Never Too Late

Rating:
Summary: Likable characters.
Review: Back Cover description: She thought she'd finished with romance. After the breakup of her engagement, Prudence eagerly accepted Dr. Benedict van Vinke's offer of a job in Holland. It seemed the perfect opportunity to begin an entirely new life.
What she wasn't prepared for was the effect Benedict and his young daughter, Sibella, would have on her emotions.
When was she going to stop acting like a fool, she asked herself angrily, and remember she was just his employee?

Slightly different, Prudence is lovely, not plain; tall, not short and has a family. This is less a cinderella story and more about equals. Benedict is the one who seems unsure in this story. Worth the time-I almost didn't read it, I like the ones where the heroine is plain.

Rating:
Summary: Betty Neels-- a Guilty Pleasure--But Not This Book
Review: The death of Betty Neels in 2001 at the age of 90 made me feel a little sad. She was a great comfort read. No matter how beleaguered her cookie cutter heroines were, one knew a big burly Dutch surgeon, or some other rich professional was going to rescue them from their lives of poverty and toil.

This book does not vary from the template and it's not one of her best. The heroine, Prudence, is 27 years old. She is the daughter of a middle class vicar, she has never held a job, and when she saw Benedict van Vinke, a broad chested Dutch Docter, at her sister's wedding she realized that her four year engagement to Tony, an architect, might lack a little something.

I had a lot of sympathy for the discarded architect. He seemed to be a bit shallow but a nice steady sort with an eye to his business advancement and proper social connections. He had absolutely no idea that his fiance wasn't happy until she started making up to van Vinke at the reception. When he reacted with a jealousy he didn't want to admit, instead of trying to talk about it, Prudence decides to break the engagement. Of course she doesn't want to tell him until she has a job.

Prudence strikes me though as being a passive dependent type. After all she went along with the engagement for four(!) years and didn't think to do anything about it until she sees another man she finds attractive. She doesn't want to tell him that she is breaking the engagement until she has a place to land. When she dumps the fiance it is at a after-party supper in front of her sister, her sister's husband and van Vinke-- and she almost doesn't then but all the others insist. Besides publically humilating him in front of his rival, he is also told Prudence is going off to Holland with van Vinke to be his personal assistant. Poor Tony the Architect.

Of course van Vinke's first wife, now conveniently dead, comes in for a trashing also. She was frivolous, didn't like his friends, etc.

Luckily we all know that the hero and heroine are perfect for one another, that once they get over their Big Misunderstandings they will live happily ever after. Prudence will always think van Vinke is pretty wonderful and van Vinke will agree.

Rating:
Summary: Betty Neels-- a Guilty Pleasure--But Not This Book
Review: The death of Betty Neels in 2001 at the age of 90 made me feel a little sad. She was a great comfort read. No matter how beleaguered her cookie cutter heroines were, one knew a big burly Dutch surgeon, or some other rich professional was going to rescue them from their lives of poverty and toil.

This book does not vary from the template and it's not one of her best. The heroine, Prudence, is 27 years old. She is the daughter of a middle class vicar, she has never held a job, and when she saw Benedict van Vinke, a broad chested Dutch Docter, at her sister's wedding she realized that her four year engagement to Tony, an architect, might lack a little something.

I had a lot of sympathy for the discarded architect. He seemed to be a bit shallow but a nice steady sort with an eye to his business advancement and proper social connections. He had absolutely no idea that his fiance wasn't happy until she started making up to van Vinke at the reception. When he reacted with a jealousy he didn't want to admit, instead of trying to talk about it, Prudence decides to break the engagement. Of course she doesn't want to tell him until she has a job.

Prudence strikes me though as being a passive dependent type. After all she went along with the engagement for four(!) years and didn't think to do anything about it until she sees another man she finds attractive. She doesn't want to tell him that she is breaking the engagement until she has a place to land. When she dumps the fiance it is at a after-party supper in front of her sister, her sister's husband and van Vinke-- and she almost doesn't then but all the others insist. Besides publically humilating him in front of his rival, he is also told Prudence is going off to Holland with van Vinke to be his personal assistant. Poor Tony the Architect.

Of course van Vinke's first wife, now conveniently dead, comes in for a trashing also. She was frivolous, didn't like his friends, etc.

Luckily we all know that the hero and heroine are perfect for one another, that once they get over their Big Misunderstandings they will live happily ever after. Prudence will always think van Vinke is pretty wonderful and van Vinke will agree.