How would you like to be your husband’s second choice? To marry the man you love, and have loved for years, knowing he will never love you, that he gave his heart to a manipulative woman who deserted him when he needed her most?

Plot and Story Synopsis

In House of Mirrors Yvonne Whittal confronts this situation, although here the beloved was never the spouse, only Grant’s much desired girl friend Myra. Myra who manipulated Grant with her beautiful face and body and who deserted him when he lost his status as revered surgeon due to a serious hand injury. When story opens Grant is bitter and alone and hiding in his cottage in rural South Africa where his former neighbor Liz, seeks him out. Liz has loved him for years, way back when he was pursuing her older sister Pamela and still loves him. She comes over, finds his cottage is a pigsty, that he doesn’t cook or eat much, that he’s angry and hurting from losing Myra and his career. (Apparently it never occurred to him that he could practice medicine or teach even with a bad hand.) He tells Liz to go away, that he doesn’t need her or want to see anyone.

Grant is sulking.

Liz is a breath of fresh air for him; she is eminently practical, she comes over every day, cleans his house, cooks his meals, washes his clothes, gives him company when he wants it but never burdens him with her feelings or says much about herself. Eventually Grant kisses her and discovers that he isn’t quite as dead or numb as he thought, Liz responds to him and he wants her. He says he wants her physically but in fact he is looking for stability and comfort and knows instinctively that Liz is that.

The proposal scene is funny. He asks her to marry him, she tells him a marriage proposal usually comes after a declaration of love. He admits he has no love to offer her but he needs a wife. Liz the blunt then says he needs a woman in his bed, which he agrees with. He also says she’s lively company (oh my, a compliment!), a good cook and irons his shirts. Wow. Be still my heart. Of course he can offer her a good life, in material terms, and he can offer her physical passion and why isn’t that enough?

Liz tells him she wants a lot more, she wants love. Then, unlike 99% of all Harlequin heroines, she tells him she loves him and she wants him to love her. He insists he cannot give her love, but he will give her respect, companionship and the physical side of love. She points out she must be a glutton for punishment and accepts.

This is the crux of the story from her side. She loves him, she isn’t just in love and she has no illusions about him or what he feels for her. She knows she risks a life of pain married to someone who feels little for her and she isn’t stupidly optimistic about the chance his feelings might grow. She hopes he might but she doesn’t expect it and she marries him with her eyes wide open.

She knows she has the right to expect his fidelity. He won’t tell her what he thinks about Myra – it’s none of her business, which is a danger sign – and Liz worries he is using her to forget the woman he really wants. Myra is in Paris but could return at any time and Liz isn’t sure that his respect and desire for herself would prevent him from turning to Myra. This second conflict starts subtly, mostly inside Grant and Liz, a foreshadowing.

Liz challenges Grant to have another operation and therapy on his hand. He regains his dexterity and career and is once again the successful, well-known surgeon.

Things go well until Myra shows up and Grant falls apart. He begins staying out at night, sleeping apart from Liz, when they do make love he is tender, almost desperate. True to Harlequin etiquette, Myra makes the classic Other Woman visit, tells Liz to make everyone happy and fade off into the sunset, that Grant is hers once again. Liz, no weeping doormat, tells Myra that all Grant has to do is ask her to leave, but that she is not running when things get tough, a direct hit since Myra ran out on Grant before.

Myra comes home one afternoon after having the doctor confirm she is pregnant, ready to share the good news with Grant but worried that he might feel compelled to stay with her only for the baby. Not to worry. Grant is home early to tell her that although he never wanted to hurt her, blah blah blah, he “needs to be free to sort himself out”. He married Liz when he was “at his lowest ebb” or as Liz says, he knew Myra would not have him then and Liz was better than nothing.

This is where Grant’s complete lack of self-knowledge peeks out. He denies that he made do with Liz or that she was there to help him pass the time. He refuses to discuss Myra even when Liz tells him that Myra never loved him and never will, but he is concerned where Liz is going and wants her to have the car he gave her. In fact Liz was right. Grant did make do, he did use Liz when she was good enough, better than nothing, and now he’s getting the first intimation that she may be more than that and that he’s making a horrible mistake. But since he’s clueless and lets Myra manipulate him, because he wants to believe Myra is the sweet, loving person he wants her to be, he lets Liz walk out.

Liz goes home to her sister’s house, has a miscarriage, refuses to talk about Grant and goes back to writing her children’s books. Sister Stacy blasts Grant through the phone a few days after the miscarriage, tells him to leave Liz alone.

Eventually Liz stops hating Grant and goes to the cottage when she knows he will be there. They have a big reconciliation, Grant grovels, gives a heartfelt apology, says he realized he was facing an abyss of misery the day after Liz left when he suddenly could see Myra as the cold, selfish person she is and rejected her.

There’s a mini-epilogue a few months later, where Liz tells Grant she’s pregnant and Grant says he ran into Myra and once more confirmed that Myra has no hold on him.

Characters – Liz

Yvonne Whittal did a marvelous job here letting us see the heartbreak of being second best, without tears or self-pity, and she used the plot and dialogue to advance Liz’s and Grant’s stories.

Liz’s story is of loving without being loved, of providing endless support both emotional and physical, of losing what is most dear to her, Grant and then the baby, of dealing with grief without becoming bitter. The plot mirrors Liz’s growth and evolution from a girl who wants to help a man she’s always respected and loved to a wife deeply in love with her husband, through rejection and loss to being redemption for Grant.

