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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.

Devon Interlude Vintage Romance by Kay Thorpe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3 Stars

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

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A Cinderella for the Greek – Julia James Light Romance

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If you are in the mood for a light, almost frothy romance, try A Cinderella for the Greek by Julia James. (Paid link) It is mostly enjoyable but not a story that will move you or will linger in your mind.

Ellen is tall, rather large-boned and teaches gym to a local school. Her father died a year ago and she has been busy fending off his greedy widow – her stepmother – and her equally greedy stepsister. Both disparage her, call her names, mock her, all the usual Cinderella treatment. They went through her rich father’s money and now all that is left is their valuable English manor home, and some of the remaining art and antiques. The two are shameless, stealing even Ellen’s jewelry.

Max develops property and tours the house, thinking to purchase it as an investment, but realizes when he arrives that this could be a home. The steps encourage him and do not tell him that they own only two thirds of the house. Ellen cooks and serves lunch, then corners Max to say she owns a third and will not sell. This is her home.

The steps claim Ellen has never accepted them and refuses to sell just for spite. Max discovers Ellen is not fat but incredibly in shape, an athlete and decides to sweep her off to London for a makeover and a ball. (See where the Cinderella title comes in?) Things progress from there. Ellen and Max hit it off and spend a few weeks together travelling, enjoying each other’s company and sleeping together.

Max tells her he did all this to show her that there is life beyond her home and to entice her to sell to him. He is not being entirely truthful of course because he also has fallen in love. He asks her to buy out her steps and she explains that she has no money, that they took everything, spent an enormous fortune before her dad died and now are ghoulishly stripping everything left. Max is dumbfounded. Ellen leaves. She later decides Max was right and agrees to sell. When she arrives to sign her sales agreement Max surprises her and proposes for a happy ever after.

A Cinderella for the Greek could have explored the stepmother/sister resentment or why Ellen was such a doormat that she even allowed stepsister to appropriate her pearl bracelet. It does not. Author Julia James lays out the situation and proceeds to tell the story straightforward, giving us plenty of Max’s viewpoints to show us how he thinks Ellen is and how he wants her to be.

Overall this is a light, enjoyable story but not one I could recall even the day after I read it. Max is the best character, interesting, willing to help, manipulative, kind, loving, certain he is right and knows everything, self-confident. Ellen is more two-dimensional, not a fully-realized person and the steps are stock characters.

I did appreciate that the “Greek” in the title refers to Max having a Greek father. For a nice change we don’t get all the heavy-handed, heavy breathing me-boss/you-female nonsense that too many Harlequins offer.

2 Stars

I purchased my copy from Harlequin.com to read via Glose E reader. Amazon and Barnes and Noble both offer E versions and you can purchase paper copies new from all three retailers or check eBay and Thriftbooks for used copies. There is a comic version too. All Amazon links are paid ads.

A Place of Storms – Married Forced by Blackmail in France

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At first I was not terribly impressed with Sara Craven’s A Place of Storms. It didn’t affect me the way some of her other books do, but after a bit I found myself wanting to re-read and I enjoyed the story more each time I read it.

A Place of Storms is one of Sara Craven’s earliest Harlequin Presents novels, written in 1978 and has her trademark strong emotion and well-done characters. English Andrea and older Frenchman Blaise are interesting people we want to know although the character development is not quite as strong as in Craven’s later novels.

Andrea is used to helping her flighty cousin Clare avoid richly deserved trouble and now Clare wants her help to avoid a marriage of convenience to an unknown distant relation, Blaise. Blaise is blackmailing Clare with her letters promising to marry him, to force her into marriage even though they never met. Clare now is engaged to a wonderful man and doesn’t want any part of scandal and certainly not a temporary marriage!

What neither Clare nor Andrea know is that Blaise is desperate to marry to secure custody of his nephew from his unscrupulous ex-fiancé – who is the boy’s aunt, greedy and heartless, unwilling to marry a poor man or one with a scarred face.

Blaise lives in a crumbling chateau where every bedroom room leaks, the bathrooms are ancient and fussy and the furniture huge and is barely eking a living from his vineyards. Plus Blaise himself is scarred inside and on his face from the fire in the family’s former island plantation home that killed his brother.

Blaise isn’t a particularly attractive potential husband. Unfortunately for Andrea he is also not dumb. He researched Clare’s family before asking her to marry him and knows all about Clare, her father’s ill health and her cousin Andrea and knows immediately who Andrea is when she arrives at his chateau to retrieve Clare’s foolish letters.

Andrea is shocked to see the dilapidated state of the house and by Blaise’s intention to foist not just a marriage of convenience but a 5 year old nephew onto her cousin. She is terrified because Blaise is attractive and she recognizes the huge potential he has to hurt her emotionally. Blaise will use every trick and pressure possible to get his own way and confronts Andrea when he finds her going through his dresser, threatening endless scandal and publicity if she will not marry him. Andrea agrees, assuming that he is offering the paper marriage he offered to her cousin and that he stressed the evening she met him. Fortunately for our novel, he is intending and demanding far more, a real marriage in every way.

We now have the set up for a delicious romance: A man who is ruthless and determined to marry the woman who is determined not to lose her heart. But wait! There is still more! Sara Craven has three other characters that add complexity.

