New Zealand - More Books than Time

Bride at Whangatapu – Romance by Robyn Donald

August 15, 2022 by Kathy Leave a Comment

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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Iceberg by Robyn Donald – Semi Forced Marriage

June 14, 2022 by Kathy Leave a Comment

Robyn Donald writes romances that are intense, with strong emotional connections among the characters that cause us readers to care about them as people. Iceberg is intense, with four main characters who react to each other to create tension and conflict.

Plot Synopsis – Skip to Miss Spoilers

The basic plot is straightforward, although the characters’ motives are anything but straight.

Linnet comes to New Zealand, back to the house she lived in her first 8 years, to stay with her half sister Bronwyn. Years earlier Linnet’s mother divorced her husband, Linnet’s and Bronwyn father, when the father sided with Bronwyn instead of his wife. The wife fled to Australia and recently married. Linnet thought she was in love with the man who eventually became her stepfather and left to get herself in order.
Bronwyn has sold the house to Justin who tore it down and built a large, modern home. Bronwyn lives in a flat at the back.
Justin is cold to Linnet when she arrives and tells her she is greedy and unscrupulous because she is contesting her father’s will. This is not true; Bronwyn lied to make herself appear more in need of Justin’s help.
Linnet and Bronwyn get along quite well. Bronwyn claims she is nearly engaged to Justin. Justin’s wife died several years ago, leaving a 7 year old daughter, Sarah, and Sarah and Bronwyn don’t like each other. Sarah attaches herself to Linnet and proceeds to make trouble.
Linnet is looking for a job and a place to stay when Justin offers her a paid position as Sarah’s companion. When Sarah refuses he gets nasty, says Linnet won’t exert herself at all for Sarah. This is another lie. Linnet spends most of her time with Sarah who is clingy and needy and throws tantrums when Linnet can’t be with her.
Linnet doesn’t allow Justin to browbeat her into taking on Sarah, but she does spend time with Sarah and thus with Justin. He takes the two of them to his cottage on an island north of Auckland where he leaves Sarah and Linnet to spend a week.
Justin tries to seduce Linnet when he returns to the island bring them home. Linnet is attracted to him, decides she loves him, but she manages to avoid sleeping with Justin because the phone rings or Sarah comes in. Linnet is certain that he either is still in love with his dead wife or close to marrying Bronwyn. She is appalled that Justin would seduce her when he’s nearly engaged but is honest enough with herself to acknowledge that she would like to make love with him.
Sarah gets the bright idea her daddy should marry Linnet and starts pushing and shoving and having meltdowns and temper tantrums to the point where she gets herself sick when Linnet says no. Justin does nothing to curb Sarah’s increasing intrusiveness and hints that he thinks it’s a dandy idea.
Finally Justin preempts the situation by telling Sarah that yes, he and Linnet are marrying. Linnet is furious, tells him this is blackmail, but for some unknown reason she agrees. Justin says that all’s fair in love or war but Linnet is certain that he does not love her.
Things come to a head when Linnet and Justin walk in on Bronwyn kissing Justin’s cousin Stewart. Stewart and Bronwyn are getting married. Linnet worries this will hurt Justin but he is not at all bothered.
Justin has true confession time and tells Linnet about his first marriage; he thought he was in love with his wife but turned out not so and he blames himself because he forced his wife to marry him. Linnet is infuriated. Why on earth is he doing it again?
True love confessions abound.

Characters

Linnet is a reasonable character, more or less a generic Harlequin heroine albeit with some common sense and has a backbone in the beginning. She is strong with Justin and somewhat with Bronwyn, a pushover for Sarah.

Daughter Sarah and the interaction between Sarah and Linnet downgrades the story. Linnet loves Sarah from the moment shes sees her and she never once tells Sarah that her questions and comments are completely inappropriate, nosy, rude, unprincipled, out of line. Sarah is perfectly happy as long as she gets her own way all the time and throws fits and makes herself sick when she does not. Her father panders to her.

