Waiting

by Karen van der Zee

Andrea wanted everything or nothing

Three years since Bart's death--now Andrea felt free and at ease with herself. If someone like Bart had loved her, then someday someone else would love her again.

Someone else.... But falling in love was not that easy for her. She had no desire for a mediocre relationship with a mediocre man.

Andrea was convinced that Dr. Lex Vermeer was the right man--though at first she'd resented his sudden intrusion into her life. Now, in spite of the powerful love between them, something was wrong.

Genres: Harlequin Presents

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

I always wanted to write, ever since I was a child growing up in Holland. I was a dreamer, reading books and making up my own stories. I had notebooks full of stories which I illustrated with crayon drawings. My brothers burned the notebooks in the attic one day, fortunately not burning down the house. They don’t remember this now, but I do!

I also always wanted to travel. Holland is very flat and I wanted to see mountains and coconut palms and tropical beaches and deserts. I wanted to meet interesting people and learn about different cultures and see how people lived their daily lives. And then I wanted to write adventurous stories set in these exotic places

I got lucky and fell in love with a globetrotting American. I met him in Amsterdam, he asked me to marry him in Rome, and we tied the knot in a ten-minute ceremony in Kenya, East Africa, where he was a Peace Corps Volunteer. Some wedding that was! Not the stuff of romantic dreams, but really good for a laugh.

After Kenya we lived in the States for a while, then four years in Ghana, West Africa where not only our first daughter was born, but my first Mills & Boon romance as well. It took me a year to write, which is three months longer than it takes to have a baby. It was set in Ghana, and I called it SWEET NOT ALWAYS, a slogan found on a big colorfully decorated truck that transported people, goods, and live chickens.

I continued writing romances and loved the creativity of it, although it was, and is, never easy. Later we also lived in Indonesia, Ramallah (Palestine), then another three years in Ghana, and most recently six years in Armenia, which lies east of Turkey and north of Iran. Along the way we acquired a couple more kids, so now we have three.

I’ve written over thirty books now, many set in exotic locations such as Bali, Thailand, Malaysia, Java, Kenya and Ghana, as well as Holland and the US. Writing as Mona van Wieren, I received a RITA for a Silhouette Romance entitled RHAPSODY IN BLOOM.

I love the challenge of living in a foreign country where the food is different, the people interesting and life gives me endless inspiration for my writing. So, I’ll just keep going for a while.

Reviews

[Iris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love it when HP authors try something different and this story is definitely unusual, sedately absorbing even, but overall it's sad and somewhat anxiety producing.

Lex is an indeterminably rich Dutch Doctor whose cousin offers him the use of her room, which she rents from Andrea, while Lex is in Amsterdam for a month on business. Both h and H have suffered the loss of a spouse but Andrea is two years further along in the healing process; Lex, having only lost his wife within the year is still devastated, with blank eyes that barely register Andrea. The new roomie situation is news to Andrea and she's deeply uncomfortable with having this large wooden stranger in her home but she gets an explanatory letter from the cousin which mentions that he's perfectly safe because he's a newish widower and not likely to be making any passes.

Eventually she manages to elicit a few reactions from him—amazing what an ice-breaker a full massage turned out to be! She helps him to get beyond the numbness stage to the tears portion of his grieving; he's just possibly entering the acceptance stage when he has to leave Amsterdam to go back to his job in Bolivia. Andrea, who's already fallen in love, isn't at all sure whether he'll ever be back (they are both Dutch) or be able to love again.

As promised he comes back and despite some evidence that he's attracted to her it's impossible for her to be certain, particularly as he never tells her anything about his wife, which she interprets as meaning he hasn't and won't ever be able to move on. Clearly he wants to spend time with her but he's hot and cold. There are some passionate kisses which almost become more but he keeps backing off claiming he can't take advantage of her before leaving again but they finally make love just before he leaves for another 6 months in Bolivia and he sternly makes her promise if she's pregnant she'll let him know. Well she isn't pregnant and HP authors have to be very strong to resist this storyline but I'm glad KVDZ did. Nothing would have been gained by forcing their hand; Lex needed more time and Andrea needed the assurance that she was wanted for herself first.

Previous marriages are so regularly de-valued in HPland by claims the protagonist wasn't really IN LOVE with the deceased or by a tale of woe about a skeevy spouse they despised, and their suffering was really just intense guilt because of reasons. I guess first spouse has to be sacrificed to the god of ONE TRUE LOVE but it's distasteful and it never increases my sympathy for the protagonist. But primed to expect the worst I engaged in a bit of HP math: hero who is slow to reveal anything about his prior marriage + hero whose "eyes held hers locked with strange intensity" makes a point of warning heroine against "doing anything drastic" if it turns out she's pregnant = bad wife who probably did all manner of dreadful things as well as refusing to fulfil her feminine function!

Well the curious thing is my math sucked. In yet another example of KVDZ's restraint both H and h had been very happy in their first marriage. In Waiting KVDZ simply chose the path of unimaginable but believable emotions over the comforts of angst and melodrama. So not a typical HP at all.

[Naksed · Rating 3 out of 5]

HAIKU BOOK REVIEW: Waiting, by Karen van der Zee

Widow, widower
cling to each other’s grief in
Amsterdam attic.

[Annarose · Rating 3 out of 5]

After the death of her beloved husband, Andrea continued to live in the attic she used to live in with a friendly guide woman called Sylvia who respected her privacy. Andrea liked her life that way until Sylvia gave her keys to her cousin, Dr. Lex Vermeer, to stay in her room for a month without telling her! Andrea felt many things towards this aloof intruder, among which fear, rejection and annoyance. Yet, when she discovered he had lost his wife a year ago, she started analyzing his agonized feelings of dejection and suddenly she wanted to be of a little help to him to over come the numbness phase he was in. She was in that melancholic stage of despair and anger after the death of her husband and thought Lex needed her. He was difficult and sometimes utterly impossible, but she was determined not to give up on him. Soon, she became emotionally attached to Lex and her fear of him leaving her after he got better was so overwhelming.

The issue the novel is raising is very difficult to tackle since it touches tender emotions of lose and despair in life, yet the writer handled it pretty well. I'm not saying the book is the best, yet it is good and interesting enough to want you to continue reading it. The characters develop wonderfully and their sentiments show clearly which makes the reader wants to know more and more. Read it! You would not be disappointed! Recommended easy read!