before she can access the stolen funds and she realizes she needs a job because she isn’t willing to take money from Leo for anything except the fancy designer clothes he wants her to wear. Her intransigence infuriates him and they hit bottom when she reminds him of the theft. “‘Don’t you think I know I owe you enough money already without letting you shell out even more?’”

Gianna confronts Natasha the next day, digs her long nails into her arm. Leo comes home early and tries to pick a fight with her. He misses the old Natasha, Miss Prim and Cool, misses hunting her down. Leo asks her to stay home the next day, skip job hunting. It’s the day she had planned to marry Rico and he doesn’t want to remind her of his stepbrother. They spend the afternoon making love before Leo leaves for Paris.

Cindy calls Natasha out of the blue the next morning, ostensibly about a problem with their parents. She’s in Athens, can they meet? It’s Rico who meets her, wants Natasha to sign the documents giving him access to the overseas account holding Leo’s stolen money. He shows Natasha a video of Leo going into a hotel with Gianna the night before. Natasha signs, goes home without even trying to talk to Cindy.

Leo comes in blazing angry, even more furious when he sees Natasha packing.

“What the hell were you doing with Rico?’ he bit out.
Natasha didn’t answer; she just turned back to her bag.
‘I asked you a question.’ He arrived at her side and caught hold of her arm to swing her around. It was only as he did so that his eyes dropped to the bag she was packing. Cold fury suddenly lit him up. ‘If you think you are leaving me for him you can think it through again,’ he raked out.
Natasha just smiled.
The smile hit him as good as a hard slap. ‘You bitch,’ he choked, tossing her arm aside and reeling away from her. ‘I can’t believe you could do this to me.’
‘Why not?’ Natasha let herself speak at last—

Page 233

Leo accuses her of signing the money over to Rico. “‘Yes, I did, didn’t I?’ she said smoothly. ‘Are you going to inform the police?’” She tells Leo that the only reason she’s his wife is he was punishing Gianna. ‘I was there, if you recall. Until she turned up, I was just the little thief you took to your bed to enjoy for six weeks until you got your precious money back.” (Actually Leo proposed just before Gianna burst in.) Leo then dumps her suitcase, drags her to bed and forcibly seduces her.

Natasha gets up, packs only the clothes she brought with her and walks out, takes a taxi to the airport, nearly too hurt to cry or feel anything. Leo watches her walk down the drive. He’s hurting, angry with Natasha, angry with himself. Then he sees the envelope Natasha left with the banker’s draft for the money Rico stole. He’s even more appalled at himself. Natasha did not give the money to Rico. Whatever she signed it was not the open sesame to the foreign bank account.

Leo and his security team dragoon Natasha from the airport and into his helicopter. Natasha is terrified how he treats her, thinks he might have his men dump her overboard and sits alone until they arrive at his island home (which she had not known of).

‘You came into our bedroom today expecting to see a cheating wife so you treated m-me like a cheating wife.’
‘I thought you had signed the money over to Rico. It—hurt me.’

p 266

Leo asks her what she wants. “‘A speedy way off this island and an even speedier divorce!’ she flicked out, then turned to walk back to the house.” Deal, he agreed, in exchange for one more night in my bed.” He pushes and pushes until finally Natasha sinks down on the steps and starts to cry. Finally they talk. Leo tells her that he loves her, is insanely jealous of Rico, that Gianna uses sex for love, that he was done with Gianna after she had conspired with Rico against them. Lovemaking ensues and Happy Ever After beckons.

Why The Greek’s Forced Bride Works

1. Excellent Characters. The main characters are Leo and Natasha who take up almost all the page count. Minor characters Cindy, Rico and Gianna each say a few lines, (or screech a few), yet all three are important to building romance between Natasha and Leo. Natasha’s parents, housekeeper Beatrice and security chief Rasmus have almost no page time but are present enough that we could pick them out of a crowd. By focusing our attention on Leo and Natasha Michelle Reid moves the story along and builds romantic and emotional tension between them and with us readers.

Cindy Natasha calls Cindy a “self-seeking, spoiled brat” and Cindy confirms that judgement by her actions and words:
1. She shows she is selfish, shallow, vindictive, immoral, without conscience when she has sex with Natasha’s fiancé after making sure that Natasha would visit Rico’s office that morning so Natasha will see them in action.
2. She confirms that when she verbally attacks Natasha, screeching at her to get out of her safe, derail their parents, claims she only did Natasha a favor, struts and throws threats around, then lies to her parents and later to her fans.
3. Cindy is cunning, uses her management company to put all blame on Natasha – in fact Natasha herself is a nobody that the media would never have noticed until Natasha stumbled into Leo’s orbit and Cindy used her to deflect attention from Rico.
3. Just in case we didn’t realize it, Cindy is a great manipulator, using residual love to con Natasha into seeing Rico.
Cindy is a great foil for Natasha in the story beginning: Cindy is successful, self-confident, pretty with a fashionably thin figure, demanding, while we see Natasha getting sick in the parking garage after seeing Cindy with RIco. As Natasha’s story develops we see Cindy as an ongoing contrast. Leo challenges Natasha to stop letting bullies block her, when they later see Cindy celebrating her top single in the news Natasha is confident enough to be glad for her, no longer wracked by insecurities about her looks or standing.

Rico has even less page time than Cindy but Leo is horribly jealous of him, every time Natasha mentions him Leo nearly attacks Natasha and uses sex to burn his image in her mind and kick out Rico from her thoughts. Leo considers Rico his “vain and shallow, gut-selfish stepbrother” which is accurate. Rico is just as manipulative and greedy as Cindy, as jealous of Leo as Leo is of him (but with far more reason).
1. Rico lies to Natasha to get her to open the overseas account.
2. Rico conspires with Gianna to set up Leo and Natasha.

The author leaves it vague why Rico and Cindy both attempt to smooth things with Natasha until Rico admits that even his own mother doesn’t like him now, and as Leo says, Rico depends on his mom for money. (Yes, he is a parasite.) Cindy simply wants to avoid blame.

Gianna is unstable, sad, with little integrity. We see this when she barges into Leo’s bedroom and screams at him for missing a date he never made, attacks Natasha verbally then and later with her nails. Gianna is the least developed character, about all we need to know about her is that she’s obsessed with Leo and hates herself.

Natasha’s Parents It’s no surprise to read that her parents adopted her then essentially froze her out when they had their miracle baby, Cindy. Her parents rush right past her to comfort Cindy for meanie Rico, completely ignore Natasha and ignore that both Rico and and Cindy betrayed Natasha. Natasha does not expect anything more than she gets from her folks, which is good since they act as though she might as well not exist. Later Natasha gets a standard commercial congratulations card from them wishing her happiness in her marriage – with no message to Leo, no hint of love or affection. Leo suggests they may feel guilty but Natasha knows they simply do not care; they have blocked her off.

Rasmus, Leo’s Security Chief Rasmus appears just a few times. Leo assigns him to shadow Natasha and it’s Rasmus who helps her out of the helicopter. We expect Rasmus to be taciturn, discrete, loyal but know nothing else about him.

Beatrice, Leo’s Housekeeper in Greece Beatrice is deeply loyal to Leo and adds Natasha to his orbit. She’s blunt when Leo is blunt, “Go make the nice babies now” but otherwise talks little.

Natasha Reid shows us Natasha, a reserved, cool, composed lady who falls apart when Leo touches her. The story begins when Natasha goes to Rico’s office to end their engagement because she’s almost certain he has been sleeping around despite their engagement. Natasha was flattered and captivated by Rico’s charm offensive because she has never been wanted or even loved before, not even by her adoptive parents. She wants someone to want her and was easy game for Rico. Rico chose Natasha to ingratiate himself with his mother who knows too well that he’s a feckless womanizer.

Leo has been obnoxious and sarcastic to Natasha and she doesn’t much like him. She quickly realizes that disliking Leo’s sarcasm does not immunizer her to his good looks or determined seduction and his pursuit invigorates her. Natasha doesn’t know why she falls in love with Leo, it is more than physical attraction and lovemaking and more than the fact he wants her. Leo annoys her, drives her up the wall, but she loves him.

Leo Reid does an outstanding job developing Leo. She uses his point of view and gives us peeks into his thinking and feeling and combines that with Natasha’s view and Leo’s actions. We end up knowing him at least as well as we do Natasha.

Leo is by nature faithful, loving, warm, demanding, loyal, truthful, trustworthy, has integrity and demands it in his friends and wife and family, is willing to go a very long way to help his friends and family. He does not, likely never did, love Gianna who has behaved horribly to him and later to Natasha, yet he takes care of her. He continually reinforces that they are done as a couple, that he does not want to sleep with her or bring her back into his life as anything other than someone he has an obligation to.

