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Rating: 
Summary: Finding love
Review: OK, the plot description is given in the editoral review. The professor is not a doctor, he's in finance and Deborah is a nanny. The professor, a widower, has a young daughter. Deborah marries him, and then they fall in love. One of the better stories from Ms. Neels and interesting in that the heroine comes from a loving family, and is not dirt poor.
Rating: 
Summary: Dull as Dishwater
Review: One of the problems with Harlequin Romances is that the authors were expected to provide a number of books a year even if they had nothing to write about. I knew I was in trouble with this book when I was 40 pages into it and realized that nothing of any consequence had happened in the last 20. The heroine in this case is the middle class daughter of a bank manager. Her father appears to exist to drive her to and from places. The hero is a certified public accountant. The heroine is a trained Nanny whose cousin guilts her into taking a temporary job caring for three children whose mother is dealing with her own mother's health crisis. The children are nice, the mother is nice, the grandmother is nice, the servants are nice. After the grandmother gets better they all go to someplace warm for a few weeks. The heroine's father drives her to the air port. I had my eyes propped open with toothpicks by this point but doggedly went on to finish this book in which nothing much happens at all. The secret of Romance as a genre is that certain writers have tapped into a powerful fantasy among enough women to sell a steady number of their books. When my mind wandered from the story (frequently) I was trying to figure out who the target audience was. Ms. Neels would have been in her 70's when she wrote this book. The heroine like most of her heroines is old fashioned in her outlook and actions. In Betty Neels books being up to date seems to equate to a loss of morals and manners. Domesticity is seen as the ultimate virtue. My guess is that the audience was supposed to be women of her own age and I would further guess the economic level was probably working class to lower middle class. The servant class and middle class are usually portrayed as honest and hard working. The upper class comes in for knocks. The perfect hero seems to be a professional with a solid income, a house with servants and a nice car or two. Good temperment is optional. With younger people Neels' charm seems to be a certain camp quality: the lovingly detailed descriptions of meals; how her heroines never blushed, they pinkened; and her fascination with doctors from the Netherlands. At the top of her form she's good, here she isn't.
Rating:
Summary: Dull as Dishwater
Review: One of the problems with Harlequin Romances is that the authors were expected to provide a number of books a year even if they had nothing to write about. I knew I was in trouble with this book when I was 40 pages into it and realized that nothing of any consequence had happened in the last 20. The heroine in this case is the middle class daughter of a bank manager. Her father appears to exist to drive her to and from places. The hero is a certified public accountant. The heroine is a trained Nanny whose cousin guilts her into taking a temporary job caring for three children whose mother is dealing with her own mother's health crisis. The children are nice, the mother is nice, the grandmother is nice, the servants are nice. After the grandmother gets better they all go to someplace warm for a few weeks. The heroine's father drives her to the air port. I had my eyes propped open with toothpicks by this point but doggedly went on to finish this book in which nothing much happens at all. The secret of Romance as a genre is that certain writers have tapped into a powerful fantasy among enough women to sell a steady number of their books. When my mind wandered from the story (frequently) I was trying to figure out who the target audience was. Ms. Neels would have been in her 70's when she wrote this book. The heroine like most of her heroines is old fashioned in her outlook and actions. In Betty Neels books being up to date seems to equate to a loss of morals and manners. Domesticity is seen as the ultimate virtue. My guess is that the audience was supposed to be women of her own age and I would further guess the economic level was probably working class to lower middle class. The servant class and middle class are usually portrayed as honest and hard working. The upper class comes in for knocks. The perfect hero seems to be a professional with a solid income, a house with servants and a nice car or two. Good temperment is optional. With younger people Neels' charm seems to be a certain camp quality: the lovingly detailed descriptions of meals; how her heroines never blushed, they pinkened; and her fascination with doctors from the Netherlands. At the top of her form she's good, here she isn't.
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