Whittal made me connect with Liz and ask myself how I would feel to be second best, and a poor second at that. Lots of romance novels have a theme of the heroine thinking she’s not who the hero wants, but usually either the heroine or other woman imagines this, or the hero doesn’t want anyone, neither heroine or Other Woman or he’s making up his mind. In House of Mirrors the conflict is real, tangible and happening now. We see it and we feel it.

Very few Harlequin heroines will risk admitting their love. Either they fear the hero will manipulate them or they let pride get in the way or they can’t face rejection or mockery. Not Liz.

Liz has courage. She handles the hurt and rejection with grace and character. It takes losing her baby, and hearing the obstetrician believe it was due to stress from Grant rejecting her, that turns her love into hate short term. She couldn’t have hated him if she had not loved him.

Myra on the other hand, does not take rejection with any character. She wants to be the one who dumps, not the one dumped. She visits Liz and preens looking into the mirrors all around the room yet she has nothing to offer anyone beyond exterior, physical beauty.

Characters – Grant

What to say about Grant. He’s dumb and cruel, selfish and shows no appreciation for Liz throughout the story. Early on, when Liz visits the cottage he sits at the table, smokes and drinks coffee and watches her wash dishes and cook and clean up the mess – his dishes, his meals, his mess. He doesn’t help her. (Later Liz remembers when they were first married at the cottage he would help her dry the dishes. Big whoopie deal.)

Liz mentions she wants to continue writing children’s books, which is how she earned her living. Grant says in a bored voice, “You can please yourself. You can write your little stories or you can be a lady of leisure.” Time to whap him alongside the head, Liz!

He values her passionate response to him but he seems not to realize that the passion is mostly because she loves him and wants to give herself to him, to be as close as possible, to have that wonderful emotional connection.

A few weeks after they marry Grant decides it’s time to go back to the city and informs Liz. She has no idea where she stands with him, and braves her uncertainty to first ask him whether he’s taking her along, and then to tell him he should discuss ideas and plans with her while he’s considering them, not just inform her of the result. She tells him she wants to be part of his life, not to cling or embarrass him, to be more than the woman he sleeps with, that she wants to share the ups and the downs with him. He ruthlessly pushes her away, tells her she married him knowing what he offered and she could leave if she didn’t like it. He is almost proud of not offering her anything beyond physical desire. He slams out of the cottage. Later he has enough sense (barely) to be glad that she’s still there when he returns, but he still lacks basic awareness to ask himself why he is glad, why he worried she might have left. He feels a lot more for her than desire, but that’s all he will admit.

Grant tells Liz that he didn’t try to seduce her before marriage because he “wanted a marriage, something stable and solid” and he knew he could have that with Liz. She takes it as a huge compliment which puzzles Grant since he doesn’t see her stability and integrity as special, doesn’t realize he admits he could never have relied on Myra for anything nor built a strong, stable marriage with her.

Grant still is clueless when he brings her to the house that Myra decorated. The house is full of mirrors, a metaphor for the relationships among the characters. Myra cares about Myra so she likes the mirrors to show herself. Grant cares about Myra and wants the mirrors to show her. Liz has no vanity and doesn’t like the mirrors at all. Grant has enough consideration and common sense to use a different set of rooms than the ones he shared with Myra but he fails to see that the house itself is a problem for him and Liz, and that Myra permeates every room.

Sloppy Seconds? Settle for What You Can Get? Or Hold Fast to Your Principles?

What happens here? Does Liz decide that she’s always second best and dump Grant in disgust? Does she settle for what she can get, make the most of a delightful physical relationship? Or does she love Grant with all she has and work to build something, however lopsided, with him? She doesn’t settle. She values what she has, she appreciates it and she uses it as a base for a true relationship in marriage. Too bad Grant doesn’t value that relationship when shiny object Myra shows up; he’s a magpie, dumping what he has for the elusive new thing.

Liz uses her principles to guide her. She loves Grant, so she goes to his cottage and takes care of him. She loves him and wants him and knows she can offer him a happy marriage so she says yes to his proposal. She loves him but she won’t borrow trouble when Myra comes sparkling in his path, but when he says he wants his freedom, Liz gives it to him. She spends the entire book giving to Grant, giving him care, good food, clean house, ironed shirts, love, passion, encouragement, strength, integrity and finally, freedom.

Real Life?

Why does House of Mirrors appeal so much to me? It’s the fact that being second best/also-ran/loser is so hurtful and how Liz and others respond to this.

This idea of being #2 bothers me when I think of people who have remarried after their spouse died. It’s easy to imagine that the new spouse might feel second best, especially when someone compares them to the deceased. No one likes to feel like a loser in any field but it must be devastating in marriage. Making this even harder for Liz, the other woman is alive and pushy and wants Grant and knows how to use her looks and history to charm and manipulate.

Liz handles this perfectly. She is a strong person, willing to tell Grant she loves him and what she wants from him, yet she backs off when he tells her to not demand what he won’t give. She loves him and gives him everything she can, practical help, loyalty, commitment, even freedom when he wants it. I admire her.

Yvonne Whittal writes novels set in South Africa. Her heroines are strong and courageous and willing to risk themselves to keep their integrity. House of Mirrors is so far the best I have read by this author.

5 Stars

I thank Archive.org for providing this novel in pdf format to read online.