Leo claims at the end that he never believed Natasha a thief; contrast this with his thinking once PA Juno informs him that Rico deposited the stolen money into an account in Natasha’s name. He mentally called her a thief, castigated her for her prim exterior and himself for being taken in with her act. So did he truly never really think she was Rico’s confederate, that his nasty thoughts mainly were aimed at himself for being immensely attracted to her, while he thought she was in love with the wastrel Rico? “‘I have never, for one second, believed you were a thief,’ he denied. ‘I have a split personality. I can go wild with jealousy over Rico and can still recognize that you’re the most honest person I know.’”

The thieving charge was very difficult for Natasha; it got in the way of open dialogue and stopped her from telling Leo she loved him. At the same time it was a handy crutch for Leo early on, something he could always drag out of the closets in his mind to diminish her. It caused heartache for both. Leo doesn’t want Natasha to bring up the money yet he never tells her that.

I suspect that Leo did have two opposing views of Natasha-as-thief. One view is sheer shock that this innocent appearing, prim woman would have been party to theft and the other is nah, no way she knowingly stole anything. Of course Leo was very happy to use the thief charge to bring Natasha to Greece and into bed. As he says at the end, “I was fighting for my woman.” Leo does indeed have a split personality regarding Natasha with Rico.

Leo is driving himself nuts with Natasha. He wants her, loves her, torments himself wondering what she feels for Rico, at first isn’t sure whether she loves him, but later realizes that her every actions say she loves him. Throw in the thief thoughts and his guilty knowledge that he’s treated her with far less respect than she deserves and he’s a basket case.

Although The Greek’s Forced Bride is ostensibly about Natasha, it is in fact more about Leo. He pushes and pushes and pushes her the first week they are together, lets up a bit then reverts to pushing her to get a response when he kidnaps her to his island. Leo is happiest when he can plot and plan his hunt for Natasha and that revitalizes him. He tells her he is blindly, jealously in love with her, has been almost from the moment he saw her and we readers realize it’s the truth.

Overall

The Greeks Forced Bride has several bedroom encounters that are neither explicit nor fade to black, vivid enough for us to realize that Leo takes immense care with Natasha and they both enjoy their physical intimacy, their emotional intimacy. Leo is surprised Natasha was a virgin, delighted yes, but horrified that he was so pushy, was nearly brutal in how he talked to her, acted towards her and knows that he acted nearly unforgivably.

It was wonderful to see a man realize he had been acting like a jerk, propositioning a woman who was wounded by seeing her fiancé betray her with her own sister, then being ignored by her parents in favor of the same sister. I think seeing Leo face up to his behavior and his unremitting skunky treatment is the one of the best parts of the story.

I don’t usually care for books with a ton of bedroom scenes as too often the authors use smut instead of interaction and character development. The Greek’s Forced Bride is not smutty and uses the bed times to develop the characters along with their actions and speech.

About my only quibble with this is the last paragraph in the book. Leo and Natasha have both admitted they love each other, although Natasha says she has no idea why, and are kissing on the steps. Leo says THIS is why she loves him, and she agrees. We readers know it is far more than physical passion that binds these two and it’s unnerving to see the author denigrate their deep emotional, mental, spiritual and physical connection to only the physical.

5 Stars

I got my E book copy from Harlequin.com and read it on the Glose app. You can get E versions from Amazon or Barnes and Noble and many sites have paperback formats.

All Amazon links are paid ads.

Michelle Reid uses dialogue to drive the plot and show us the Leo and Natasha.

Wife by Agreement – Harlequin Presents by Kim Lawrence

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I liked Wife by Agreement the first time I read it. It was a “good book”, not excellent, but somehow it stuck with me and I reread it. Then reread again. And again. And again. Finally I realized that it resonates so much it is better than “good”. Try “Excellent”.

Why? What about this simple-appearing romance appeals so much? Let’s take a quick look at the plot, then delve into why this book is one I reach for when I’m tired or just want a pleasant, happy time.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Avoid Spoilers

Hannah married Ethan Kemp a year ago. Although she calls him “Ethan” and they visit his friends together and she has the bedroom next to his, they still relate to each other as nanny and employer. Ethan was widowed three years earlier and after several nannies lasted only a few months, leaving his 5 year old daughter Emma wary and unhappy, Ethan decided to marry Hannah when he thought she too might be considering marriage.

Hannah accepted because she loves Ethan, loves Emma and 3 year old Tom, and although she knew he felt nothing for her, decided to risk heartbreak and take what she could. What she gets was essentially nothing. Ethan remains disinterested, leaves early, gets home late, rarely talks to Hannah. He is a loving father and spends what time he has with his children, never with her.

Besides Ethan’s indifference, Hannah’s main problems are lack of time with people she likes, the oppressive feeling of living in a shrine to Ethan’s beautiful and ultra-talented first wife Catherine, and his former mother-in-law Alexa. Alexa constantly belittles Hannah and makes sure she realizes that she could never match up to the incomparable Catherine.

Wife by Agreement opens when Hannah comes home around 1 AM, scratched and bruised from jumping out of a moving car. She had gone out for a drink after her evening French class with several others and took a ride home with Craig who turned out to be a louche. Hannah figures she can get in without anyone knowing she had been so foolish, but Ethan is still up and he gets angry. In fact he’s nasty, attacks Hannah for unwisely accepting a ride with a man she does not know, putting herself at risk and she ought to stop taking French classes.

Hannah retorts that she likes French class, that she goes on her night off (Ethan objects to that term, she’s not the nanny but his wife and can have any night off), that she doesn’t intend to quit class.

The next day Hannah’s French teacher Jean-Paul visits and asks her to reconsider dropping his class and more, wants her to pursue a degree. Hannah is furious that Ethan so arrogantly quit for her and intrigued to get a degree. She left school before taking A levels because she had aged out of the foster care system and worked several bad jobs while she trained as a nanny. Hannah became a nanny because she like kids, had no way to pursue more education and the jobs provide room and board.

As Jean-Paul is leaving Hannah retrieves his glasses from Tom when Alexa walks in.

‘Does Ethan know you entertain your men whilst he is out working?’ Alexa settled herself into the chair Jean-Paul had vacated. ‘I expect you’ve been playing up a couple of scratches for all it’s worth.

Chapter 2

Alexa exaggerates the incident to Ethan as yet another example of Hannah being unworthy, incapable, careless with the children. That night Ethan is mostly angry because up to now he has shoved Hannah into the back of his mind, she’s in a box marked no-trouble/needs nothing, and now she’s causing all sorts of upsets to the household. He wants everything to be smooth, placid, peaceful.

‘No, you married me because you wanted a low-maintenance wife who would make as little impact as possible on your life!’ … He flinched as the accuracy of her husky accusation hit him. … He wanted things back to normal. At the end of the day he could always come home knowing she would have coped with any household crises with quiet efficiency, his children would be happy and content and nobody would make any emotional demands on him. He hadn’t realized how much he’d come to rely on this small oasis of peace until he’d been unexpectedly deprived of it.

Chapter 3

Up to now Hannah has clothes shopped with Ethan’s colleague’s wife (at Ethan’s request) who has horrible taste, but Hannah goes elsewhere for the next party and buys a few lovely, becoming and rather sexy dresses, gets her hair cut and highlighted and looks nothing like the nonentity she was at past parties. Ethan is wary of the change, he doesn’t want to Hannah to rock the boat because he likes his life just as it is yet he’s attracted to Hannah and decides to seduce her.

After the party – where Ethan was furious with the attention Hannah attracted – Ethan and Hannah get home. Surprise! Ethan’s widowed mother is visiting. And she’s getting married. Moreover, she has Drew with her, 35, good looking, a bit scruffy with a back pack. Drew instantly notices Hannah is wary, stiff and sore, bruised, looks at Ethan glaring murder at him and figures Ethan’s been hurting Hannah. Hannah tells him it’s fine and goes to bed.

She wakes up screaming from a nightmare, knocks a lamp over and both Drew and Ethan come in. Ethan shoves Drew out of the room with a few insults then seduces Hannah. This begins a halcyon few weeks when Ethan and Hannah make love, spend some time together, have a marriage.

Alexa can’t stand this. She is at Hannah’s when Jean-Paul calls to ask her to come discuss a degree and offers to take care of Tom and pick up Emma. She lets Emma wait a while and calls Ethan, frantic. Hannah abandoned the kids, forgot Emma at school, all to pursue her own pleasure.

Ethan believes her. Hannah tells him it is not true, that Alexa hates her for usurping Catherine’s place but Ethan refuses to consider this. Why would Alexa lie? Clearly Hannah is moving on, doesn’t care for the kids or him, is using them as a stepping stone. Hannah is horribly hurt. She loves the kids, Ethan won’t believe her and he says there is no “us”, she was convenient and he had needs, and that as for the house, she’s the hired help.