After he confesses he loves Linnet we can surmise that Justin lets Sarah get her own way via bad behavior because he wants the same thing as Sarah, i.e., Linnet as his wife. As a mother, I am appalled that any parent would allow a child to manipulate and browbeat someone, using tantrums and tears to get their own way. Linnet is just as culpable. She should have told Sarah to stop it, spent less time with her, distanced herself so Sarah didn’t feel she was entitled to all of Linnet’s time.

Bronwyn had planned to send Sarah to boarding school if she had married Justin, and perhaps that would be a good plan for a an emotional vampire like Sarah. Justin had decided against marrying Bronwyn because Sarah did not like her. It’s clear that Sarah was looking out for her own self interests, knew she couldn’t manipulate Bronwyn and made sure her dad knew she disliked Bronwyn.

I kept wanting Linnet to give Sara a piece of her mind, to tell her to stop asking nosy questions and pushing and teasing her to marry Justin. That kid isn’t going to get better on her own and if Linnet and Justin don’t smack her down a few times she will be a monster when she’s older.

Linnet should have refused to knuckle under in plot step 11. As she points out to Justin, what is different this time than his first marriage? He is desperately in love. Check. He wants to marry her. Check. He is willing to force her. Check. His wife-to-be loves him. Check. Justin claims it is completely different; after all he loves Linnet and he only thought he loved his first wife. Really? How does he know? At a minimum Linnet should wait a few months to get married, give Justin time to decide whether this time is calf love too.

Bronwyn is not really an Other Woman. She dates Justin, claims she will marry him, but she doesn’t do anything to stop the romance between Justin and Linnet, she doesn’t belittle Linnet, in fact she praises her. Bronwyn is a decent sister aside from the lie about Linnet contesting their father’s will.

Justin is a typical Robyn Donald hero, not particularly cruel or mean, only determined and unscrupulous about getting what he wants. We can see Sarah’s behavior mirrors Justin’s. Linnet should grab her stuff and run for the hill, not marry into this gang of ace champion manipulators.

The title Iceberg refers to Justin who maintains a cold demeanor throughout and avoids emotional entanglements. He had thought to marry Bronwyn in an emotion-free marriage – neither loved the other – but fell in love with Linnet despite his attitude towards love.

The minor characters, housekeeper Anna, cousin Stewart, islanders Mike and Cherry play spearcarrier roles. Sara drives the plot.

Setting

Iceberg takes place in New Zealand, in a large home in Auckland and at an island cottage set near a nature preserve. Author describes the nature preserve and the trees and beach in loving detail and leaves the Auckland house as a blank space.

Overall

If it weren’t for Sara the emotional vampire and wanna-be Boss of All Things, I would have enjoyed Iceberg as much as I do most of Robyn Donald’s novels. Sarah gives me the creeps and I can’t see how Linnet can possibly be happy married to a man who will use such underhanded and despicable methods to blackmail her into marriage. Linnet thinks she is in love with Justin, but she thought she was in love with her new stepfather before that. Linnet is 20 and Justin is in his early to mid 30s and miles ahead of her in worldly experience. He has been with enough women to know how to seduce Linnet into thinking she is in love with him.

3 Stars

I got my paperback copy from Thriftbooks. Amazon has copies and most likely you can find this on other used book sites and eBay. You can borrow a pdf copy from Archive.org here.

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The Sweetest Trap. Harlequin Presents by Robyn Donald

April 3, 2022 by Kathy Leave a Comment

I usually like Robyn Donald’s Harlequin Presents for their strong stories, interesting well-developed characters and good dialogue. The Sweetest Trap is disappointing. I made myself finish it despite stopping every few pages to do fun things like dishes and laundry. The plot was simply not enticing enough to overcome wooden characters, continuity problems, spotty dialogue and the cheesy idea of a 35 year old man seducing an 18 year old, unworldly girl.

Plot Synopsis

Cressida, just 18, sails with her domineering father all over the world, gaining him raw material for his philosophical musing/travelogue books that sell well, until her dad has a fatal heart attack off the coast of New Zealand during a dangerous storm. Cressida radios for help since she cannot handle the yacht alone and Luke arrives in his fishing launch to help her bring the yacht into shore.

