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

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

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

Plot Synopsis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Characters

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

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

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

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

Conflicts

There is one overriding conflict and a few smaller ones.

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

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

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

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

Setting

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

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

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

Overall

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

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

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

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

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

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