A couple weeks later Hannah and Ethan have the kids at a downtown hotel for Faith’s wedding. Ethan is cutting, disparaging, hurtful. Hannah has Emma’s hand when her hat blows off, she lets go of Emma for a second, long enough for the little girl to run across the busy street. Hannah drops everything, charges after her. She manages to toss Emma out of the way of the car before she is hit.

Ethan is horror-struck. He saw it all. Now he’s waiting at the emergency room to find out whether Hannah will live or have permanent damage. The doctor tells him she had been pregnant but lost the baby in the accident. Ethan tries to comfort Hannah but she won’t let him. She won’t talk about the baby. Both are grieving.

Ethan overhears Alexa apologizing to Hannah for sowing anger and discord and he’s appalled at his own behavior. Hannah tells Alexa and him that it no longer matters. She’s numb, so badly hurt. She doesn’t even care when Ethan apologizes, says he loves her, she tells him she married him for love, not security. “But don’t worry, mistrust and suspicion did what complete neglect couldn’t.”

Later Hannah has coffee with an old friend who came to her for help and learns that Ethan has been giving pro bono time to a trust that helps people find their way. She realizes she still loves him and visits his chambers. She apologizes for saying such awful things and she still loves him. They make love, Ethan burns their prenuptial agreement and sets off the fire alarm and sprinklers. HEA.

Technical Quality

This romance novel started off with a bang. Right away in first scene we see Hannah is wary of Ethan, that he takes her for granted, that things are changing. Both interact on page 2. Author skillfully lets us see Ethan growing frustrated with Hannah changing and rebelling (in his mind) and Hannah, fed up after turning herself inside out to ease his life, when he attacks her for the first ripple in the smooth water.

Kim Lawrence builds the tension, slowly then accelerates to the heartbreaking crisis when Ethan claims Hannah neglects the kids. Hannah is optimistic when Ethan makes love to her, sees them develop a true marriage, only to have it crash when Ethan believes Alexa instead of her. She isn’t completely surprised since Ethan had never taken her side with Alexa no matter how poisonous the comments, but Hannah had been hoping Ethan might eventually love her.

The pacing follows the same arc as the emotional tension: a bang, then accelerating followed by slower, more poignant scenes, then very fast at the emotional peak, then gently retarding as Ethan struggles, realizing he may have lost the woman he loved, and Hannah blind by grief and bitterness. This pacing is very well done.

Lawrence sets the slow, emotional scene where Ethan teaches Hannah to swim and they make love immediately before the cruel confrontation where Ethan accuses Hannah of abandoning and neglecting his children. That gives us readers time to catch our breath and see the growing love and care, the increasing warmth and time together before Ethan rips it apart with Alexa’s lies. Perfect contrast in pace, tension and emotions.

Characters

Alexa, Ethan’s former mother in law. “Alexa Harding had been horrified when she’d learnt that the nanny was to take her daughter’s place. Having any woman take Catherine’s place would have been hard for her to accept, but the fact that Hannah was, in her eyes, menial household help made the situation unacceptable to the older woman.” Alexa cannot accept Hannah, sees her as stealing Catherine’s place, resents that the children’s love Hannah as their mom.

She never lets a chance go by to run down Hannah, to compare her to Ethan’s first wife who was gorgeous, owned her own company and was an Olympic-level rider. “Catherine never let personal discomfort stop her doing what she wanted. She wasn’t afraid of anything!’ Alexa’s laugh was shrill. … And I’m sure Ethan remembers what he lost every time he looks at you,’ she sneered.

Finally Alexa snaps when Ethan asks her to take the kids while he and Hannah go on a belated honeymoon. She first offers to take care of Tom and pick up Emma from school so Hannah can talk to the college about a degree course, then she lies to Ethan. She lets Emma wait alone at her school so she can accuse Hannah of forgetting about her!

Hannah is more horrified that Alexa could do that to Emma than she is that Alexa lied – Alexa did everything she could to tear Hannah down – and she is heartbroken that Ethan believed her. She heard Alexa’s apology but was too numb and hurt to verbally offer forgiveness.

Faith, Ethan’s Mother. Faith doesn’t have a big part, mostly serves to observe and create plot points. Hannah is surprised that Faith is so friendly when she visits before her wedding. ‘‘I knew Ethan didn’t love you, and in my view marriage with love is hard enough, but without it…’ She lifted her shoulders expressively. “I could also see you loved him.’ Her blue eyes grew compassionate as she watched the colour flee dramatically from Hannah’s face. ‘I didn’t want to see you hurt.’

Faith comments that she is surprised that Hannah had not changed the home’s décor. Ethan is put out, ‘And Hannah knows perfectly well she can do anything she wants to the house.’ ‘From the expression on her face I’d say she might have felt more comfortable if you had told her that, Ethan.’

Drew, Faith’s To-Be Stepson Drew makes Ethan jealous, horribly, horribly jealous when he finds Drew in Hannah’s room when she has a nightmare. This is the impetus for Ethan to make love to Hannah.

Drew is an interesting person in his own right and it would be fun to read a romance with him as the hero. A couple years earlier his fiancée dumped him the day before their wedding because she thought he would need to have his suit removed surgically by the time he was 40. He sold his business clothes, took a leave from his banking job and went around the world. His dad caught up with him in Patagonia and this is where Faith met both of them. Drew is good looking, kind, fun and attracted to Hannah, a good spur for Ethan!

Ethan. Hannah’s Husband and Employer. Ethan is the most complex character and Lawrence shows him to us through Hannah and Ethan’s own point of view.

Ethan’s first wife, Catherine left two children, one 3 and the other an infant, when she died, leaving Ethan to find a nanny to care for his kids. Hannah knows Ethan is devoted to his children, enough to marry her in fact, and she admires him for this. He does not spend very much time with them as they are usually asleep when he gets home from work but he makes them his priority when possible. (She wishes she could be his priority too, but chastises herself for wanting even more when she has so much.)

Everyone says Ethan was devastated when Catherine died; everyone believes he was deeply in love with her and was filled with grief. In fact he and Catherine had drifted apart; she prized her accomplishments and public acclaim more than she cared for the kids or Ethan. Of course Ethan keeps this to himself. He doesn’t seem to realize (or care) how his silence and comments from Alexa and his friends affect Hannah, or how much his house feels to her like a shrine to Catherine with many photos and her medals and awards displayed prominently.

Hannah remembers the first time she hosted a dinner party with Ethan and his friend’s wife compared Hannah – dull and quiet – to the so much better Catherine. Ethan looked resigned and bleak and he barely defended Hannah beyond saying she is bright and he doesn’t care for the friend’s snobbishness.

Ethan started to story seeing Hannah as just another piece of furniture, ambulatory and loving to his kids, but unnecessary to him and simply there. “‘I took your contribution to this house pretty much for granted,’ Ethan continued, noting her expression with a look of satisfaction.” Hannah tells him off at one point, that she twisted herself into knots to give him the smooth, placid home he wanted and she is angry that just one false step causes him to accuse her of looking for excitement and on the verge of looking for an affair. Ethan is confident in her Hannah V1, but Hannah V2 challenges him immensely and he does not like it.

Ethan starts to see Hannah as a separate person when she comes home beat up from jumping out of a moving car. He’s flabbergasted she would do that, worried that she’s somehow inviting trouble, disquieted that she has a personality, quiet yes, but not a doormat and not solely a docile childminder. He insults her by saying she’s trouble and he’s not happy about it.

Ethan’s view of Hannah continues to evolve when Hannah reacts to his insults by dressing the way she likes, acting more the way she feels, saying more what she thinks. She still is quiet, peaceful, helpful, willing to stay in the background, do what she needs to provide Ethan a sanctuary, but she’s not going to put up with his silly assumption that she’s now looking for an affair or has completely changed or is willing to quit night class. The more he annoys her, the more Hannah acts like herself, and the more he finds he both likes and is afraid of the changes.

Once we know that Catherine was distant, cold to Ethan and to her children, then we can understand Ethan’s reactions to Hannah. Initially he simply wants her there, essentially as a nanny who can’t quit, a nonentity in his life, essential to his children. He claims later that he would never have married her without feeling a great deal more, but his thoughts at the beginning say otherwise. He may have realized she was a very good deal and could come to mean something more, but I don’t think she did, not at first.

Later Ethan is intrigued. He has been celibate for three years and Hannah is right there, in the room next to his, only a door between. He’s going to think sexually about her regardless of his emotions. Once he sees her as a person he isn’t able to think clearly about Hannah without his feelings about Catherine, about his children, his mother, his friends swirling around in his mind about his wife. He’s intrigued, starts to notice more, begins to listen to her, challenges her to express herself (and isn’t happy with what she says!), physically attracted to her. It’s how many of us respond when we find someone we might want to love.

