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The Kindness of Strangers
Years ago, Ysande Cazalet had been like any other bride-to-be, until tragedy destroyed something far more precious than her own future. And now she had to stay away from the handsome stranger who made her dream again of marriage and family. For how could Ysande spend her evenings in Rufer Jardine's strong arms when her rightful place was beside a hospital bed? For months Rufer had tried to get to know Ysande, and for months she ignored him. It wasn't just her sad beauty or complete indifference to him that drew Rufer to her with Ysande, he felt whole for the first time in his life. But then he learned the shocking truth of what threatened to keep them apart forever...
256 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published May 1, 1993
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About the author
Laurey Bright
60 books37 followersLaurey Bright is another pen name of Daphne Clair.
Daphne Clair de Jong decided to be a writer when she was eight years old and won her first literary prize for a school essay. Her first short story was published when she was sixteen and she's been writing and publishing ever since. Nowadays she earns her living from writing, something her well-meaning teachers and guidance counsellors warned her she would never achieve in New Zealand. Her short stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, and a collection of them was presented in Crossing the Bar, published by David Ling, where they garnered wide praise.
In 1976, Daphne's first full-length romantic novel was published by Mills & Boon as Return to Love. Since then she has produced a steady output of romance set in New Zealand, occasionally Australia or on imaginary Pacific islands. As Laurey Bright she also writes for Silhouette Books. Her romances often appear on American stores' romance best-seller lists and she has been a Rita contest finalist, as well as winning and being placed in several other romance writing contests. Her other writing includes non-fiction, poetry and long historical fiction, She also is an active defender of the ideology of Feminists for Life, and she has written articles about it.
Since then she has won other literary prizes both in her native New Zealand and other countries. These include the prestigious Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award, with Dying Light, a story about Alzheimer's Disease, which was filmed by Robyn Murphy Productions and shown at film festivals in several countries. (Starring Sara McLeod, Sam's wife in Lord of the Rings).
Daphne is often asked to tutor courses in creative writing, and with Robyn Donald she teachs romance writing weekend courses in her home in the "winterless north" of in New Zealand. Daphne lives with her Netherlands-born husband in a farmlet, grazing livestock, growing their own fruit and vegetables and making their large home available to other writers as a centre for writers' workshops and retreats. Their five children, one of them an orphan from Hong Kong, have left home but drift back at irregular intervals. She enjoys cooking special meals but her cake-making is limited to three never-fail recipes. Her children maintain they have no memory of her baking for them except on birthdays, when she would produce, on request, cakes shaped into trains, clowns, fairytale houses and, once, even a windmill, in deference to their Dutch heritage from their father.
Daphne frequently makes and breaks resolutions to indulge in some hearty outdoor activity, and loves to sniff strong black coffee but never drinks it. After a day at her desk she will happily watch re-runs of favourite TV shows. Usually she goes to bed early with a book which may be anything from a paperback romance or suspense novel to history, sociology or literary theory.
Daphne Clair de Jong decided to be a writer when she was eight years old and won her first literary prize for a school essay. Her first short story was published when she was sixteen and she's been writing and publishing ever since. Nowadays she earns her living from writing, something her well-meaning teachers and guidance counsellors warned her she would never achieve in New Zealand. Her short stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, and a collection of them was presented in Crossing the Bar, published by David Ling, where they garnered wide praise.
In 1976, Daphne's first full-length romantic novel was published by Mills & Boon as Return to Love. Since then she has produced a steady output of romance set in New Zealand, occasionally Australia or on imaginary Pacific islands. As Laurey Bright she also writes for Silhouette Books. Her romances often appear on American stores' romance best-seller lists and she has been a Rita contest finalist, as well as winning and being placed in several other romance writing contests. Her other writing includes non-fiction, poetry and long historical fiction, She also is an active defender of the ideology of Feminists for Life, and she has written articles about it.
Since then she has won other literary prizes both in her native New Zealand and other countries. These include the prestigious Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award, with Dying Light, a story about Alzheimer's Disease, which was filmed by Robyn Murphy Productions and shown at film festivals in several countries. (Starring Sara McLeod, Sam's wife in Lord of the Rings).