Luke takes her to his New Zealand home which he shares with his mom, helps her with the inquest, financial settlements, emotional turmoil. Cressida has longed to live the way Luke does, settled in a home surrounded by country yet close enough to the ocean to sail or swim for fun. She had wanted to go to college, had never wanted to accompany her father, but he had promised his dead wife to keep Cressida with him. Now she’s unable to grieve and can feel only bitter regret.

Luke has a long time girlfriend, Paula, who visits several weekends. Luke’s mom tells Cressida that Paula has not wanted to marry Luke since it meant she would have to give up the law career she loves. Later we see that Paula does want to marry Luke and Luke tells Cressida that he had thought seriously about marrying Paula since he cares greatly for her.

Cressida is wise enough to realize she has a crush on Luke and is hoping that it is nothing more, just the usual adolescent strong feelings that dissipate in time. They are physically attracted and Luke kisses her, makes it clear that he wants more. Eventually they take her yacht out on a farewell cruise before she sells it, get caught overnight in a storm and make love. Cressida is horrified afterwards because she knows that was the worst thing to do when she does not want to love Luke and does not want to be pregnant and there’s Paula. Luke says he’ll marry her but it doesn’t sound to Cressida or to me as though he wants to.

When they get back Paula is waiting for Luke in the garage, throws herself in his arms and says “You have to help me. I think I’m pregnant!” Exit Cressida.

She ends up sharing an apartment in Auckland with a nice girl, Jan, who’s pretty fed up with guys – at the moment. Luke shows up and Cressida delivers a great self-sufficiency speech: She wants to find out who Cressida Godwin is and all she’ll ever be if she marries Luke is Mrs. Luke. He’s angry and tells her Paula has been having an affair with someone else, admits he loves Paula, leaves.

Luke’s mom calls Cressida when Luke is hospitalized. Cressida charters a plane to get there and sits with him while he’s unconscious. Paula arrives too and agrees with Cressida that one of the two of them can stay with Luke, and it will be whosever voice he responds to. Luke ignores Paula but reaches for Cressida’s hand. Paula leaves, banished to the cold reaches of discarded HP Other Women. Luke then wakes up and kicks Cressida out.

Things proceed until Luke shows back up one evening when Jan is out, informs her he loves her, won’t take no for an answer, they sleep together again and agree to marry.

Characters and Dialogue

Luke starts his role in The Sweetest Trap by jumping in the ocean during a storm to reach Cressida’s boat, grinning and having a wonderful time playing Viking. Later Robyn Donald tries to show Luke as a thoughtful, emotional, warm and kind man but it doesn’t quite work. Luke is extremely kind to Cressida, supporting her through the horribleness of her dad’s death, offering her a home, helping her gain some basic skills, but he also rides over her and ignores what she wants when it conflicts with what he wants.

Case in point: Luke asks one of his employees to take Cressida shopping since all her clothes are suited to sailing in warm weather, casual or outgrown. Cressida has some money the lawyer for her father’s estate advanced her and she intends to budget only part of that for new clothes. Luke goes behind her back and has his employee go back and get all the other things that Cressida liked but didn’t buy. True, the new things are wonderful and Cressida wants them, but her whole point throughout the story is she wants to be independent, at least long enough to prove to herself that she is a separate person and can take care of herself. Luke was disrespectful.

Let’s not even go to the age difference. The experience gap is even larger and more momentous than the age gap. Cressida went to a convent school in England when she wasn’t cloistered on the yacht with her dad. She met people yes, including a repulsive guy who wanted to buy her for a short term affair, but she was completely under her father’s control. Luke has been an independent adult for almost 20 years.

Cressida had the dubious pleasure of being in the room behind a bookcase when Paula and Luke came in and started kissing and making out. Luke claimed later that was Paula’s last attempt to show him they could make marriage work, supposedly because she didn’t want the affair with the other man. I don’t buy this. This little passionate interlude took many minutes and neither one spoke. It sounded as if Luke enjoyed having Paula try to persuade him, even if he ended up rejecting her.