He’s falling in love, realizes he loves Hannah, and he’s scared. Things are changing and he’s not sure he can cope with a wife who is his equal at his side. He’s not sure he wants to be in love or whether he’d prefer their earlier quiet, sterile non-relationship. Also, if Hannah is his equal, then she needs and deserves part of him, deserves his time and trust and attention, and her wants and desires are just as important as his.

Why does he believe Alexa? As Hannah says, he has zero reason to think she’d abandon the kids, zero reason to think so badly of her, she had never been anything other than reliably loving and always put them first. Yet Ethan condemns her without even considering what she might say. He had to realize Alexa is bitter, grieving, possibly blames him, certainly blames Hannah, but he chooses to believe Alexa instead of his own lying eyes.

It’s tempting to say he is frightened of his own feelings with his heart frozen, and that is part, but I think the bigger reason is that he doesn’t want to have to factor in another adult, his equal, who might want other things than he wants her to want. Ethan liked it when Hannah put his kids and him first, now she’s asking for herself. (Actually she isn’t asking, she is simply doing, but always leaving her family as top priority.) Hannah says at the start of the story that “Ethan could be mind-bogglingly selfish at times”. He is also a little scared and it’s so much easier to push Hannah aside, blame her, and after he does it once, it’s very tough to apologize and backtrack.

We don’t know how long it is between the confrontation where he accuses Hannah of neglect and Faith’s wedding, maybe around two weeks, but that is plenty of time for Ethan to harden his heart and keep it hard, especially when “the sight of her bewildered, distressed face hurt too much…what he’d find ‘incredibly easy’ would be taking her in his arms and kissing her.” But “he couldn’t let himself be sucked in again.”

Once Hannah shoves her care and love for Emma in Ethan’s face he has to face himself. Once he learns that she knew she was pregnant but had not told him, he has to face how he treated her. Once he hears her fear that Emma is hurt, that she knows Ethan will blame her for letting go of Emma’s hand, he has to realize exactly how much he destroyed the trust and growing love. Once he hears Alexa admit she lied out of jealousy it is too late. Hannah will think any apology is because Alexa lied, not because he knows Hannah and trusts her. She’s not going to believe his hooey any more. Oops.

It is only because Hannah truly loves him and doesn’t want to live in an emotional desert that they get back together. Ethan apologizes but obviously has no clue what to do next. Thankfully Hannah is able to overcome the gut wrenching hurt that Ethan inflicted, allows him to apologize and forgives him. She is even big enough to apologize for saying he was glad their baby died when she knows that his is not happy at all.

Overall

Kim Lawrence does an excellent character study of Ethan wrapped up in a category romance. On the surface Hannah is the main character and we mostly have her point of view but she does not change much, she begins the story as a complete character (albeit not one that Ethan sees) and ends the story richer and blessed, but still the same warm person. Ethan changes as he recognizes Hannah as the wife he truly is lucky to have.

5 Stars

I got my E copy from Harlequin.com and read it on Glose. You can find Wife by Agreement in Nook E format from Barnes and Noble and from Amazon in Kindle and paperback. (Harlequin has frequent sales.)

All Amazon links are paid ads.

Sister to Meryl – Intense Vintage Romance Nerina Hilliard

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Sister to Meryl is the first novel I read from author Nerina Hilliard. She wrote science fiction short stories and plays but we know her best for lovely vintage romance novels with strong-willed heroines and heroes who fall in love the hard way. Sister to Meryl is my hands-down favorite of the seven novels I’ve read from her.

I like this because the heroine, Christine, will do almost anything to save her sister from a lifetime of regret and that “anything” includes marrying the man her sister is infatuated with, then tricking her brand new husband by fleeing down the fire escape after the coerced wedding. Wow. Sister to Meryl has all the elements: strong-willed heroine with strong moral principles, a hard, strong hero who melts into goo around the heroine, wonderful side characters, fun plot – blackmail, forced marriage, spiffy escape, near death, Rio, amnesia, realizing love at the hospital bedside, yacht cruise around the Mediterranean, Paris nighties.

Let’s start with the plot which is a doozy.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

Christine is worried about her sister traveling on an extended Caribbean holiday when Meryl’s letters start talking more about Julian Galveston than about her husband. Christine checks the back files at the newspaper where she works and discovers Julian has a very bad reputation, his name linked to many women as a debauched playboy.

When Meryl gets home she shocks Christine by admitting she intends to leave her husband and go away with Julian, that they are in love. The distraught husband talks to Christine who agrees to try to stop the affair. (The story implies Julian and Meryl are not sleeping together but Meryl is unfaithful emotionally.)

Christine cannot talk Meryl out of believing she loves Julian, in fact Meryl gets more obstinate, finally Christine goes to see Julian, accuses him of trying to steal Meryl from her husband. Julian laughs, says he is not in love with Meryl, that he’s not responsible for the foolish ways women respond to him, refuses to end things with Meryl. He offers to let Christine take Meryl’s place and asks her out.

Christine refuses, leaves. Julian says she will be back, and indeed after commiserating with Meryl’s ineffectual husband, Christine reluctantly returns to Julian, agrees to go to dinner with him. She does not trust Julian, doesn’t like him but she is unwillingly attracted to him. They date several times and Christine attacks him for his poor morals, the fact he doesn’t respect marriage vows, the way he seduces and leads women on, all based on his reputation. With her Julian displays none of these characteristics and treats Christine with great respect.

Christine has a good friend, Tom, and a very good friend and coworker Jane. Christine has no romantic interest in Tom but he offers to date her, even to pretend to be engaged if it will push Julian off. Jane tells Christine that it seems to her that Julian is in love with her and that Christine is in love right back. Christine doesn’t want to even think about this. How can a womanizer actually love someone? “His type of man” doesn’t do love!

Finally Christine gets her chance to show Meryl that Julian is a cad. Meryl’s husband takes her to The Retreat, a fancy nightclub/restaurant the same evening Meryl is dancing there with Julian. Christine agrees she belongs to Julian but dodges when he tries to propose to her. Then Meryl sees them together.

Christine knows Julian will be there the next night and goes with Tom to give Julian the brush off. Tom claims that he and Christine are engaged. By now Christine is conflicted. She is attracted to Julian, feels a strong bond to him, but keeps pushing him and her feelings away based on her prejudice from reading about his reputation. Julian treats her with immense respect and care but Christine cannot let go of her predetermined viewpoint.

Julian picks her up after work the next day and she insults him even more, refuses to say Tom made up their engagement, will not admit to liking Julian or his kisses, finally says “”there’s something in all of us – something horrible – and your type of man always knows how to reach it!” Julian is furious and tells Christine that he will live up to the black character she gave him.

The next day Meryl’s husband tell Christine that she’s leaving to go with Julian to Rio on Julian’s yacht. Christine cannot dissuade Meryl, in fact Meryl is vicious, claims Christine threw herself at Julian and is after Julian’s money.

Christine is heartsick and knows she must offer herself to Julian to keep Meryl safe. She goes to him and agrees to marriage, wondering whether she can duck out after the ceremony and lose herself to avoid living with him. Julian states he wants her, he intends to have her and he needs a mistress for his family home and a wife to give him children.

They get married in a civil ceremony and a have a small reception in Julian’s apartment. Julian’s aunt Helen introduces herself and mentions how glad she is that Julian found Christine, that he was glowing with joy when he came to tell her – the night before The Retreat date. Christine wonders whether Julian possibly could truly love her since he intended marriage all along, but she shoves those ideas down out of her mind, gets Helen to leave her alone to change in Julian’s bedroom, then locks the door and goes out the window to the fire escape.

Jane and her sister’s husband are waiting for Christine down below and they go to the sister’s home for a few months where she works in the husband’s office. Christine worries about Julian finding her and feels vaguely ashamed of herself for tricking him, but she convinces herself that Julian could not possibly feel anything sincere for her and that she is only attracted physically.

Jane’s family throws Christine a surprise birthday party and she finds a leftover card and on impulse sends it to Julian signed “from your loving wife” and sent it without a return address. A few days later Julian finds her and forces her to his home, Galveston Chase. He asks whether she can get by the fact he forced her to marry him and start over, but she is intransigent. They have dinner then he comes to her bedroom and seduces Christine. The entire time she says she hates him but she kisses and holds onto him as if to stay forever.

Julian is gone the next morning. Christine is mortified that she responded to him sexually, remembers that she was gloriously happy, that he held her gently and lovingly after while she sobbed how she hated him. Christine sees a news story that Julian is joining an expedition to Brazil and she is hurt that he didn’t bother to tell her. (Julian wrote her a note but she didn’t see it.) She goes back to Jane’s family.

Four months after the delayed wedding night Helen comes to take Christine with her to Brazil where Julian is near death after getting shot with a poisoned arrow and a bad head wound and concussion. The minute Christine sees him she realizes she does love Julian, that she has loved him all along. Julian has amnesia but he semi recognizes Christine, knows she is important to him, and regains his will to live. Helen gives her Julian’s delayed note where he says he loves her and will somehow find a way to free her from the marriage without divorce. Reading this Christine realizes that Julian had hoped to die from his wounds.