Daphne is often asked to tutor courses in creative writing, and with Robyn Donald she teachs romance writing weekend courses in her home in the "winterless north" of in New Zealand. Daphne lives with her Netherlands-born husband in a farmlet, grazing livestock, growing their own fruit and vegetables and making their large home available to other writers as a centre for writers' workshops and retreats. Their five children, one of them an orphan from Hong Kong, have left home but drift back at irregular intervals. She enjoys cooking special meals but her cake-making is limited to three never-fail recipes. Her children maintain they have no memory of her baking for them except on birthdays, when she would produce, on request, cakes shaped into trains, clowns, fairytale houses and, once, even a windmill, in deference to their Dutch heritage from their father.
Daphne frequently makes and breaks resolutions to indulge in some hearty outdoor activity, and loves to sniff strong black coffee but never drinks it. After a day at her desk she will happily watch re-runs of favourite TV shows. Usually she goes to bed early with a book which may be anything from a paperback romance or suspense novel to history, sociology or literary theory.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 24, 2025
Hero meets heroine and instantly gets into hot pursuit mode. Heroine wants nothing to do with him, which makes him pursue her more. Little by little, he gets through her steel defences, and they start an affair, on the understanding that this is a no strings relationship (her choice).
The commitment-phobe, serial monogamist hero incredibly suddenly decides he wants more than a situationship, he needs a firm commitment from the heroine, who he has fallen in love with. He proposes to her. Heroine rejects him and finally tells him the truth.
Heroine has a fiance, who has been hospitalized for the last ten years. He became paralyzed and lost almost all his speech functions in a car accident a few days before their wedding. The only words he has been able to utter in the past ten years is "mine" every time heroine visits him, which is almost daily. Sometimes, he can hiss "ssssss" which means yes. But other times, he doesn't even seem to be able to comprehend anything or understand anyone. She will never break her engagement or her lifetime commitment to her fiance. Hero is floored but he still wants to be with the heroine.
He offers a compromise: Heroine will keep up her visits and her "engagement" to her hospitalized fiance but will shack up with the hero. They will put marriage and children on the back burner, in a morbid countdown to the time that the fiance eventually passes away.
Heroine moves in with hero. But once again, hero can't stick to their agreement. He becomes increasingly aggravated by heroine's frequent hospital visits, which leave her an emotional mess. So the hero secretly visits the fiance at the hospital with a view of asking him to release heroine from her commitment. Once he sees the poor man paralyzed on his hospital bed though, he can't bring himself to confront him and just pretends he is a friend come to visit.
After the hero' visit, the fiance stops eating, then eventually contracts pneumonia, and dies. Heroine blames hero for triggering this chain of events. The fiance might have looked confused and/or not lucid to people but he obviously realized the true nature of the relationship between the hero and heroine when the hero paid him a visit. So he let himself die, either to leave his fiancee free to move on, or because he was heartbroken at losing her to another, able-bodied man. Heroine breaks up with hero. After a few months, heroine relents and shows up at hero's doorstep for the HEA.
This one was just way waaaaay too sad for me. The melodrama was over the top. That the HEA hinged on the demise of a third party was macabre. Not what I sign up for when I try to escape into Harlequinlandia :(
The commitment-phobe, serial monogamist hero incredibly suddenly decides he wants more than a situationship, he needs a firm commitment from the heroine, who he has fallen in love with. He proposes to her. Heroine rejects him and finally tells him the truth.
Heroine has a fiance, who has been hospitalized for the last ten years. He became paralyzed and lost almost all his speech functions in a car accident a few days before their wedding. The only words he has been able to utter in the past ten years is "mine" every time heroine visits him, which is almost daily. Sometimes, he can hiss "ssssss" which means yes. But other times, he doesn't even seem to be able to comprehend anything or understand anyone. She will never break her engagement or her lifetime commitment to her fiance. Hero is floored but he still wants to be with the heroine.
He offers a compromise: Heroine will keep up her visits and her "engagement" to her hospitalized fiance but will shack up with the hero. They will put marriage and children on the back burner, in a morbid countdown to the time that the fiance eventually passes away.
