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Iron Master
As a teacher in a rural town, Carly had a quiet, comfortable life and, with her parents' disastrous marriage in mind, that was all she really wanted. But then she met the young local iron master, Nick Bradley, and her life would never be the same again.
192 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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April 20, 2018
RE The Iron Master - Rachel Ford brings us a low key expedition to Yorkshire with a side of Wuthering Heights in her last HP outing.
The h is a twenty something vocational college teacher who is very fond of her rowdy students. The H is an early thirty something genuine Iron Monger - he took over his dad's iron foundry when he ditched school at 16 and is currently becoming a budding Victoriana Iron Working tycoon.
Make no mistake tho, this H is not the usual smooth HP Alpha. He is bossy alright, but think moody, broody Heathcliff wielding an iron hammer at the forge and going off on spelunking/potholing adventures every weekend, hoping to find the big undiscovered cavern system that will make him famous.
(Just don't touch the walls or anything in a living cave system, the oils from your hands can kill the delicate organisms and destroy the entire ecosystem, thus killing the caves.)
The h is more of an upper class lady herself, she is blonde and pretty, her mother especially tried to push her into Cordon Bleu cookery and running an upscale tearoom until she married the appropriate up and coming City Captain of Industry. But the h likes teaching and she is very good at getting the 'no hopers' motivated and learning something.
Which is how the H meets the h. Her former College Head decided that the h needed to actually go and get a thorough grounding in the factories and places that her students would be working. So she is assigned to shadow the H as he does his daily thing at his iron works.
Anyhows, we go with the h on her first day of playing follow the H. The h expects to meet the H's father, a charming, misogynistic older man who will probably be totally insulting in a 'help the little lady' kind of way. But instead she gets the misogynistic H instead, who is totally insulting in a 'You should be falling at my feet and jumping into my bed' kind of way.
The h is NOT amused. Mainly cause the men she works with, including her new School Head, are all furious that she won't fall at their feet and jump into their beds too - so it makes for a lot of unwanted advances that the h as to tactfully push off to maintain an air of scholarly tranqulity.
The h isn't into men and she isn't into dating and she isn't into relationships of the romantic kind at all - tho she LOVES the Bronte sisters, especially Emily, and she plans to get over to nearby Haworth Village and check out the Bronte home complex as soon as she gets a free moment schoolwise. The h's parents are upper class semi snobs who have a horrible marriage.
Her father is constantly cheating on her mother when he goes to London and the h's mother is all about the next big party she is hosting. The h's childhood was fraught with anger, bitterness and a lot of fighting, which was quickly hidden when the next big social event rolled around. Her experiences after leaving her parent's house haven't been much better, a lot of married men seem to want to order her into their beds - even if it is one they rent by the hour.
So the h plays it cool and distant in a polite manner and she gets really irked when the H makes his blunt, RF Yorkshire approved caveman moves. Tho the H is handsome and probably very handy, the h doesn't do relationships or flings and certainly not with guys who only bully and bait to provoke her and call it conversation.
The h is interested in the foundry tho and we get a really great description of what exactly goes on in one. The h has to follow the H around for two days of the week and soon the H is encroaching on other areas of the h's life too. He takes her to his house, which is a masterpiece of Victoriana living accoutrements.
He takes her to see the Bronte House at Haworth Village too and drags her up a moor path to the farmhouse ruins of Top Withens - the place that inspired Wuthering Heights. It is on this excursion that the h realizes the H is a modern Yorkshire version of Heathcliff and feels the effects of the HP Lurve Force Mojo.
The H also manages to buy the h's cooking skills for a dinner to the tune of £500 when they are auctioned off to raise money for the votech college's mini bus fund. The h and her cooking skills came into a bit of a bidding war, but the H beat the other bids by several hundred £'s and then he made her do a gourmet meal/hostess weekend while he negotiated a large contract with a delegation of Japanese businessmen.
The h doesn't like being dragooned into hostess duties for an entire weekend, she doesn't like having to the wear the provocative clothing the H buys for her either. She is getting really tired of his ordering her about and his roofie kiss attempts at seduction. When the H makes another gropey roofie kiss play in his Victorian Conservatory and pool area, the h finally snaps.
She tells the H that she isn't a tart. No means No. Not yes, if you forcibly kiss me enough. The h has had enough and wants to go back to her home and get HER little personal tasks done - nobody made him bid so much money and he isn't really any better than the pervy skeezy men who were having a bidding war over her.