Once Julian heals they return to Galveston Chase, happy together, but Julian cannot remember anything. Christine knows they have a chance now to start over the right way, with love. Julian can’t remember their wedding and wants to remarry her before they sleep together, which tells Christine how much he respects her.

They go on a several month honeymoon cruise and are very happy together, Christine knows now that Julian loves her and that she loves him. She buys an enticing nightie in Paris that both she and Julian enjoy and it becomes a bit of a private joke.

Christine runs into Tom at a port and has coffee with him; when Julian sees them together he remembers everything and thinks that Christine has been pretending all along, that she still wants Tom, that she does not want him. Christine gets angry and tells Julian he is stupid, blind as a bat and won’t listen to her! Finally Julian believes her and HEA.

There is a nice epilogue a few months later when Christine is pregnant. Meryl writes to apologize and to admit that her romance with Julian was mostly wishful thinking. Christine tells Julian that she is so glad she came to “rescue” Meryl since it brought her so much happiness, living with him is like living in a rose colored dream.

Characters

The main characters, Christine and Julian, are vivid, feel real, act real, talk real. There are several side characters who play strong roles – Aunt Helen, Friend Jane, Friend OM Tom – and others with cameo appearances who have personalities despite their small roles. Let’s cover the smaller roles first.

Meryl We see very little of Meryl, Christine’s wayward sister. She kicks off the story by writing to Christine about meeting Julian and spending time with him while she and her husband vacation. In those letters Meryl seems like a star-struck kid, someone living in a fantasy world where she’s got her nose pressed against the glass watching Julian dazzle.

She appears once to tell off Christine for trying to steal Julian when she acts like a spoilt brat with a nasty mouth. Christine could have washed her hands of Meryl and Julian at this point; Meryl clearly intends to go her own selfish way despite how she hurts her husband or ruins her own reputation. The fact that Christine does not simply walk away at this point gives us evidence that she’s not going back to Julian purely for Meryl’s sake. Even a loving, dedicated sister would be hard pressed to give in to a man she detests solely to save her sister’s marriage after the sister attacks her viciously.

The mea culpa letter at the end that exonerates Julian completely is a nice touch. It gives Christine the opportunity to tell Julian she knew he was innocent of trying to inveigle Meryl even without Meryl’s evidence. The author uses little touches like this throughout the story to build the case that the love is real.

Meryl’s Husband This guy is a wimp! He doesn’t seem to have any idea how to keep his wife and relies on his sister in law to keep Meryl away from Julian. Meryl’s Husband (MH) is a cipher about whom we know little except that he’s rich, can take months off on vacation (in other words, he’s not running his own business full time like contemporary alpha HP heroes do), and loves his wife.

It looks as though MH tries to stop her incipient adultery by talking to her, trying to convince her that she love him, not Julian. Not sure what the right approach would have been but talking clearly was not it!

Doctor in Rio The small, portly doctor in Rio is on page in only two scenes, but both helped Christine realize how important she is to Julian. First he tells Christine that Julian doesn’t seem to want to live, then that he’s improved and will live since she arrived. Both are important because Christine has just realized she loves Julian but has not fully accepted that he loves her.

The Supporting Characters are Tom, Aunt Helen and Jane. All three do their best to help Christine realize that she and Julian are in love and are meant to be together.

Tom Christine and Tom are friends, good friends and neighbors, with no romance although Tom could easily fall for her. Tom cares enough for Christine to offer himself as a buffer to Julian, a fake date, a fake fiancé and finally an outside viewpoint.

As Christine’s romance with Julian intensifies her relationship with Tom becomes weaker, solely friendship. Julian takes Christine to The Retreat for dinner and dancing and Tom takes her the next night. Christine watches Julian the whole time she and Tom dance. Julian comes over and Tom claims he just got Christine to accept his proposal; Julian isn’t completely convinced until he talks to Christine privately the next day.

Tom makes it clear to Christine that he gladly will marry her and suggests she is in love with Julian and that Julian loves her. He leaves for Canada almost immediately after his date with Christine. Later when Julian takes Christine to his home he tells her he knew she had gone with Tom. I inferred that Julian truly viewed Tom as his rival and wasn’t certain that Christine didn’t love him.

Christine should have listened to Tom but she did not. Later, when she runs into him while she and Julian are on their honeymoon cruise, Tom tells her that he thought Meryl was spoilt, had pretty much chased Julian and imagined that he had loved her. This time Christine agrees with Tom although she still finds it hard to criticize Meryl even in her mind.

Aunt Helen In some romances the author has to rely on a 3rd party to shed light, explain, push the hero and heroine together, the “Well, John, it’s like this…” method. That is most unsatisfying, far better when authors use a third party to hint or show, not tell, which is how author Hilliard uses Aunt Helen.

Helen challenges Christine with her feelings for Julian and helps her to understand his horrible upbringing. His father did everything he could to kill any warm feelings or sense of loyalty or high moral standards that Julian had.

I liked Helen as a character and author Hilliard embedded her “Well, John” explanations into the story enough that they were not annoying although I do not care for this expository technique. (It’s fast and effective though.)

Jane is great! She listens to Christine, supports and helps her to run from Julian even though she does not believe that Christine is wise. She emphatically states several times that she believes Julian loves Christine, and even that Christine is nowhere near indifferent to nor dislikes him. Jane believes there is a lot of gray in Julian and in Julian’s relationship to Meryl and to Christine and she says so.

Jane forces Christine to confront herself, tells her bluntly that she is being unfair to Julian. After Christine returns home from their delayed wedding night Jane backs off some but is still there as the good angel on Christine’s shoulder urging her to honesty and to challenge her feelings and attitudes. Even though Jane never meets Meryl she clearly doesn’t buy Christine’s blindness towards her sister’s faults; likely Christine doesn’t recognize her own ambiguous thoughts when talking to her best friend.

Jane enlists her brother to help Christine escape, gets her family to make her welcome and to find a job, she gives practical and emotional support. Jane does not let Christine run down Julian nor is she a one of those friends who agrees with everything; Jane challenges Christine over and over about her misconceptions about Julian.

Most of us would love to have a friend like Jane: fair, honest, willing to listen, to give practical help and advice, but not slavishly devoted as to never challenge one to be better, to be honest, to give someone (and ourselves) a chance.

Julian Julian is the most interesting person in this story. He explains himself: “When a man thinks he has lost all his ideals and then one day he finds everything he thought he had lost done up in one attractive parcel, he knows he has to get them back somehow…” Christine refuses to believe that he is serious, that he loves her, regards these comments as those of a practiced philanderer, but we readers can see that just maybe Julian is serious.

Julian has moral standards that aren’t obvious from his past behavior. He did not entice Meryl, Meryl tried to entice him. He did not force Christine to be his mistress but married her. He was willing to die from his injuries to free her when he realized (wrongly as it turned out) that she hated him. He insists he remarries Christine before sleeping with her when he could not remember their wedding. He was willing to let her go to marry Tom when he thought she had been pretending to love him.

Julian shows one flaw initially, then later a second. First he is ruthless when he wants Christine. Second he can’t accept that she loves him. Julian is incredibly hurt when Christine lies in his arms crying how she hates him after they sleep together. He cannot stop loving her but he cannot face further rejection. He leaves for Brazil and later when he regains his memory Julian is determined to free her to go to Tom. He remembers how she cried and hated him, and he is confused about the honeymoon months. It’s easier to believe Christine still hates him and has been pretending than to take a chance.

Christine Christine has two main flaws that prevent her from immediately finding happiness with Julian.

  • Christine is foolish and blind about her sister Meryl.
  • She sees people in black and white. Meryl is all good, therefore Julian must be all bad. Even when she realizes Meryl is wrong she refuses to believe that Julian had not inveigled her away from her husband. When she sees Julian has good qualities she pushes those out of her mind and grimly, doggedly holds on to her prejudice about his past. A man like him could never love someone!

We see these flaws immediately. She worries when Meryl writes her about Julian, digs out news articles about his past, immediately assumes that Julian had pursued Meryl. Even when MH suggests that it was accidental that Julian traveled home on the same ship as Meryl, Christine refused to consider that, surely it was no accident. Julian must have targeted Meryl!

Later when Christine knows Julian better, even when she agrees that she belongs to him, she cannot stop seeing him as a super villain, almost a caricature. She clings to this belief, hugs it to herself, uses it to justify her behavior.

After the traumatic wedding night Christine goes back to Jane’s family and for a week or so is partly in shock at the emotional storm Julian raised in her and partly shocked and horribly hurt that he left the next day. She at first tosses it off as he was bored after sleeping with her once, later, especially after Helen told her men don’t get bored after one night, starts to wonder what really happened. She slowly softens towards Julian. She enjoyed intercourse with Julian, responded with ardor and emotion to him and that colors her attitude.