Cressida has the best dialogue and develops a spine although she berates herself for being weak and easily intimidated. I didn’t think she had allowed herself enough time to discover who she was but overall she was characterized as a person we could visualize being happy. The author tells us instead of showing us a little too much. Cressida is described as feeling empty, bitter, afraid several times but we don’t really see that.

I didn’t like the huge age/experience difference nor that Cressida and Luke sleep together even when Cressida believes he is in love with Paula. She doesn’t seem able to think clearly when Luke is around with his manly self.

The big romance between Cressida and Luke is inconsistent, varying from almost completely physical to metaphysical. Luke says he recognizes Cressida as bone of his bone, part of himself, but this is after he’s tried to push her away, after he’s seduced her, after he’s hurt her, after she’s seen him first make love to Paula then later reject her, after Cressida has escaped his hand. As for Cressida it’s possible for a young lady to truly love a man so much older and more experienced, but it’s far more likely to be a short term crush. Cressida was wise to leave to find out the difference; I was not convinced that she knew what she felt even at the end.

Luke uses Paula. He tells Cressida that he’d seriously considered marrying Paula, that they both cared for the other, that he didn’t love her but knew they could have a happy life together. He keeps seeing Paula and seems to swing between chasing Cressida for physical delight and clinging to Paula for emotional comfort. He finally dumps her, which is when Paula turns to her married co-worker.

The minor characters, Luke’s mom, gossipy neighbors, the young lawyer and his wife, roommate Jan, are nice touches and all have some depth, but are essentially spear carriers, foils to carry the action. I couldn’t visualize any of them.

Style and Continuity

Robyn Donald did not make me care about the characters nor believe any of them are real people. The pace is slow. Sometimes a slow pace with a slow tension build works great with romance novels but this one doesn’t have the tension.

The novel lacks a clear emotional peak. Was it when Luke and Cressida make love in the yacht? When Paula throws herself at him begging for help with a suspected pregnancy? When Luke is in hospital and Cressida and Paula joust over who he will respond to? Is it when Cressida tells Luke she needs to be on her own to find out who she is? The ending is not the peak; in fact it simply happens. Time to sleep together, yay!

I picked a page at random, #104, right after Cressida tells Luke about the degenerate rich guy who wanted her for a couple weeks. There are 6 paragraphs on this page, all quite short. Four paragraphs are tell paragraphs, Robyn Donald tells us what Cressida thinks or describes inconsequential action. Two are mostly dialogue. That ratio is pretty typical, a bit more telling than showing and that, along with the slow pace and icky age difference make this story bland and less interesting than Donald’s usual.

There are at least two glaring and some smaller continuity problems.

Luke broke ribs and hurt his arm in a bulldozer accident but Cressida asks him several times about his leg, does it hurt, can he walk OK? Luke says it aches.
Cressida doesn’t earn a lot in Auckland yet she charters a plane to get to Luke in the hospital instead of taking the bus.
Luke and Cressida make love in the apartment she shares with Jan. I can see Jan having a fit when she comes home and finds them both there, especially if Cressida and Jan share a room.
A small problem is when the yacht sells. The buyers are getting it refitted so Luke and Cressida take it out for a last sail. The boat must have been docked near Luke’s house yet we never hear that the buyers came to see it in person. I noticed that which means either the story was weak or the problem was glaring; I usually forgive small problems in a good story.

Overall

The Sweetest Trap combines the big age and experience gap with a domineering man and girl who wants to grow up and develop a spine and personality. I think this should have caused tension and conflict all on its own, and indeed that is so. However the tension is mild and Donald does not develop the conflicts. Instead we have a lot of Luke chasing Cressida around the couch (more or less) and Cressida bemoaning that she has a crush on Luke, a most unsuitable crush object.

The story does not come together.

2 Stars, OK

I got my paperback copy of The Sweetest Trap in a lot on eBay. It is available on Thriftbooks here, and Amazon here, both new and used. I didn’t see it available in E format except in pdf format to borrow on Archive.org.

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