Heroine moves in with hero. But once again, hero can't stick to their agreement. He becomes increasingly aggravated by heroine's frequent hospital visits, which leave her an emotional mess. So the hero secretly visits the fiance at the hospital with a view of asking him to release heroine from her commitment. Once he sees the poor man paralyzed on his hospital bed though, he can't bring himself to confront him and just pretends he is a friend come to visit.
After the hero' visit, the fiance stops eating, then eventually contracts pneumonia, and dies. Heroine blames hero for triggering this chain of events. The fiance might have looked confused and/or not lucid to people but he obviously realized the true nature of the relationship between the hero and heroine when the hero paid him a visit. So he let himself die, either to leave his fiancee free to move on, or because he was heartbroken at losing her to another, able-bodied man. Heroine breaks up with hero. After a few months, heroine relents and shows up at hero's doorstep for the HEA.
This one was just way waaaaay too sad for me. The melodrama was over the top. That the HEA hinged on the demise of a third party was macabre. Not what I sign up for when I try to escape into Harlequinlandia :(
August 10, 2017
3.50/3.75 stars this is about an h who is unable to totally commit to the H due to her current situation and how they can achieve their happy ending. I really enjoyed reading the first 50-70% of the book. There was humor with the way the H was pursuing the h as well as the H's mother antics in the beginning, the inner thoughts etc. I needed that humor because I knew there was no choice but for the storyline to achieve some lows due to the unhappy tragedy that has befallen our h. Hence my removal of the stars and why this may possibly not be in my keeper list or at least it'll be something I only reread a few times instead of all the time like my keepers because of the HEA. It didn't seem like a "YAY!!! Happy ending!!! Hearts stars swoon!!!" it was more of a "oh thank God, happy ending!!! Y'all got me worried!!! Jeez!!! Let me eat some choco ice cream!!" The last 30 % of the book I was like "ohhhhh gawd I feel so sorry for the H!! Dont make a fool of yourself you lost herrr (and yeah at this point Im siding with the H LOL and frankly I think the h was a selfish b for not telling H the truth in the first place) " OK heres my spoiler summary. So the h has closed herself off to the world of relationships because it turns out a few days before her wedding at 19 she was involved in a car accident were her fiance threw himself on top of her to protect her from harm. In the process he becomes totally paralyzed and is almost like a vegetable other than a few (could be creepy) word that he says or blinking of the eyes etc. There is no cure and the hospital, everyone is unsure if he understands or if he is stuck mentally at the age when the accident occurred etc. So.... Deep breath.... 10 years the h has devoted herself to him visiting him at the hospital feeding him, reading to him, talking to him etc. Enter H, Good looking rich gods gift to women etc etc. Woman I want you, I will pursue you, woman says aloofly no, no well you know how that story goes. So I enjoyed all that but once it got down to the nitty gritty I was like ughgghhh (at the h!) h in my honest opinion was selfish. She was only thinking of herself because it was unfair of her to withhold the information from the H for as long as she did and having her cake and eating it too!. And I'm sorry but I thought she was a - excuse my language little *b*tch when the H tried to explain himself. I was already cringing for the H as he in my opinion started to look really sad and almost pathetic trying to explain himself and begging h to understand and still love him while the h was 1000% frosty as the North Pole and like no I'm not hearing you, no get out of my face, no I don't love you, no you are dead to me no get out GET OUT!!! She didn't say all that word for word but that's how she was with the H a few chapters left to their HEA. And that last 20% was a downer. I wasn't sure if there was going to be a satisfying HEA and I knew it, it wasn't. The HEA just seemed too rushed and quick after that, in my opinion, really cold breakup... however given the situation with, I'll say it, the other man, what can I expect? It is realistic I guess for h to act that way. But I sure as heck don't like it!!! So now I'm going to read a syrupy sweet love story to make up for it lol! But yes 3.50/3.75 stars because I read this book really fast i. E. It was very interesting to me and stars for the H for his perseverance! (and ok... Begrudgingly stars for the h for her devotion... Just don't be so mean to the H... and shower him with lots of love and babies hee hee)