The trigger for Christine to realize her flaws are preventing happiness, and even in effect are killing Julian, is seeing him so weak and near death in Rio. She realizes she loves him and it doesn’t matter what he’s done and that he loves her. I don’t think she could have had such a revelation had she not spent four months away, had time to think and to understand her own feelings.

Why Sister to Meryl Is So Good

Sister to Meryl is one of the best romances I have read. Here’s why:

  • Author Hilliard creates complex characters who feel real and who act the way real people act.
  • Hilliard uses dialogue and actions – plot – to drive the story, which is Christine’s and Julian’s emotional journey.
  • Christine’s flaws are real. They are far more subtle than flaws in more contemporary Harlequin Presents and they are flaws in character.
  • The sex scene is fade to black yet intense.
  • Author uses a familiar framework:
    • Act 1 starts with a bang and shows Christine’s flaws on page 3. She meets Julian and refuses to believe he is anything other than a heartless womanizer.
    • Act 2 ratchets the action and dialogue. Christine is increasingly desperate to free first Meryl, then herself, from Julian. She frees herself physically but now is caught emotionally.
    • Act 3 begins in the hospital when Meryl realizes she loves Julian.
    • There is a second revelation when Julian regains his memory and finally believes Christine loves him.

Usually in Harlequins the hero redeems himself, converts from his selfish/immoral/bullying/belittling behavior to become decent, to love the heroine. In Sister to Meryl Julian is never completely bad and in moral terms he turns himself around from past the minute he meets Christine. It is in fact Julian, with Jane’s help, who redeems Christine. And later, it is Christine who redeems Julian.

Overall

5 stars.

I got my copy from Thriftbooks and you can usually find copies of Sister to Meryl on eBay and other used book sites.

Rightful Possession Romance by Sally Wentworth

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I’m reviewing Rightful Possession because I wanted to understand how Sally Wentworth make the story work when it should not. I’m going to analyze the story events, characters and structure in this long review because Rightful Possession is the essence of a successful Harlequin romance.

5 Stars

The plot here is straightforward but the romance and the story are not. Basic plot is:

  1. Genista is an airline hostess (flight attendant), a job still semi-glamorous in 1978 when Rightful Possession is published. Genista shares a flat with Lynn, her best friend and fellow stewardess.
  2. Genista’s brother Kevin invents stuff but has no money sense. An acquaintance tells him he can get his invention tested but the “friend” says he can’t access his money until tomorrow and can’t Kevin find the cash today and get repaid tomorrow. Kevin embezzles the money from his employer’s payroll, figuring he can repay the money the next day and never hurt anyone. Of course the con man runs off with the cash. Kevin is jailed in Paris after employer files charges.
  3. Genista flies right over to her brother, hears it’s only a small amount of money, goes to see the company owner, Marc. Marc refuses to let her brother off, and when Genista offers repayment herself, explains that Kevin’s “small amount” was 10,000 pounds, an enormous sum, roughly $200,000 in today’s money. Marc tells her to stop wasting his time and Genista loses it, tells him off. (She’s exhausted by this point after working the entire previous day and night.)
  4. Marc offers her a deal. He needs a hostess who understands and can work with international business people, who speaks multiple languages. He’ll marry her in “an almost business deal”, where she shows up to do her wifely duties then fades away until he needs her again. Genista assumes “business deal” means hostess duties, not sleeping with him but Marc means the full wifely shebang.
  5. He insists on Genista replacing her wardrobe with deluxe designer outfits, marries her, then they go to his Greek island for a few days. There they have the major disagreement as to her duties. Marc agrees to give her another day to get used to the idea.
  6. Genista escapes the villa, walks to the small port and gets passage off the island with a fisherman while Marc is out sailing. Unfortunately fisherman can’t leave until evening and Marc discovers she’s gone and manages to catch them in mid-sail, drags her off and drags her to bed.
  7. Genista tries to tell him she’s never slept with a man before but Marc won’t believe it given the reputation stewardesses had (this is about 10 years after the sleazy Coffee Tea or Me?) and rapes her. Once he realizes she told the truth he tries to court her, show her what love can be, but she refuses to respond and he loses patience and rapes her again.
  8. Once Marc’s asleep Genista goes out to the beach, swims out in the bay, gets a cramp and is in danger with tide carrying her out. Marc rescues her and accuses her of trying to drown herself; Genista tells him yes, she’d rather die than spend another night with him. He is horrified.
  9. They go back to his French chateau and she picks up her hostess duties. Marc promises to leave her alone.
  10. Housekeeper Madam Hermant tries to undermine Genista, refuses to take direction on a dinner party, until Genista tosses that aside and insists on taking over. The next parties are great fun and Marc is pleased and Genista begins to enjoy this aspect of her job. Marc is always affectionate at these parties and praises her to his guests, which disgusts Genista because she sees it as hypocrisy.
  11. Marc buys her a diamond bracelet and she has to face facts. She’s stuck with Marc and 5 years is a long time to hate anyone. She lets go of her hate – still dislikes and distrusts him – but decides to make the best of things. This is the major turning point.
  12. Genista discovers she can slip off the watchdog chauffeur by going to the beauty salon and slipping out the back door. She meets up with both Lynn and her brother this way and tells them she had to marry Marc for repayment but doesn’t tell either of them about the rape or how much she detests him.
  13. It helps that Marc’s old friend Ally shows up, pays extravagant compliments and offers her friendship.
  14. Things proceed in a more-or-less normal fashion. Genista enjoys her work and is beginning to see Marc in a better light although she still despises him for raping her and pretending to care about her in public. He’s always cordial in private but reserved. Genista starts to see that they could be reasonably happy together, although the sex part is still a wall between them.
  15. Genista pawns her bracelet to give Kevin money for his invention. Madame Hermant finds out and makes trouble.
  16. Marc takes Genista back to the island where she realizes she’s falling for him. They kiss and he starts to make love to her until she tenses up and he lets her go before going back to the village. She has mixed feelings now, wanting something more than a dreary business relationship but not quite ready to love.
  17. Marc’s former fiancée, Adrienne, shows up. Marc avoids her at parties but Madame Hermant tells Genista that Marc and Adrienne are waiting only for Adrienne’s husband to die before they marry. This puts Genista’s wakening feelings on ice. Marc gets hurt in a polo match and Genista runs to the first aid room where she sees Adrienne and Marc passionately kissing.
  18. Brother Kevin shows up. He sold his invention and can pay back Marc and redeem Genista’s bracelet. Genista has a special party for Marc the next day on a jet, gets her passport and arranges with Lynn to help her get away at the airport. (This is long before the days of strict security and passengers walked on the tarmac.) She leaves her bracelet and cash and bank statements for Marc and gets away. She resumes her stewardess job.
  19. Two months pass and Adrienne’s husband dies. Genista writes Marc’s lawyers to offer her cooperation in a divorce to set Marc free to marry Adrienne. Marc has been chasing around North Africa looking for Genista because he thought she went with Ally, but with the letter he now knows where to find her. He gets on a flight with her and manages to corner her to talk. He reveals he is in love with her and has been.
  20. Happy ever after.

As said, straightforward plot. She yells at him, he coerces her into marriage, forced sex, anger and hate followed slowly by tolerance then liking then finally love, other wannabe woman, escape, finally he finds her and they settle all. So why does Rightful Possession work? And how does Wentworth manage to make the transition from #7, marital rape, to #16, dawning love feel realistic?

The Set Up. Sally Wentworth uses few pages and incidents to set up the situation and introduce the characters then goes right into the story and lets events and people unfold. She makes every event work to advance the plot and the story.

She tells us nothing and shows us everything by actions and dialogue. For example, when Genista escapes the villa she walks several miles over rough country to reach the port, showing us she is determined and not easily cowed. When Marc thinks she is softening towards him he calls her his little love and says how he has been longing and waiting for this. (Of course he says this in French, thank you translation programs!)

We get clues that Marc cares for Genista because he publicly acts to cherish her and he is patient and tolerates her unrelenting hostility. We can’t tell for sure whether he’s just putting on an act, which Genista believes for several months, or whether there is actual caring. Our beliefs mirror Genista’s. At first we see Marc as hypocritical, then as potentially caring for her, then again even more odious after Genista sees him and Adrienne kissing at the polo match. We still wonder, because after all this is a Harlequin and they are supposed to have happy endings, but how will Marc push this one by?

How indeed. Sally Wentworth has created a believable about face for Genista with a loving husband who simply can’t or won’t tell her how he feels. After Marc finds Genista gives the slip to her chauffeur/bodyguard, he tells her that he fears kidnap. Genista says that is silly since he wouldn’t pay a ransom for her. Marc points out that the kidnappers wouldn’t know that but the telltale is that he takes such a violent breath that his cigarette glows bright red.