  • Alan is researching the Gallic wars and lives in the chateau’s gatehouse. He is the neutral character who is a friend to Andrea and not any threat to Blaise and Andrea’s marriage.
  • Five year old nephew Phillipe lost his parents and now must live with his scarred uncle; Phillipe is not a strong child, he is polite but timid.
  • His aunt Simone is nasty, vindictive and cruel, tells Phillipe stories about a distant ancestor who threw his wife’s bastard son out of the tower window and makes him frightened of his uncle Blaise, claiming Blaise will kill him for the non-existent insurance money. Andrea learns only after a week or so that Simone and Blaise had been engaged until Blaise was scarred.

The author hints that Blaise was disillusioned about Simone even before he got hurt in the fire, but Simone implies that she dumped him because of the scar. There is no love lost between them now. Simone tries her best to make trouble with Phillipe and trouble between Andrea and Blaise and even tries to drag Alan into the mix. She’s the arch-Other Woman and nasty.

The real story is how Andrea and Blaise end up in love. Craven only tells us through Andrea’s eyes so we don’t get a good idea how Blaise feels. He calls Andrea “his heart” or “his love” (in French of course) and gives her a beautiful nightgown for a wedding gift and tries to seduce her a couple of time but we don’t see many loving gestures or comments. In fact he’s mean and uses kisses and threatens forced seduction to punish Andrea. He tells her to obey him and threatens but does not do violence. Try to ignore these (thankfully) outdated elements and enjoy the story.

One indicator of a good story and great characters is that I want to put myself in there, to come up with what I would say to Blaise, how I would react. He has a nasty habit of threatening Andrea sexually, and claiming the high ground. For instance, when he is trying to seduce her Blaise says “be a little merciful. Don’t force me to take you like this.” Andrea should say “No one is forcing you Blaise. If you don’t want to feel like a rapist then don’t be one!” (He wasn’t raping her, but he was trying to gain a response Andrea didn’t want to give.) Or when he tells her that he didn’t offer her a paper marriage as he did to her cousin, Andrea should have reminded him that he did exactly that the first night they met, and he claimed he knew who she was at the time. OK, I’m splitting hairs here but some of these overly domineering types give me a pain!

Sara Craven creates a moody, atmospheric setting too, using the gloomy old chateau set in a gorgeous hilly region of France to heighten the tension. Andrea tries to brighten the place with lighter paints and fabrics while Simone uses the setting and old history to frighten Phillipe.

Overall, on second or third or fourth reading I have to give this one 4 stars. I got my copy from Thriftbooks.com and as of this writing Amazon has copies but it is not available on Archive.org.

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His Official Fiancee – Berta Ruck, English Romance 1913

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Website Archive.org has several Berta Ruck novels available to read online or to borrow, and it’s free. Berta Ruck set His Official Fiancee in 1913, in London, a London suburb and the seashore in Wales. The book was published in 1914, likely before the war broke out in August, and Berta does not mention the war or international tensions.

Monica’s father died a year before the novel begins and left nothing except a feckless son wandering the Earth and 20 year old Monica. She used her tiny bit of money to take a business course, shorthand and typing, then got a roommate for a cramped upstairs apartment and a beastly typist job at 25 shillings a week.

The other three office girls and she view their ultimate boss, Mr. Waters, as “Still Waters”, more a machine than a man. Monica is terrified she will be fired when he calls her into his office, but that is not the case. Instead Mr. Waters wants to hire her to pretend to be his fiancee for a year at 10 pounds a year (or 8 times her typist wage). Monica is going to refuse when she gets a telegram from her worthless brother demanding 100 pounds to keep him out of jail.

The plot around the fake engagement is far fetched of course, but get by that and ignore the sentence slamming a Jewish man and you have a gem of a book. Mrs. Ruck creates a lovely world, well-run homes with plenty of money and big gardens, dressing for dinner, unobtrusive servants. Monica appreciates her visit to Mr. Waters’ home even more after living on her own at a miserable wage. Even more than physical comforts, Monica appreciates her future mother-in-law, a wonderful woman, warm-hearted, kind, welcoming.

One of the telling scenes is when Monica and Mr. Waters stop into her apartment and find her erstwhile admirer, Sydney Vandeleur visiting her roommate Cecily. Before getting her brother’s money demand, Monica had considered falling in love with Sydney, except he was supposedly out of the country, and she was not in love with him. This visit she realizes Sydney is silly, a man content to fritter away his days and his talents, and by contrast Mr. Waters is vigorous, hard-working, and never silly.

It’s fun to read about a pleasant, gracious era, assuming one is upper crust and not laboring for 25 shillings a week. It reminds me of some P G Wodehouse novels, and Sydney is a perfect example of Bertie Wooster’s friends in the Drones Club.

Mrs. Ruck’s style is different from most modern writers yet enjoyable and easy enough to follow. Monica is well-written, full of character and lively determination. She’s realistic enough to know that living on beans is tolerable when one is 21 but quite the opposite when one is 41.

As I read His Official Fiancee I kept thinking of The Great War about to fall upon the people in the story. Both Sydney and Mr. Waters are about 30, unmarried, and Sydney is a drone. Both would be likely called up and given the horrific casualty figures of WWI, likely both would have died in the battles or the diseases afterwards. Our heroine, her friends, her in-laws would have been devastated.