So the H and h part ways on a wave of antagonism and the h goes to a different factory to look at things for the rest of the term. Then Christmas comes and the h is all alone in her cottage cause she got the flu and can't go to her parent's house - not that she wanted to anyways.
In an RF HP deus machina, the H shows up to give the h a surprise Christmas gift of a special made iron house plaque and finds the h keeled over as she answers the door. The H sticks around to take care of her and we get the suggestion of sponging.
Then the h decides that lurvin up the H is an excellent way to ensure flu recovery and the two have their big purple bliss passion moment, tho the h is very wary when the H wants to go to her parent's New Year's Eve party.
It is even worse than the h thought when the H overhears her mother and the h's father having a huge row right before the party starts over her father's cheating and the h's mother treats the H like something that crawled out of a sub sewer.
The H and h leave after the party, the h's dad likes him anyways and the h thinks it is because they are so alike. The H's parting shot to the h's mother is that he is marrying the h in a few weeks and the h is in shock. The H tells her they are getting married and the h tells the H, NO, she is not.
She doesn't want to be married, she wants to teach her wild students and marriage and a family are not on her agenda. The H storms off and the h goes home to have a mopey moment or thirty seven.
Then the h's School Head tells her that the h's classes are being eliminated. The h has only seen the H one time in the months after the split and he only confirmed there wasn't any mini H's on the horizon.
So the h turns in her notice at the school, puts her cottage up for sale and starts looking around for another place to teach 'no hoper' wild bunches. Then she finds out the H is on a rescue mission to get a group of students out of a pothole cave-in and the h realizes she loves the H and rushes to the scene.
After a terrible wait, the H emerges a little dirty, but otherwise okay and the h flings herself into his arms and swears they will never be parted again. The H declares he loves the h back and we leave them happy and planning an Easter wedding in RF's farewell HPlandia voyage.
This one was okay. There was a lot of interesting things in it, but the h's career was never really sorted and the H was remarked to be too Heathcliff-like and more importantly, too much like the h's philandering father to really make this a verified long term HEA. The h's parent's issues are never addressed and the big bonding scene between the h and H is the weekend he conscripts her for his hostess for the Japanese businessmen.
We know the h can do the job the H is asking of her and do it well, but it wasn't her avocation - teaching was and all the H ever did was disparage it. RF leaves us with unanswered questions in this one, plot strings are dangling and that is unfortunately never a good ending to an HP outing.
So read this with caution and don't expect wild trainwrecky drama. But overall it is a nice story and shot of Captain or a vino or two will probably give you enough of a rosy glow to call this a good day at the HP office.
ETA: I have been assured by Charlie - a very Lovely Yorkshire Woman - that in fact, 'schools aren't quite that feral and students go on to do amazing things other than "go darn t'mine" or become mindless worker bees in factories. Many of which have closed down and have been converted to tasteful apartments.' However the caves in Yorkshire are really awesome, so RF got that right.
Shout out here to Charlie! Thanks for giving us all insider valuable Yorkshire knowledge.
Which leads me to conclude that as usual, keep in mind this IS HPlandia and real world things just don't apply. Maybe RF just couldn't get her pudding recipe right and all of her HP Yorkshire had to suffer for it.
The h is a twenty something vocational college teacher who is very fond of her rowdy students. The H is an early thirty something genuine Iron Monger - he took over his dad's iron foundry when he ditched school at 16 and is currently becoming a budding Victoriana Iron Working tycoon.
Make no mistake tho, this H is not the usual smooth HP Alpha. He is bossy alright, but think moody, broody Heathcliff wielding an iron hammer at the forge and going off on spelunking/potholing adventures every weekend, hoping to find the big undiscovered cavern system that will make him famous.
(Just don't touch the walls or anything in a living cave system, the oils from your hands can kill the delicate organisms and destroy the entire ecosystem, thus killing the caves.)
The h is more of an upper class lady herself, she is blonde and pretty, her mother especially tried to push her into Cordon Bleu cookery and running an upscale tearoom until she married the appropriate up and coming City Captain of Industry. But the h likes teaching and she is very good at getting the 'no hopers' motivated and learning something.
Which is how the H meets the h. Her former College Head decided that the h needed to actually go and get a thorough grounding in the factories and places that her students would be working. So she is assigned to shadow the H as he does his daily thing at his iron works.
(Part of the undercurrent in this story is that the h is a good teacher, but according to the HP version of Yorkshire, she is an outsider and it does her or her students no good to actually try to teach them anything. Even the H, after he decides she is the perfect combination of hostess and bed warmer/mother of his children, remarks that the h is too involved with students who will amount to little.