Handling the difficult part. However do you go from despising and hating the man who forces you – rape – to falling in love with him? Even after re-re-rereading Rightful Possession I’m amazed that Sally Wentworth pulls this off. A few things help make the transition believable.

Wentworth grays out the actual rape; in fact jumps right from Marc draging Genista off the boat to Genista leaving bed to go to the beach. She remembers the aftermath when Marc tried to make up for raping her before once again losing his temper and forcing her. She recalls his at-first tender and caring and remorseful actions and how she was tempted to respond with zero details. (Thank you.) Genista recalls the second time when Marc tried to make love to her in deeds and words with mixed emotions.

Wentworth created Genista as a sympathetic, credible, realistic person. She’s mature and wise enough to realize she cannot go on hating Marc for 5 years, that it will rebound on her as much as on Marc. She doesn’t trust him or believe he is sincere, but she learns to enjoy his company and relax with him.

Ally and others see Marc as a wonderful caring man and eventually Genista “sees him for the first time as a devastatingly charming and handsome man”. When your friends like and respect someone it’s hard to keep seeing only their faults; that gives Genista time to reflect on her hostess job, her time with Marc, Marc himself and face the brutal encounter.

Is this Stockholm syndrome, where a captive tends to sympathize with their captor, even to allying with them? I did not read it that way. Genista stayed with Marc out of a sense of honor, not because of force or emotional maniuplation, she never pities him or sees him as a victim, she make a conscious decision to stop hating him. She was never ignorant of his faults nor did she have bad feelings towards people who wanted to help her leave. When Lynn offers to help her Genista considers it but stays only because shes feels obligated to repay Kevin’s debt not because she likes Marc or wants to be with him or feels sympathy for him.

Stockholm victims tend to emotionally align to their abuser, to appease them, to behave to the abuser’s requirements. Genista never stops being free in her mind and she continually escapes via the hairdresser dodge to spend time as she pleases. After the first horrorible night together Genista never sees herself as a victim, and once Marc promises to leave her alone she stops feeling any self-pity. Once Kevin can pays his debt she is joyous, she can be free.

Using the story and plot together. Given the story is the people and the plot the actions, Wentworth weaves these together so one props up the other and both are stronger. Marc’s actions – leaving Genista alone, buying her a beautiful bracelet as a gift, praising her to his friends, relinquishing her to Ally’s care, having fun together, spending time together, endless courtesy – come through as caring. We see him through Genista’s eyes and how she responds to his actions and the attitude she infers to him.

It sounds simple to combine story and plot but few authors do so successfully in any genre. Perhaps it’s easier in romance where readers expect a plot to move along a more-or-less predetermined arc, because instead of seeing conventions as a straightjacket, authors can use them for the skeleton and spend their energy building muscles and blood. Wentworth has written several other excellent romances where she uses similar approach, notably Betrayal in Bali, letting the standard plot be the template and using her imagination and skill to fill it in and create a believable, excellent novel.

The Characters Genista, Marc and Ally are three-dimensional, well-developed people. Often authors sketch the secondary characters and do little more even with the two protagonists, but Wentworth makes us see them as individuals. Wentworth lets the plot and dialogue do the work to exposit the characters; there are few inner musings or “well, here’s what happened when I was six” discussions.

It’s easy to identify with Genista, a woman trapped in a nightmare marriage, who manages to step beyond the horrible events and turn her marriage into something worthwhile that she and Marc enjoy.

Genista realizes that she can choose how she responds to Marc, how she thinks about and faces up to the fact husband raped her. She does not hide her head in the sand or pretend it’s not deadly serious, a terrifying, horrible thing, but she is adult and makes her choice to at least tolerate Marc and try to make something out of her enforced marriage.

Immediacy Sally Wentworth makes us feel like we are right there, part of the action, not watching a play. A couple of my favorite romance authors do this very well. Wentworth makes this happen here and it helps us thaw along with Genista and to turn what was originally 5 years of hateful intimacy with a man she detests into a tolerable, sometimes enjoyable life and friendship and later into love.

Wentworth avoided common plot tropes. Genista does not get pregnant, she does not run away, instead leaves only when she can pay the debt, Other Woman Adrienne does not visit Genista to gloat and threaten, no one dies, Genista is happy that her prior boyfriend is marrying her best friend, no one gets clunked on the head and loses their memory. I was slightly surprised that she did not get pregnant from her one night with Marc and believe that made for a much stronger story. Wentworth was able to pare the story down to Marc or no Marc, love or hate.

Was the govel sufficient to justify a happy ever after? Marc laid his heart on the line when he took Genista to the hotel and he made it clear he was horrified that his actions drove her to attempt suicide (as he thought it). He never really apologized although he did make it clear he regretted trying to force her, realized it backfired then and would backfire every time. Is that a sufficient grovel? That’s up to you. I would have liked more and stronger regrets.

Summary Even after reading Rightful Possession several times I’m in awe at how Sally Wentworth made Genista’s transition from victim to loving wife seem so real. I’m even more in awe that she made the conversion from rape to love feel real.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Steam Pump Jump – Chronicles of St. Mary’s by Jodi Taylor Short Featuring Markham and Romance

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Last we visited St. Mary’s, grieving Dr. Peterson had his head and heart brutally ripped by by treachery.  Miss Dottle, who despite her crush on Tim Peterson, proved herself red-handed in league with Clive Ronan, responsible for spying on Max, that led Helen’s murder and Max and Matthew’s abductions.  Poor Tim.  He is heartbroken, barely functioning on autopilot.

Max has a wonderful idea to give him someone new, possibly leading to romance, possibly only to friendship.  Max recruits Markham to somehow shove Peterson and Miss Lingoss together while on their next jump, back to 1600s and the first steam pump in a castle, before Cromwell’s revolution.  What could possibly go wrong?

Of course Miss Sykes and Miss North come too – and get into a fierce argument in public and in the past – and Markham needs to sort them out, give Peterson and Lingoss time to talk, and yes, eat the entire picnic meant for six.

Once more we have the incredibly fun, zany adventures of the St. Mary’s gang, this time with Markham the central character and narrator.  Markham likes to pretend he’s stoic, unaffected by much, but we see the truth.  He cares deeply about Max, Tim, Leon (and Hunter), and is glad to take on Max’s subversive assignment.

Jodi Taylor creates such characters, alive, vivid, fascinating, full and completely human.  Add in a fun plot, good dialogue and the usual historical nuggets (that cause me to visit Wikipedia more than a few times) and we have another winner in this St. Mary’s short story.

You should not try to read The Steam Pump Jump without being somewhat familiar with the St. Mary’s crew and events so far.  At a minimum it would help to have read And the Rest Is History and  An Argumentation of Historians, Books 8 and 9 in the series.  Both books are excellent although more serious and a bit darker than the rest of the series.  The Steam Pump Jump brings us readers back to lighthearted fun and is a worthy addition to the series and the lore of St. Mary’s.

5 Stars

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The Galactic Peace Committee – Great Fun Read, Humor, Science Fiction

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I love this book.  I read it a few months ago and needed to re-read to write this review and once more loved the zany, off-the-wall plot and back story.  It probably says something about my low brow tastes, but I’m giving this 5 stars, just because it was much fun to read the third time as the second and the first.

The Galactic Peace Committee of the title is a cross between a bad joke, a con job and a deadly necessity.  You see, there are thousands of races throughout the galaxy, most love war and fighting far more than we humans do, and most will gladly go slaughter another race for the horrible crime of insulting their hats or preferring pizza to pancakes.   The Committee exists to keep the peace, more or less, or at least keep someone from engulfing the entire galaxy in war or, worst of all, annoying the Ancient Ones.

Ah yes, the Ancient Ones.  One race of Ancient Ones looks like cuddly teddy bears.  The space teddy bears were the first alien race to contact us when Earth developed faster than light travel, and the bears kindly put Pluto and a minor Saturn moon back together, then helped us get over the hump on a few technological travails.

Then the space teddy bears pulled the ultimate con.  They convinced a gullible humanity to accept the immense honor to run the Galactic Peace Committee, while they and the other Ancient Ones, extend their holidays on their favorite beach worlds and enjoyed more drinks with umbrellas in them.  We’re a bunch of optimists with good opinions of ourselves so it tkes a while for humanity to realize they had been had.  No one wants to be in charge of Galactic Peace!

That’s the back story.  Our hero, Jake, is a mid level diplomat on a space station who would like to be successful enough to survive until he can retire on a pension that is very generous, mostly because the Committee rarely has to pay them out.  Jake needs to keep the peace and uses every skill he has and all his patience to stop two interstellar wars.  How Jake works these miracles is the crux of the novel.

