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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.)

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Bride at Whangatapu – Romance by Robyn Donald

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Bride at Whangatapu marks Robyn Donald’s foray into Harlequin Presents Romance, published in 1977. Since then Ms. Donald has become a very successful and popular author, serving us intensely emotional romances usually set in New Zealand. I enjoy her work.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Avoid Spoilers

Fiona interviews for a job on a rural station in New Zealand. She is a skilled, well-paid secretary with a 4 year old son who is not recovering from bronchitis as he should, and she wants a position in the country so her son can recover in fresh air. Surprise! Her interviewer is Logan, the man she had a brief affair with 5 years ago, the father of her son.

Fiona has not seen Logan since the morning after they slept together. He was so shocked that she was a virgin that he verbally ripped her to shreds, called her every name possible and that she was nothing but a cheap tarty whore. (Which was obviously not the case but let’s go with it.) Fiona was shocked and went home. She was so hurt after Logan attacked her that she refused to tell her parents his name and did not tell him about their son. Her parents died and she lives alone with son Jonathan, wears a wedding ring and pretends to be a widow.

Logan recognizes her and he knows from her application that she has a small boy. He’s suspicious and interrogates Fiona about the boy’s dad. Sure enough, Fiona has a dated birthday picture of her son in her purse and Logan grabs the purse from her and snoops. He coerces Fiona to marry him by claiming he will do everything possible to wrest custody from her and since he’s rich, he can tie her up endlessly in court if nothing else. They agree to tell everyone that they had married 5 years ago and reconciled now for the son’s sake.

Logan takes her to Whangatapu where she meets his mother, his housekeeper and his steady girl friend. The mother and housekeeper are hostile and unpleasant and the girl friend acts superficially friendly but is jealous, possessive, unkind underneath. Fiona refuses to sleep with Logan until they love each other and Logan feels guilty enough that he goes along with this. Of course this adds to the unpleasant atmosphere.

The son, Jonathan, is very happy and recovers from his endless cough. He likes the housekeeper, his grandmother, his father and he also likes Denise, the girl friend. Denise likes him too.

Fiona doesn’t do much to endear herself to the others at first, but eventually she becomes friends with the mother and housekeeper, but she still distrusts Logan and avoids him, acts as his secretary but otherwise avoids him as much as possible. Denise suspects they married only recently and she plays up to Logan and when he’s not around, she makes no pretense of friendship for Fiona. She instead acts as though she and Logan had been engaged, that they are having an affair, and that Fiona should waft away on the breeze, leaving Jonathan behind.

Logan makes several passes at Fiona. They both know that he could seduce her into bed and they don’t sleep together only because he’s honoring her request. Logan’s feelings for Fiona are not at all clear. He doesn’t act lovingly towards her, he encourages Denise and plays up to her, he makes it clear that he married Fiona for Jonathan’s sake, not her own. (Of course Logan imagines that he is completely transparent and that of course Fiona knows he doesn’t love Denise. Clueless.)

Eventually Fiona faces the situation. She has three choices. She can continue, give Logan nothing of herself, distrust him, make a life with his mother and housekeeper and Jonathan. She can leave, leaving Jonathan for Logan and eventually, Denise, once Logan divorces Fiona and remarries. She can trust Logan, give him something of herself. Logan clearly states she is not to leave, there will be no divorce. Fiona chooses the option 3. First she gets rid of Denise. Fiona tells Denise she loves Logan, that she’s staying his wife, that Denise has no leverage, that it will do her no good whatsoever to tell people that Fiona and Logan married recently, that Jonathan had been illegitimate.

Fiona is no coward and once she decides on option 3 she sleeps with Logan but it is not lovemaking. Logan is not cruel but his also not at all tender, somewhat hurtful in fact. Fiona feels she was seduced, not made love to, and she fears this will the rest of her life.

Logan brings her back to bed and they talk. He thinks it was clear that he did not love Denise, did not have an affair, that he loves Fiona. She has to tell him that nothing has been clear. She doesn’t know him at all. He apologizes for being rough with her, she explains why she decided to “allow him his legal rights to her person”. Happy ever after.

Does This Work?

I do believe the happy ever after ending. Logan has been overbearing and he is angry with Fiona for not telling him about Jonathan, even though he recognizes that his verbal cruelty after their night together 5 years earlier gave her plenty of reason to keep their son a secret.