PS! During my long drive to work (1.5 hours) I thought about the story again and I realize d*mn I’m such a callous cold-hearted b myself lol! When I called the OM the OM honestly I felt that he deserved better because actually, the H was the OM! And I thought to myself (just as the H did himself) what the OM was going through – your whole life ahead with you, so in love with the girl of your dreams, only to cut be short, paralyzed, unable to move (much) talk (much) then you see your girl starting to fall in love with someone else and you can’t do anything and then you see the guy she loves and how he looks, talks and omg, wow, life truly sucks… then you decide to do what you have to do because you love the h just that much??!!! Yes the OM was truly… what I can say… inspirational… and so is the H of course for still going through all this heartache, for his perseverance and understanding. This book is a Silhouette Special Editions so there are extra pages than a normal Harlequin Presents/Romance and I guess there is a lot of doses of reality and nitty gritty as I like to call it. But for me its kinda like Schindler’s List. (Uh no, the story isn’t like Schindler’s List) Just my own experience reading/watching the book/movie. I watched it once and it was a great movie but it was just hard to witness it in front of my eyes. I don't know if I can re-watch Schindler's List again because my heart can't handle it lol! Same with this book, this is the reality and to see it unfold right in front of my eyes and happen the way it did was just -> this is me… oh man…! Clutch bedsheet kinda thing. I feel bad for the H begging/confessing and the h's standoffish behaviour, her having these two different loves etc. This reminds me of the other book that Laurey Bright wrote: “The Perfect Marriage” I absolutely disliked the book because of its subject matter of cheating (basically what the H did) but it was written well and readable. Just the subject matter and how/what the H did and reacted was uncool to me. In fact, my 18 year old self wrote a letter to the publisher how I felt the H needed to suffer more! Hahaha! But back to this book, yes, it’s a good book with doses of reality where you can understand why each character acted the way they did. And I can totally understand why the h did what she did/does and I guess the HEA is good – it had to be the h who would decide for herself to come back and accept her HEA and open the door to a new story.
PS! During my long drive to work (1.5 hours) I thought about the story again and I realize d*mn I’m such a callous cold-hearted b myself lol! When I called the OM the OM honestly I felt that he deserved better because actually, the H was the OM! And I thought to myself (just as the H did himself) what the OM was going through – your whole life ahead with you, so in love with the girl of your dreams, only to cut be short, paralyzed, unable to move (much) talk (much) then you see your girl starting to fall in love with someone else and you can’t do anything and then you see the guy she loves and how he looks, talks and omg, wow, life truly sucks… then you decide to do what you have to do because you love the h just that much??!!! Yes the OM was truly… what I can say… inspirational… and so is the H of course for still going through all this heartache, for his perseverance and understanding. This book is a Silhouette Special Editions so there are extra pages than a normal Harlequin Presents/Romance and I guess there is a lot of doses of reality and nitty gritty as I like to call it. But for me its kinda like Schindler’s List. (Uh no, the story isn’t like Schindler’s List) Just my own experience reading/watching the book/movie. I watched it once and it was a great movie but it was just hard to witness it in front of my eyes. I don't know if I can re-watch Schindler's List again because my heart can't handle it lol! Same with this book, this is the reality and to see it unfold right in front of my eyes and happen the way it did was just -> this is me… oh man…! Clutch bedsheet kinda thing. I feel bad for the H begging/confessing and the h's standoffish behaviour, her having these two different loves etc. This reminds me of the other book that Laurey Bright wrote: “The Perfect Marriage” I absolutely disliked the book because of its subject matter of cheating (basically what the H did) but it was written well and readable. Just the subject matter and how/what the H did and reacted was uncool to me. In fact, my 18 year old self wrote a letter to the publisher how I felt the H needed to suffer more! Hahaha! But back to this book, yes, it’s a good book with doses of reality where you can understand why each character acted the way they did. And I can totally understand why the h did what she did/does and I guess the HEA is good – it had to be the h who would decide for herself to come back and accept her HEA and open the door to a new story.
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