The Galactic Peace Committee pulls off the hat trick:  humor, plot with enough science-fiction-y events to feel like we’re reading space opera without all the operatic trappings, intriguing characters, and did I mention humor?  Unlike several wanna-be humorous novels this one uses the ridiculous specifics to contrast with the generally serious back story to make a very good, fun novel.

There are a few minor problems.

  • Jake has a few woe-is-me moments in the beginning that stopped just before they got tiresome.
  • The Galactic Peace Committee is more a novella than a novel.
  • Not sure I like the super robot idea.  In this novel author L. G. Estrella avoids relying on the robots to make everything magically work out (these are military/assassin/bodyguard robots), but he must feel the temptation to have Jake narrowly escape because his bodyguard saves him.

The only one of these problems is number 2.  I want more Galactic Peace!

5 Stars

Tempests and Slaughter (The Numair Chronicles, Book One) – Vivid Fantasy by Tamora Pierce

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Tamora Pierce is best known for colorful fantasies for older teens with smart, strong female characters.  Tempests and Slaughter is the first novel of hers that I have read, and apparently the main characters as adults star in her novels in the same world.  It is a testament to Pierce’s ability to tell a story with likable characters who feel real, to develop a full fantasy world with magic, gods, empires and strange customs, that I did not realize Tempests and Slaughter is part of a larger story arc until I was writing this review.

I thoroughly enjoyed Tempests and Slaughter and the three main characters,  Arram,  Ozorne and Varice, all three teens in the Empire’s school for mages.  Arram is the son of traders from another country, with great talents.  Ozorne is the Emperor’s nephew and moving up in the succession, Varice is the only girl and not as prominent a character as Arram.  The book reads well on its own but clearly sets up a conflict between Arram and Ozorne.

Arram cannot abide the slavery endemic in the Empire nor can he stomach the gladiator games while Ozorne takes both these for granted.  Ozorne is about 7th in line to succeed the emperor as the story opens and talks about setting up a small estate to study magic and asks Arram and Varice to promise to join him.  As the book proceeds and Ozorne’s cousins die, he gradually abandons those peaceful dreams.  Arram is shocked when Ozorne says he dreams, not of a peaceful life of study, but to conquer the rest of the world – including Arram’s country.  Arram knows but does not want to believe that he will eventually have to leave Ozorne and make his own way.  The next novel may feature Arram and Ozorne.

Tempests and Slaughter particularly impressed me with the vivid world building.  We can almost see the dust and smell the rocks that Arram helps to move, we can hear the shouts and screams in the gladiator pits.  Pierce creates an intense setting that feels real.

The mage school is superficially peaceful, with students and teachers all pursuing scholarly work, except underlain with the assumption the mages will assist the empire.  They will heal the gladiators and the typhoid-suffering poor, brace the fallen rocks, clear the river of corpses.  The godlets visit certain scholars, notably the crocodile godlet requires Arram foster a sunbird he absconded with, something else guaranteed to cause trouble later on.

Overall Tempests and Slaughter is an excellent novel, with well-developed people, good dialogue that advances the plot and develops the characters, vivid setting and world building that constrasts with the surface placidity of the mage school.

5 Stars

And the Rest Is History: The Chronicles of St. Mary’s Book Eight by Jodi Taylor

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And the Rest Is History: The Chronicles of St. Mary’s Book Eight has all the vivid descriptions we expect from Jodi Taylor with a bonus.  Taylor always shows us history and the people involved in colorful, loving detail, but she has tiptoed through on Max’s and others’ feelings.  This time Max and Tim, Dr. Bairstow and Leon come alive just as does history.

The result is wonderful.  Like every other reader I am horrified at Ronan’s cold cruelty, share Max’s broken heart and lonely soul.  I felt especially torn for Tim Peterson, losing happiness not just once but twice.

In the other St. Mary’s books I don’t notice plot holes because we sweep on by so fast, but this novel slows the action to include more loss and hope, moving slowly enough that the holes are easier to spot.  For example, why do the Time Police remove Greta and Matthew from their time? Why is Leon, Ian’s and Greta’s pod pre-programmed to go to a hellhole like Constantinople during the massacre?  The Police tell Max Constantinople was the last jump the team made; was Ronan trying to lose them in the chaos of the 4th Crusade?

Ronan must have a source at St. Mary’s and help.  He stays on the loose for years, yet we know that pods take constant maintenance, plus he needs to get money and food and clothing just to sell Matthew and buy him back.  He knows to go to Sick Bay to kidnap Matthew; he stays ahead of the Time Police.

The biggest hole is Matthew.  No one with a grain of sense kidnaps a baby and expects to have an easy time of it.  Babies take work.  I’m curious how Ronan found a sucker someone to not only care for Baby Matthew but actually pay him.  I am even more surprised that Max doesn’t bring Matthew back to St. Mary’s when she returns with the rest.  She is not a quitter yet she is ready to give up on establishing a relationship with her son after only a few months.  We know from the short “Christmas Past” that Matthew stays in the future and rarely sees Max.  That doesn’t feel right.

s usual the historical sections are great.  We watch Harold vs. William for the future of England unfold from Guy of Ponthieu entertaining Harold and William to Edyth Swanneck retrieving Harold’s body.   This is a fascinating time for England and one I’ve always enjoyed reading about.  Taylor brings the events to life.  We read about Harold’s blue and William’s red, about the deception around the relics Harold swears upon, about the back and forth at the bridge over the river Ouse, about the Saxon wings fatally venturing out beyond their pikes and ditch.

Overall And The Rest Is History is excellent.  Yes, it is sad, yes it has plot holes, but the emotional depth and maturation along with Taylor’s normal excellent history make this one of the most intense and rewarding books in the series.  It is not as much fun as the others, but it is an outstanding novel.

5 Stars

Lies, Damned Lies, and History: The Chronicles of St. Mary’s Book Seven

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Max is in trouble.  Deep, deep trouble.  She is also pregnant, very, very pregnant.  Which will come first?  Absolution or the baby?

Book 7, Lies, Damned Lies and History, opens with Max learning that she gets the booby prize for jumps, witnessing Caroline of Brunswick chase around Westminster Abbey seeking entrance to her husband’s coronation.  Her next assignment, likewise supposed to be a yawn, checking a hill fort in Wales, turns wildly exciting as her group is pressed into service alongside Arthur (yes, that Arthur) to hold off the Saxons.  Here’s where trouble starts.

Max manages to get herself and St. Mary’s in trouble, nearly ending the unit, then out of trouble, reinstate herself and her friends until real trouble, Clive Ronan trouble, strikes.

The Good Stuff

As usual the plot just keeps going.  It’s like watching Niagara Falls, the action sucks us readers in and we tumble helplessly along.  In fact I had to go back and re-read the book a second time so I could pull myself to the shore long enough to check a few things – and read a few recipes.  (We American’s know nothing about jam’s premiere place in dessert trays.)

Max is as always a lot of fun.  She is in a hard place, knowing that the right thing to do is the wrong thing (and vice versa no matter which way she goes) and she won’t trust anyone enough to just go ask for what is needed.  I love how she throws herself into her job, whether it’s history, fund raising or mom.

I am glad that Leon gets more personality.  As Max says, he is husband and hero, and immensely patient with her.  He is quiet and easy to underestimate but no one should mistake quiet for soft or meek.

As usual Jodi Taylor gets the history just so.  She takes the facts we know and dresses them up in gorgeous costumes that make the scene and the people involved come to life.  I always end up looking up people and events, even ones I’m fairly familiar with.

Mrs. Mack serves all sorts of food that St. Mary’s loves, most of which is new to me.  I learned about jam tarts, jam roly poly (apparently England uses a lot of jam), toad in the hole and more.  It seems every book introduces yet another culinary item (usually requiring suet, but not the type we feed to birds), and I enjoy looking up the recipes.

The book is just plain fun with lots of good dialogue, funny events, serious events and great characters.  The scene where Max and Professor Rapson spring Sykes, Bashford and Ingloss out of jail is priceless.

The Could-Be-Better Stuff

I decided way back in Book 1 not to worry about the whole time travel thing.  Jodi Taylor treats time travel as though events are happening in parallel, not in sequence, and frankly, I’m having too much fun to worry about the technical accuracy or even complete consistency.  (Example:  Why can the Time Police find her in the middle of nowhere and no when but not find Ronan?  How does the tag work across time and space? See?  That’s why it’s best to just smile, jump on and enjoy the ride.)

Max’s disgrace doesn’t have a resolution.  Max agrees with Dr. Bairstow that she learned her lesson but it’s not at all clear exactly what the lesson is.  I do not expect she will become meek and rule-abiding, nor that she will cease to hurl herself and her friends into trouble to do the necessary thing.  Perhaps she learned that it is wise to start with asking for permission, that other people may share similar insights and agree to help.

Overall

Lies, Damned Lies and History is too much fun to be critical.  The story line is serious, characters develop, plot is harrowing, scenery is great.

5 Stars