Logan is never had a big problem with anything. Men like him, he’s dynamic and super attractive to women, he’s rich, successful, good looking. He eventually realizes he is super lucky, won the jackpot when he got Fiona as his wife. She’s smart, strong, an excellent secretary, organized, kind and helpful, attractive, very good with people and knows what to say and when to keep still. She does an excellent job raising Jonathan. Unfortunately for Logan, Fiona is still wary of him, she doesn’t know him, doesn’t trust him. She doesn’t completely buy Denise’s persona of jilted almost-bride or lover, but sees Logan play up to Denise and thinks he might still prefer her to herself.

By about the middle of the story Logan is going quietly nuts. The man who never had a problem attracting women can’t get his own wife to sleep with him. His son loves him now too, but fiercely defends his mom when anyone says or implies anything negative. His own mother and housekeeper have brought Fiona into their family and he’s feeling left out. Poor baby.

I love how Fiona treats Denise. She doesn’t let Denise rule the roost or crow over her and she is politely skeptical about the whole almost-fiancée thing. She is never rude but never a doormat. This is one of the best heroine/Other Woman interactions in all of the Harlequin universe. The scene where Fiona tells Denise to take a hike is classic.

Fiona seems to see herself as more wishy washy around Logan than she is. She tells him what she thinks and what she wants quite clearly except for the few days where she seriously considers leaving and letting him have Jonathan and Denise. She eventually tells Logan she loves him at the end after she decides to give up her pride. She tells him she had no idea what he thought or felt, that she had not known him at all. Right there we have a peek into the problems with any marriage of convenience, no matter why the couple marries; if they don’t know each other, trust each other, marriage with its continual intimacy of living together regardless of sexual situation, is difficult.

Summary

I like Bride at Whangatapu for the character development, New Zealand glimpse, Fiona. It lacks some of the emotional intensity that Robyn Donald builds into her later books. Ms. Donald shows us how Fiona grows and develops her relationships with her mother in law, housekeepers, putative other man, family guests, Denise, but she more tells us than shows us how Fiona sees her relationship with Logan. I think that is the missing element that keeps Bride at Whangatapu from being a 5 star read for me.

3 Stars

I got my copy on eBay. You can likely find copies on Thriftbooks or other used book site and Amazon has new and used copies and an audio version.

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Second Best Wife by Isobel – Marriage of Convenience

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

Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Characters and Conflicts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Setting

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

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

Overall

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4 Stars

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Man of Velvet, Marriage of Convenience Romance by Dana Terrill

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Something about this story resonates with me. I love marriage of convenience romances – I suspect more than a few marriages even in the US or UK are made for convenience instead of love – and Man of Velvet is written very well. Neither character loves the other at first, in fact they dislike and distrust and the love surprises and grows slowly as they come to know each other. There is a nasty Other Woman, a little boy, minions galore with housekeeper, butler and maids, a semi-Other Man, lovely setting, rich descriptions. What’s not to like?

Plot Synopsis – Skip to Avoid Spoilers

Man of Velvet starts with Diana doing a bit of housebreaking, entering Caleb’s country home via the French doors into the library. Her mission: Retrieve her younger sister Deana’s love letters to Caleb’s brother Barrett who died recently in a car accident. Unfortunately Caleb is there and finds her in the library, tries to seduce her until Diana taunts him that he is less-skilled a lover than his brother. Diana knows Caleb thinks she was the woman Barrett was in love with but that’s OK with her; she and her sister intend to leave Connecticut as soon as Deanna has her baby.

One reason Deanna wanted her letters back is she feared Caleb would try to take her baby once born. Deanna was right to worry. She died having Barry, her baby, and Diana took him up to a tiny railway junction town in southeast Vermont. She had ended up there after her car broke down and she found a place to stay with the veterinarian’s family. Everyone assumes Diana is Barry’s mother and she lets that assumption ride.

Two years the story gets going. Diana is returning to Vermont from a trip to Hartford Connecticut to deliver her watercolor book illustrations. She and Steven, the son of the publishing company owner, hit it off and Steven intends to follow up. Unbeknownst to Diana, when she gets off the train and meet Barry and her landlady’s family, Caleb is in the train crossing the junction. He recognizes her, realizes the boy must be his dead brother’s child, and decides to come and get Barry and take Diana too.

Caleb shows up a few days later, tells Diana he will get custody of Barry, spend whatever it takes – despite the fact that she is (as far as he knows) Barry’s mother, not his aunt – and that she can come along too as his wife. Diana didn’t think the law would necessarily protect Barry and her from Caleb, especially given she is actually the aunt, not the mom. She tries to head Caleb off by getting fake engaged to Steven but it doesn’t work and Caleb drags her off to the Justice of the Peace.