That statement is coming from the H who left school as soon as he could and now has to take college classes at night to maneuver in the business world and get contracts and is currently learning advanced Japanese.
That attitude was a might disturbing for me, and the thread gets dropped, but I felt bad for the fictional rowdy students of Yorkshire in this HPlandia, especially as their parents were thinking the h was working marvels.)
Anyhows, we go with the h on her first day of playing follow the H. The h expects to meet the H's father, a charming, misogynistic older man who will probably be totally insulting in a 'help the little lady' kind of way. But instead she gets the misogynistic H instead, who is totally insulting in a 'You should be falling at my feet and jumping into my bed' kind of way.
The h is NOT amused. Mainly cause the men she works with, including her new School Head, are all furious that she won't fall at their feet and jump into their beds too - so it makes for a lot of unwanted advances that the h as to tactfully push off to maintain an air of scholarly tranqulity.
The h isn't into men and she isn't into dating and she isn't into relationships of the romantic kind at all - tho she LOVES the Bronte sisters, especially Emily, and she plans to get over to nearby Haworth Village and check out the Bronte home complex as soon as she gets a free moment schoolwise. The h's parents are upper class semi snobs who have a horrible marriage.
Her father is constantly cheating on her mother when he goes to London and the h's mother is all about the next big party she is hosting. The h's childhood was fraught with anger, bitterness and a lot of fighting, which was quickly hidden when the next big social event rolled around. Her experiences after leaving her parent's house haven't been much better, a lot of married men seem to want to order her into their beds - even if it is one they rent by the hour.
So the h plays it cool and distant in a polite manner and she gets really irked when the H makes his blunt, RF Yorkshire approved caveman moves. Tho the H is handsome and probably very handy, the h doesn't do relationships or flings and certainly not with guys who only bully and bait to provoke her and call it conversation.
The h is interested in the foundry tho and we get a really great description of what exactly goes on in one. The h has to follow the H around for two days of the week and soon the H is encroaching on other areas of the h's life too. He takes her to his house, which is a masterpiece of Victoriana living accoutrements.
He takes her to see the Bronte House at Haworth Village too and drags her up a moor path to the farmhouse ruins of Top Withens - the place that inspired Wuthering Heights. It is on this excursion that the h realizes the H is a modern Yorkshire version of Heathcliff and feels the effects of the HP Lurve Force Mojo.
(I have to admit I started suspecting RF's dedication to the romance genre and HPlandia at this point. Cause really most WH devoted readers are not fans of romance in purely anecdotal evidence. Now if RF had rhapsodized about Jane Eyre, she would probably still be writing in HPlandia. --Just sayin')
The H also manages to buy the h's cooking skills for a dinner to the tune of £500 when they are auctioned off to raise money for the votech college's mini bus fund. The h and her cooking skills came into a bit of a bidding war, but the H beat the other bids by several hundred £'s and then he made her do a gourmet meal/hostess weekend while he negotiated a large contract with a delegation of Japanese businessmen.
The h doesn't like being dragooned into hostess duties for an entire weekend, she doesn't like having to the wear the provocative clothing the H buys for her either. She is getting really tired of his ordering her about and his roofie kiss attempts at seduction. When the H makes another gropey roofie kiss play in his Victorian Conservatory and pool area, the h finally snaps.
She tells the H that she isn't a tart. No means No. Not yes, if you forcibly kiss me enough. The h has had enough and wants to go back to her home and get HER little personal tasks done - nobody made him bid so much money and he isn't really any better than the pervy skeezy men who were having a bidding war over her.
So the H and h part ways on a wave of antagonism and the h goes to a different factory to look at things for the rest of the term. Then Christmas comes and the h is all alone in her cottage cause she got the flu and can't go to her parent's house - not that she wanted to anyways.
In an RF HP deus machina, the H shows up to give the h a surprise Christmas gift of a special made iron house plaque and finds the h keeled over as she answers the door. The H sticks around to take care of her and we get the suggestion of sponging.
Then the h decides that lurvin up the H is an excellent way to ensure flu recovery and the two have their big purple bliss passion moment, tho the h is very wary when the H wants to go to her parent's New Year's Eve party.
It is even worse than the h thought when the H overhears her mother and the h's father having a huge row right before the party starts over her father's cheating and the h's mother treats the H like something that crawled out of a sub sewer.
The H and h leave after the party, the h's dad likes him anyways and the h thinks it is because they are so alike. The H's parting shot to the h's mother is that he is marrying the h in a few weeks and the h is in shock. The H tells her they are getting married and the h tells the H, NO, she is not.