The wedding scene is hilarious because Barry doesn’t stop crying and Caleb keeps telling JP to hurry it up. Diana is wearing jeans and she’s clearly not at all happy while the JP and his wife are dumbfounded.

They get back to Hartford and start living together, although Diana refuses to sleep with Caleb. The servants all like her and Barry and Caleb introduces them to his friends. Caleb agrees that Diana can continue being friends with Steven provided they only meet at Diana’s home.

The big problem is Irene, Barrett’s widow, who was supposedly crippled in the car accident that killed Barrett. Caleb essentially coerced Barrett into marrying Irene; Irene really wanted Caleb but settled for Barrett for his money. She is ice cold, manipulative, devious and wants Caleb. Somehow Caleb, who is ordinarily sharp in business and people, allows Irene to deceive him over and over; she uses tears and self-pity to guilt Caleb into believing her. She used to run to Caleb every time Barrett didn’t do what she wanted and eventually Barrett ignored both her and Caleb’s pressure and fell in love with Deanna.

Irene doesn’t like Diana and wants to displace her but realizes she need to be ambulatory if she wants Caleb to ever marry her. Irene informs Diana that Barrett had told her that he wanted a divorce to marry the girl he loved, that she herself had been driving the car and deliberately had gone off the road because she knew Barrett was not in his seatbelt although she was, and she figured she had a good chance of living although Barrett likely would die. Yes, she is that hateful.

Author Terrill shows us Caleb and Diana becoming more aware of each other, liking each other more and being attracted to each other through a couple scenes. Caleb tries to seduce and/or talk Diana into bed but she resists. Diana doesn’t want Caleb to know that she is not Barry’s mother and she does want to punish him for forcing her into marriage. She teases him a few times and Caleb sees her with Steven (and Steven’s almost fiancée) and he decides he wants her and intends to sleep with her. Caleb gives a huge party every year for his business and at the end of the evening, after Diana has teased him verbally and provoked him by flirting, he tries to make love to her. Diana tells him it’s not on, that she hopes he aches all night and that it’s her revenge for forcing her to Hartford.

Caleb goes into her room and forcibly seduces her. To be blunt it starts as rape but quickly becomes mutual. Caleb realizes Diana is a virgin and thus not Barry’s mother. She explains and they seem to have a happy future together.

Irene won’t let that happen. She does everything she can to make trouble between Caleb and Diana, guesses that Barry is actually her dead husband’s child, not Caleb’s, and hysterically calls Caleb to tell him that Diana gleefully told her. This is not true and Diana tells Caleb off, but the downslope starts.

Diana knows Irene can walk. She overhears Irene telling Caleb that yes, she is just beginning to walk (not true, she walks well now) and that it means they can be together, they can have a life together. Diana is hurt and furious. It seems Caleb takes Irene’s word over hers, always lets Irene get her own way and puts Irene ahead of Diana. She takes Barry and goes back to Vermont.

Caleb comes once and she tries to explain but they are both too angry and hurt. Eventually Caleb’s housekeeper tells Diana that Caleb is terribly ill and that, oh, by the way, Irene left and won’t be back. Diana packs Barry up and hightails it back to Caleb. I love you and happy ever after.

Characters and Emotional Connections

The genius of Man of Velvet is the slow growing of intense emotions between Caleb and Diana. Neither wants to admit how important the other has become and both want to shield themselves from emotional hurt. Caleb once had been jilted by his fiancée for a richer man and Diana saw how cold and controlling Caleb was with his brother. Diana also fears that Caleb will realize she is not Barry’s mother, presumably fearing that he might divorce her and keep Barry if he knows she is only the aunt.

The four vignettes that show Caleb and Diana increasingly interested in each other are richly detailed and feel real. Barry gets bee stung and Caleb helps remove the stinger, puts him to bed, then lies down with Diana to comfort her. Comfort turns to arousal, then to passion. Diana recognizes that Caleb has handed her a weapon for revenge. She starts looking for an opportunity to get Caleb aroused so she can turn him down. Nasty yes, but deserved.

The next week or so Diana is edgy and irritable – we can surmise it’s partly due to sexual frustration – and Caleb organizes a house party at the country home where Diana retrieved her sister’s letters and met Caleb. They end up having to share a room and bed two nights and there’s a bit more teasing and attempted seduction in between friendship, fun, trips to craft shops and walks in the country.

The last scenes that precipitate seduction are at Caleb’s grand party. He comes home early and finds Steven is putting sun lotion on Diana, then he takes over the job and makes it clear he’s claiming possession.

At the party Diana has to listen to Irene make little innuendos and barbed comments all during dinner and she retaliates by mentioning to Caleb, in front of other people, that they could get an annulment. Caleb gets rid of the company, carries Irene back to her room (since she supposedly can’t walk and doesn’t like to use her crutches or wheelchair), then comes to Diana and kisses her, arouses her. Diana realizes this is her opportunity and asks Caleb whether he wants her. Yes. He does. Well, the answer is NO. Caleb recognizes this is her revenge and Diana runs upstairs to her room. She’s restless and knows she is as frustrated as Caleb but she still doesn’t want sexual intimacy with him. He comes in and that’s that.

Irene watches the entire time that Caleb and Diana are falling in love and she escalates her campaign to remove Diana and replace her. First she pulls away as Diana hands her a tea cup, to make it look as though Diana is ignorant and clumsy, then she hands Barry a costly, large glass unicorn which he breaks, disparages him to make people think he’s as clumsy as Diana. She complains about Diana and Barry to Caleb, cries and tries to make him feel guilty and sorry for her. She tells Diana that she knew Barrett was having an affair (supposedly with Diana) and that was why she caused the accident, that she knew Barrett had given the ambulance driver a message for his lover and makes it clear she is glad Barrett was dead.

Why Diana Leaves Caleb

Diana is fed up with being second to Irene and sick of the endless comments and Irene’s look-at-me act and tired of Caleb not putting her, his wife, first. Both Diana and Caleb know people could be unfaithful, and are not sure of each other, a rich earth for Irene’s lies. It is a culmination of little things, exacerbated by Irene telling her that now that she can walk and give him a son, Irene believes Caleb will divorce Diana and marry her. Irene is cutting, disparaging and vicious.

Later Diana is out when Caleb needs to fly to London at the last minute. He asks Irene to pass on the message to Diana that he’s going and wants to talk to her when he returns. Irene of course neglects to pass on anything other than Caleb told her, not Diana.

Caleb’s response when Irene tells him that she’s getting back the use of her legs is the final straw for Diana. When I read Caleb’s comments I can see why Diana felt she has lost Caleb to Irene: “Keep your mind on just one thing, what it means to me if you can walk again. Try please for me.” Irene: “It’s what I’ve always wanted, dreamed about – us. I’m sure, now that I can walk, we can have a life together.”

When Caleb comes after Diana he knows she saw him with Irene but it doesn’t mean to him what Diana thinks it means. Diana tells him she left to clear the way for him to get with Irene. He says that Diana couldn’t begin to guess what he needs, but he does not clear it up, instead tells her he knows she saw Steven several times and that he believes she left because she loves Steven. Diana is too emotionally spent to explain that Steven plans to marry his girlfriend or to confront Caleb about Irene.

The author doesn’t explain why Irene left after Diana had gone back to Vermont, but we can guess that she made a play for Caleb and he refused to divorce Diana and was pretty blunt about not loving or wanting Irene. While Diana was gone Caleb found a letter Barrett had written Deanna that made it clear he felt Caleb was partially at fault for having coerced him to marry Irene, that Irene took advantage of that over and over and that Barrett was done with Irene regardless whether she allowed a divorce. Caleb shows the letter to Diana when she comes home and apologizes for doubting what she had told him about Barrett and Deanna and Irene.

Diana

Diana is no fool and no patsy and no doormat. She had worked in an antique store for years before becoming an artist illustrating children’s books and she does not hesitate to state her opinion of some jade Caleb found for a friend. Irene tries to make Diana look foolish without success.

Diana is devoted to Barry. Not only is he Deanna’s child but Barry is a lovable sweet child with plenty of character. One touching scene is the bee sting incident; before the bee stung Barry he and Diana had been throwing grass clippings at each other and romping on the lawn. She gives up her freedom for Barry, marries Caleb whom she fears and resents in order to avoid a losing custody battle.

We see Diana as warm, caring, generous, open, honest, forthright, friendly. She makes friends with all the staff – this is the same staff that resent and dislike Irene for her temper and dishonesty. Diana doesn’t mince words except she is reticent about calling out Irene to Caleb. She doesn’t tell Caleb about the little nasty comments and tricks nor tell him that Irene can walk and walk well. She tries to tell Caleb about his brother’s marriage and defend her sister, but of course, Caleb doesn’t believe her.

Early in their marriage Caleb tells Diana she doesn’t need to work and he doesn’t want her to. Diana had earlier signed a contract for so many illustrations with Steven’s publishing company and tells Caleb she intends to keep her commitment. They agree that she may do so, that in exchange, she dresses better and wears fewer jeans and t shirts. I thought this was funny because Caleb is the original stick-to-the-agreement business guy yet he wants her to drop her contract. Surprisingly Diana goes along with it, primarily to keep the peace and because she is aware that she must dress better to move comfortably in Caleb’s world.

Normally no one likes a sexual tease but given the immense provocation of Caleb pressuring her into marriage, I admire Diana for finding a weapon, however distasteful, to use against him. Caleb knows what Diana is doing but he’s pretty sure he can overcome any reluctance.

Caleb

Caleb is one of those guys who doesn’t ever want to admit defeat and hates to be wrong. He found Diana attractive when he caught her looking for Deanna’s letters and started kissing her to the point where Diana was convinced he would not stop. He despised her yet wanted her. Caleb’s mixed feelings last for a few months until he gets to know Diana and realizes she’s a decent, loving and lovable person.

Caleb comes to love Barry, in fact he lets everyone believes he is Barry’s father and thus Diana’s lover. He comments to Diana that Barry will have everything that would have been Barrett’s,

Caleb is a pushover for Irene, especially when Irene cries. There’s guilt there but something else too. Caleb ignores Diana’s tears when he forcibly seduces her but when they are done he obviously feels something besides satisfaction. Tears unman him.

Caleb chose to be hard and cold. His mother left them when he was 17, his dad drank himself to death and nearly destroyed the company, his fiancée dumped him for a richer man when she realized how far down Caleb’s company had gotten. Now he’s worked hard to build his company back and he refuses to meet his mom and his stepdad and won’t extend friendship or forgiveness to the ex-fiancée. It’s intriguing that such a hard man who despises others who break their commitments is such easy prey for Irene.

Even after they sleep together Caleb somewhat distrusts Diana and keeps himself aloof. He takes her out that next morning to run and share “the best part of the day” with her, early morning, and he makes love to her again and again.

Things go downhill badly once Irene calls Caleb in hysterics because Diana supposedly had taunted her with Barry being Barrett’s son. Caleb believes Irene, chastises Diana, then later comes in their room to apologize and make peace. Diana pushes him away, hurt because he doesn’t trust her, doesn’t believe her, seems to value only their physical connection. After that he sleeps in a different room and leaves Diana completely alone. At this point neither has told the other I Love You, and both are wary.

After Diana leaves Caleb and Irene have a shouting match, after which Caleb makes her a settlement (small by Irene’s standards) before Irene goes to her sister’s. (The settlement plus Caleb’s comment about Barry inheriting Barrett’s share makes me wonder whether Barret had died without a will, or had left everything to his children and only the minimum amount to Irene.) Caleb tells Diana later that she had been right about several things, that Irene can walk very well and that she will never interfere in their lives again.

Other Man and Other Woman

Irene is partially the prototypical Harlequin Other Woman, except she uses guilt and what she believes her superior suitability, plus her supposed good looks. Typical of the genre Irene spends most of her viciousness on Caleb’s wife, Diana, and acts tearful and helpless and oh-so-hard-done-by with Caleb. She makes snide remarks about and to Diana in front of Caleb and it’s pretty clear that Caleb allows her a lot of latitude and doesn’t do much to stop her until after Diana leaves him. Caleb feels guilty about Irene which gives her a huge weapon; the story hints the guilt is because Caleb coerced his brother although Irene wants to believe the guilt is because Caleb regrets that he had not married her himself.

Irene lets Caleb think it had been his brother who was driving in the car accident that killed him. That adds to Caleb’s guilty feelings and makes him blame Diana not only for the anger and hurt she (supposedly) had caused Irene, but blames her for Barrett’s death. Caleb believes that Barrett and Irene had argued about Diana, thus causing the accident. This is another weapon Irene uses against Diana and Caleb.

Steve is not truly an Other Man. Diana tries to make Caleb think he is more important than he is but all their interactions are strictly friendship, not romantic. Steve is a lovely, uncomplicated man who makes no secret that he likes Diana and enjoys her company. He states right at the beginning that he’s not going to tangle with Caleb; he respects him and knows he can be ruthless.