She doesn't want to be married, she wants to teach her wild students and marriage and a family are not on her agenda. The H storms off and the h goes home to have a mopey moment or thirty seven.
Then the h's School Head tells her that the h's classes are being eliminated. The h has only seen the H one time in the months after the split and he only confirmed there wasn't any mini H's on the horizon.
So the h turns in her notice at the school, puts her cottage up for sale and starts looking around for another place to teach 'no hoper' wild bunches. Then she finds out the H is on a rescue mission to get a group of students out of a pothole cave-in and the h realizes she loves the H and rushes to the scene.
After a terrible wait, the H emerges a little dirty, but otherwise okay and the h flings herself into his arms and swears they will never be parted again. The H declares he loves the h back and we leave them happy and planning an Easter wedding in RF's farewell HPlandia voyage.
This one was okay. There was a lot of interesting things in it, but the h's career was never really sorted and the H was remarked to be too Heathcliff-like and more importantly, too much like the h's philandering father to really make this a verified long term HEA. The h's parent's issues are never addressed and the big bonding scene between the h and H is the weekend he conscripts her for his hostess for the Japanese businessmen.
We know the h can do the job the H is asking of her and do it well, but it wasn't her avocation - teaching was and all the H ever did was disparage it. RF leaves us with unanswered questions in this one, plot strings are dangling and that is unfortunately never a good ending to an HP outing.
So read this with caution and don't expect wild trainwrecky drama. But overall it is a nice story and shot of Captain or a vino or two will probably give you enough of a rosy glow to call this a good day at the HP office.
ETA: I have been assured by Charlie - a very Lovely Yorkshire Woman - that in fact, 'schools aren't quite that feral and students go on to do amazing things other than "go darn t'mine" or become mindless worker bees in factories. Many of which have closed down and have been converted to tasteful apartments.' However the caves in Yorkshire are really awesome, so RF got that right.
Shout out here to Charlie! Thanks for giving us all insider valuable Yorkshire knowledge.
Which leads me to conclude that as usual, keep in mind this IS HPlandia and real world things just don't apply. Maybe RF just couldn't get her pudding recipe right and all of her HP Yorkshire had to suffer for it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 30, 2024
A strong, smart schoolteacher is forced to “shadow” an arrogant, aggressive, iron foundry owner because of some asinine training requirement. He is a rude, chauvinist ass who expects her to cook his lunch even though it’s hardly part of her job. He disparages her simple, country cottage living and her love for her school students. He even calls her a cold-hearted bitch incapable of love when she rejects his violent sexual advances. The heroine gives him some epic set downs but she can’t help being attracted by his overwhelming masculinity especially when he dons his hard hat and does sweaty, manly things around his factory *face palm*
Because this is set in Yorkshire, we have quite a local travelogue including a visit to the Brontë sisters’ birth home now turned into a museum, as well as the farmhouse that inspired Emily to write Wuthering Heights. Several times during the story, heroine daydreams or hallucinates about Cathy Earnshaw.
There is a charity auction where hero outbids everyone by hundreds of pounds to secure heroine's Cordon Bleu chef services. He is wooing a trio of Japanese businessmen for a contract to buy up his Victorian style, iron creations and wants the heroine to help him mellow them out with good food and wine. She decides to cook a Japanese meal for the first time in her life. After cracking open a couple of pages from a Japanese cookbook, in true Mary Sue fashion, she wows the business guests and even throws in a couple of Japanese greetings she learned in between slicing her beef fillets and making her Teriyaki sauce. LoL
Hero tries to seduce her again but she is still gun shy, leading to an epic argument followed by him freezing her out for the next few weeks. Over Christmas, she gets ill with flu and he nurses her back to health (no sponging, just a lot of hand holding and making her tea and toast). Hero makes two of the only sweet, romantic gestures in the entire story. He gifts her with a Victorian paperweight to add to her collection, and he modifies one of his iron mouldings to build her a personalized name plate for her beloved “Pear Tree Cottage.” After that, heroine decides not to resist him anymore and once she gets better,they finally succumb to their mutual sexual attraction, which is highly satisfactory to both.
Hero immediately wants to go visit her parents for their annual New Year party. Heroine is weary because her rich, snobby parents have a sham marriage and made heroine’s childhood miserable with their epic fights, which is why she abandoned their cushy home and ritzy lifestyle and moved to Yorkshire to become a teacher. True to form, as soon as hero and heroine arrive at the party, heroine’s mother freezes out the hero because she sees him as nothing more than an uncouth Northerner not up to her standards. In an epically tacky move, hero one-ups snobby mom by announcing, without consulting the heroine, that she should keep her calendar clear because he is marrying her daughter at the end of the month.