Overall

I liked Man of Velvet so much I bought a copy even though it is available to read for free on Archive.org. Author Terrill captures the growing love between Diana and Caleb just the way I would imagine it would be given these characters and situation. The dislike and distrust dwindle and liking and trust grow and it feels real.

Neither Caleb nor Diana is the typical, off the shelf Harlequin hero or heroine. Both are more complex, motivated by much more than basic emotions or desires, and that makes them much more interesting characters than those in many category romances. In the end, the reason I like Man of Velvet so much is the love that grows between Caleb and Diana.

5 Stars

I got my paperback copy on Thriftbooks and you can usually find copies on Amazon, eBay and other used book sites or read on Archive.org.

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Jilted by Sally Romance

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How do you get over being dumped by your fiancé in favor of your best friend? Not only do you lose the man you love, you lose his family, the life you planned together, your dreams, your self-respect and to top it off, you lose your best friend, the girl you grew up with, the girl who knows you as well as you know yourself. It’s hard. It’s hard but ladies do it all the time. It is not such an uncommon story to lose your fiancé or your husband to someone else.

Alexa, the heroine in Jilted, feels this loss. When her fiancé, Mark, tells her that he is in love with her maid of honor and best friend Elaine and they want to marry, she is devastated. She fights to keep Mark, which only makes it awkward. Alexa is an orphan and was close to Elaine’s family and likes Mark’s parents and looks forward to joining their family. Now it is all gone.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

Alexa attends the wedding out of pride and is counting the hours until she can leave when she meets Scott, Mark’s older brother, who doesn’t know she is the jilted ex She drinks way too much and notices how much Scott resembles Mark. He gives her a ride back to London and she invites him in. Scott comments how hard it was for Mark and Elaine since Mark’s original fiancée kept clinging and would not let him go. Scott seems to think that the original girl should have faded off to the sunset. Alexa doesn’t say anything and Scott doesn’t realize who she is.

Alexa can’t stop imagining Mark and Elaine making love and she eventually goes to bed with Scott, pretending he is Mark. She calls him Mark which infuriates him, he discovers who she is, she runs to the bathroom and tries to take a whole bottle of aspirin. Scott stops her. He is devastated and brutally tells Alexa she is doing this to blight Mark and Elaine’s marriage, that she must stop.

Alexa is miserable, apathetic, sure she will never be happy or care about anything again. Scott tells her he is marrying her, taking her back to Brazil where he works. She pushes back a little but doesn’t care enough to bother.

Back in Brazil Alexa falls in with “the crowd”, a group of youngish married couples including a bunch of gossipy, bored wives. She drifts along for a while, makes no attempt to learn Portuguese, nor takes any interest in anything around her. Scott doesn’t show how annoyed he is but he’s getting fed up with the pity party. They do not sleep together but Scott presses her several times whether she had slept with his brother. Alexa will not answer.

Finally Alexa gets a letter from Elaine which she finds sad, but sad in the same way one is sad after watching a movie. She’s beginning to recover her spirit and also growing up. She gets interested in the wild orchids, starts to grow some and paints them, and stops hanging around with the worst of the bored gossips, stops going to the club every day, starts learning a bit of Portuguese. She realizes she loves Scott, that Mark will always have a tiny part of her heart but that she no longer loves or is in love with him.

She and Scott go to a remote camp where Alexa gets lost a bit in the jungle and they have to stay overnight in a small bunkhouse. The howler monkeys wake her up and she gets Scott up because it sounds as though someone is dying. Scott starts to make love to her. Alexa tells him that this time she knows it is he, not Mark, yet Scott starts pushing and pushing for her to tell him whether she had made love with Mark. She yells that yes, they had, many times and Mark was wonderful, far better than Scott. He’s infuriated and forces her. She pushes him off and he then is tender and they make love.

The next morning Alexa is so happy, convinced she and Scott have a future, but Scott is completely distant with her, treats her as a stranger. She feels jilted once more.

This time Alexa starts drinking and smoking until Scott hides the booze. She can’t figure out why he would care what she does since obviously he doesn’t love her, that once he got what he wanted – her body – Alexa ceases to matter. She gets drunk and crashes her car. Scott arranges to go back to England a month early, although Alexa tells him not to bother, to just send her back by herself. Scott tells her that she has every right to expect him to come back with her, to take care of her, because she is his wife.

Alexa thinks they should divorce and Scott should let her go her own way. Instead he takes her to his parents’ house where Mark and Elaine come too. Elaine is pregnant and Alexa is happy for them; Scott says that he would like nothing better than to start their family. Now Alexa is confused. Scott doesn’t want her or does he? Finally she goes to his room and does what she should have done right after the jungle camp incident. She asks him. Scott fell in love with her when they met and took her to Brazil hoping she would start to love him. Happy ever after. The End.

Characters and Emotions

It is hard to read Jilted. Alexa suffers intensely from Mark jilting her, suffers again when Scott seemingly rejects her after they sleep together. She is emotionally all over the map, probably more miserable than many people would be, in part because she lost family as well as a husband-to-be, then loses her self-respect when Scott rejects her. She works to grow up, to get over Mark, she succeeds then Scott acts like he detests her after they make love. She is devastated.

Scott calls Alexa a coward and he is right. She kept choosing the easy way out, to suicide in London after the wedding, to drink herself to oblivion in Brazil. She refuses to engage with her new life with Scott for about 2 months until she finally realizes she must.

Alexa grows up during Jilted. She learns that strength must be internal, that she cannot live off others, that she must learn to stand alone before she can stand with someone else. One telling scene is in the car when Scott gives her Elaine’s letter and she reads how wonderful Mark is. Scott tries to anger her, asks her whether she isn’t jealous, whether she doesn’t resent that Elaine sleeps with Mark now. Alexa responds by asking “Why are you trying to goad me into losing my temper?” That is the first time she is calm and can distance herself from the tumultuous emotions. She recognizes that Scott wants to prevent her from depression, from torturing herself imagining Mark and Alexa and she can appreciate what he does, and recognize that she no longer is obsessed with Mark.

I get impatient with Alexa. I want to tell her to snap out of it. Get over it. Discover how to fill the hole in yourself. Scott is brutal with her a few times but no more so than I wanted to be. I had a hard time believing he could love someone so self-pitying, so wallowing in misery. But he does.

Dealing with Rejection

Jilted makes it clear that Alexa was particularly hurt that Mark turned to Elaine, her best friend. She had trusted both of them, and they spent a month or two behind her back. Mark should have broken off with Alexa immediately, not waited. It wasn’t fair to Alexa to keep pretending, to break dates, to act evasive, to essentially sneak around and dupe her. Alexa would have felt less betrayed had Mark and Elaine waited a month or two to tell her.

Overall

I’ve been all over the rating map on Jilted. The heroine gets 1 star for letting herself get so worked up about a fiance and best friend who cheat on her, about a husband who rejects her after first raping, then making love (?) with her but who has never acted particularly loving towards her. The sheer level of emotional misery is off the scale, all the way to STUPID.

The hero Scott is not much better. He can’t see why Alexa would have tried to keep Mark, nor why she would have attended the wedding, nor why she would have pretended she was with Mark when they started to make love after the wedding. I admire him for taking care of Alexa and doing what he could for her.

Neither of them asked the other what went wrong after they slept together in the jungle camp. Scott later says he thought she cried because she realized she had made love with Scott and not Mark, but he doesn’t ask, not even when Alexa starts drinking like a wanna-be dead drunk. Alexa also doesn’t ask him why, right until the final page she thinks Scott rejects her. She brings misery onto herself.

The emotional intensity gets 5 stars. Too bad the emotions are so over the top.

It’s painful to read about someone so messed up and so willing to stay messed up and so happy to dive into a bottle to avoid more hurt. What will Alexa do when Scott dies before she does? Or if they have children who go off the rails? She needs to stop being a drama queen, to develop some strength and some character.

On Goodreads I gave this 2 stars, then 4, and now after reading the third time I think I’m going to stay with 4 stars. The story and characters are not worth that much, but the fact Sally Wentworth manages to write a book that I have read three times makes up for the too stupid to live emotional drama.

I got my copy from Thriftbooks and you can read for free on Archive.org here. Amazon has used copies as do other used sites and eBay.

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The Bright Side of Dark Harlequin Romance by Jeneth Murrey

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

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

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

Plot Synopsis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Characters

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

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

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

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

Conflicts

There is one overriding conflict and a few smaller ones.

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

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

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

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

Setting

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

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

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

Overall

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

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

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

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

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

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Married by Christmas Marriage of Convenience by Carole Mortimer

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Married by Christmas was one of the first books I ready by Carole Mortimer; the intense emotional connections delighted me and I noted it on my books to buy list. I reread it now, about two years later, and I still enjoyed it, but after reading so many other romances I found it closer to good, not great.

Everything happens in London, in the main characters’ homes or hotel. The story is compressed to about a week and a half.

Plot Synopsis and Characters

Lilli lost her mother to a 5 year long bout with cancer just a few months ago, and her fiancé Andrew dumped her right after. She’s had a miserable last year. Tonight her friend Sally convinces her to go to a party given by a lady she knows slightly but doesn’t much like, Gerry. Gerry has a terrible reputation for men, Lilli calls her a man-eater.

Sally points out to Lilli an older, very handsome man who is obviously enraptured with Gerry. The man is Lilli’s dad, Richard. Lilli can’t believe her dad is chasing the man-eating Gerry so soon after her mom died and is disgusted and furious. She wanders around the house where she meets Patrick in the kitchen who clearly is someone special to Gerry. They flirt a bit, Gerry and Richard walk in and Lilli sees that she can get back at both of them (and herself) and having drunk a little too much, gets Patrick to take her to a hotel. Richard and Gerry both try to dissuade them but Patrick isn’t listening and Lilli is too angry and hurt to care.

Lilli is horrified the next morning when she wakes up to Patrick singing in the shower. She goes home where she and her dad have a short argument. Several fast meetings later Lilli learns that

  • Richard owes Patrick’s bank several million pounds that he cannot pay because Lilli’s former fiancé had embezzled the money before dumping Lilli in favor of a another man and her dad doesn’t want to humiliate Lilli by prosecuting him.
  • Patrick wants to marry her.
  • Lilli doesn’t want to marry Patrick

Lilli is no dummy and realizes Richard could go ahead and prosecute Andrew if Lilli marries Patrick. So she agrees but is not too happy about it, especially when Patrick gives the usual Harlequin Presents Hero speech about not believing in love. He wants her body and he wants kids and he intends to marry forever.

Patrick’s ex-wife shows up at the wedding reception and is nasty until Lilli – not Patrick – routs her. The next morning Richard shows up, yes the morning after their wedding night. How tacky! Patrick is not amused and he’s even less thrilled when Richard tells them that Andrew insists on speaking to Lilli. Andrew gives Lilli the money he embezzled and all should be well, except Patrick is in a real tizzy. Lilli walked out! Lilli went to her former fiancé!! Lilli is at Gerry’s house drinking champagne!!!

Patrick races there, they have the usual I Love You scene and a nice epilogue where Lilli has twin girls and Gerry and Richard, now married, have a baby son. There are several explanations in there too, all to show that Richard and Gerry and Patrick and Lilli all are blessed with true love.

Surface Emotions

The main problem I see with Married by Christmas is the characters seem to feel everything on the surface. Author tells us what Lilli thinks underneath her superficial gaiety and sparkle but the emotions don’t feel solid. She tells, not shows us Lilli’s heart.

Patrick has the typical reasons for his anti-love outward stance: He lost his mother when 15, later his dad, had to raise Gerry, had a horrible first marriage with a wife who chose an abortion rather than gaining weight with a baby. Yet he loves Lilli and supposedly fell in love with her when she fell asleep the moment she lay down when they got to the hotel room. He hadn’t slept with anyone since his first marriage broke up although he’d been looking for a solid gold lady, and Lilli completely ensnared him.

This is plausible but not all that likely. Lilli is 17 or 18 years younger than Patrick, beautiful, charming and he wants her very much. Sure. But love? Love a lady who happily leaves a party with a man she never met before and begs him to take her away to make love to her? Maybe. Or maybe he simply finally felt ready to love someone and Lilli is lovely and available, in the right place at the right time.

Carole Mortimer presents the secondary romance between Richard and Gerry as fact. She later has Gerry explain to Lilli how she and Richard met years earlier before his wife got cancer and how the man-eating rumors are false. This is nice but doesn’t add much to the story. The reason Lilli was in despair and left party with Patrick was to spite her dad and Gerry, but it doesn’t advance Lilli’s story to learn how they knew each other.

Summary and Overall Rating

Carole Mortimer is usually a 3 star author for me, some are better, some are worse, some are very much worse. After rereading I would give Married by Christmas a skimpy 4 stars; it’s good to very good.

I bought my copy of Married by Christmas from Thriftbooks. You can find Kindle and new or used copies on Amazon and other used book sites and eBay.

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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.