Heroine is incensed, not just as his crude proposal, but because she doesn’t want to marry at all, after seeing countless horrible examples of disharmonious matrimony in her parents and in their set of friends. Hero’s reaction, as usual, is one of anger and ultimatum: it’s either marriage or nothing!
Heroine returns to her school after the winter holidays to find that she has lost her job and must put up her beloved cottage for sale. She is also missing the hero desperately although neither has made any moves to see each other since his ultimatum. One night, she hears that his life may be in danger as he is part of a rescue team trying to save a bunch of college students who had gone potholing (a very strange hobby if you ask me). Heroine realizes that she loves him and goes to jump in his arms as he emerges victorious from the underground. I guess we are supposed to rejoice at an HEA in which the now jobless, homeless heroine is going to spend the rest of her life being bullied by this self-centered piece of crap with control and anger issues. It’s really too bad because I liked this heroine despite her Mary-Sue-ness and rooted for her every time she told him off. Quel dommage 😥
Because this is set in Yorkshire, we have quite a local travelogue including a visit to the Brontë sisters’ birth home now turned into a museum, as well as the farmhouse that inspired Emily to write Wuthering Heights. Several times during the story, heroine daydreams or hallucinates about Cathy Earnshaw.
There is a charity auction where hero outbids everyone by hundreds of pounds to secure heroine's Cordon Bleu chef services. He is wooing a trio of Japanese businessmen for a contract to buy up his Victorian style, iron creations and wants the heroine to help him mellow them out with good food and wine. She decides to cook a Japanese meal for the first time in her life. After cracking open a couple of pages from a Japanese cookbook, in true Mary Sue fashion, she wows the business guests and even throws in a couple of Japanese greetings she learned in between slicing her beef fillets and making her Teriyaki sauce. LoL
Hero tries to seduce her again but she is still gun shy, leading to an epic argument followed by him freezing her out for the next few weeks. Over Christmas, she gets ill with flu and he nurses her back to health (no sponging, just a lot of hand holding and making her tea and toast). Hero makes two of the only sweet, romantic gestures in the entire story. He gifts her with a Victorian paperweight to add to her collection, and he modifies one of his iron mouldings to build her a personalized name plate for her beloved “Pear Tree Cottage.” After that, heroine decides not to resist him anymore and once she gets better,they finally succumb to their mutual sexual attraction, which is highly satisfactory to both.
Hero immediately wants to go visit her parents for their annual New Year party. Heroine is weary because her rich, snobby parents have a sham marriage and made heroine’s childhood miserable with their epic fights, which is why she abandoned their cushy home and ritzy lifestyle and moved to Yorkshire to become a teacher. True to form, as soon as hero and heroine arrive at the party, heroine’s mother freezes out the hero because she sees him as nothing more than an uncouth Northerner not up to her standards. In an epically tacky move, hero one-ups snobby mom by announcing, without consulting the heroine, that she should keep her calendar clear because he is marrying her daughter at the end of the month.
Heroine is incensed, not just as his crude proposal, but because she doesn’t want to marry at all, after seeing countless horrible examples of disharmonious matrimony in her parents and in their set of friends. Hero’s reaction, as usual, is one of anger and ultimatum: it’s either marriage or nothing!
Heroine returns to her school after the winter holidays to find that she has lost her job and must put up her beloved cottage for sale. She is also missing the hero desperately although neither has made any moves to see each other since his ultimatum. One night, she hears that his life may be in danger as he is part of a rescue team trying to save a bunch of college students who had gone potholing (a very strange hobby if you ask me). Heroine realizes that she loves him and goes to jump in his arms as he emerges victorious from the underground. I guess we are supposed to rejoice at an HEA in which the now jobless, homeless heroine is going to spend the rest of her life being bullied by this self-centered piece of crap with control and anger issues. It’s really too bad because I liked this heroine despite her Mary-Sue-ness and rooted for her every time she told him off. Quel dommage 😥
December 31, 2021
3.5 stars
Conflicts and misunderstandings a go-go!!
Conflicts and misunderstandings a go-go!!
abrierto-to-read-hr-other
April 19, 2021As a teacher in a rural town, Carly had a quiet, comfortable life and, with her parents' disastrous marriage in mind, that was all she really wanted. But then she met the young local iron master, Nick Bradley, and her life would never be the same again
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews