The Pride You Trampled

by Juliet Armstrong

At their first meeting, Julian accused Sylvia of being a common little adventuress. He soon realized his mistake, and tried to make amends. But it was too late. The damage was done, and Sylvia's pride bitterly hurt. Would he ever be able to make her see him in a more favorable light?

Genres: Harlequin Romance

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Nancy Violet Morison Campbell
aka
Juliet Armstrong

Reviews

[boogenhagen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a totally cute story about a lady who is horribly insulted by her presumed fiance, his mother and then called a gold digging con artist tramp by the H. She is then left financially destitute by her thieving uncle in law, who dies and leaves her and her three siblings homeless. Never fear, the h is up to the task and sets about starting a teashop and hating the H. He tries to help them but of course the h doesn't take it well and the H is totally in lurve. A few misunderstandings later and HEA for everyone is achieved. This is very oldskool quaint but I really like the h in this one.

[Naksed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Typical Harlequin start to the story with an arrogant, rich hero slut-shaming our innocent, do-gooding Mary Sue heroine for supposedly trying to gold-dig hero's wimpy cousin.

The truth surfaces quite quickly and in a public way. Heroine, far from being an unscrupulous con artist, was herself the victim of a scam. Now that she is left destitute and a social pariah, jilted by hero's wimp cousin, berated by his horrible mother, and left to scrape a living in order to support a gaggle of siblings and one extremely cute dog, the hero feels guilty and tries to make amends.

I usually like grovel books and no one could say this hero did not try to make amends for his initial awfulness but, like the heroine, I didn't feel any real humility in his attitude. It was like he was trying to smother the heroine and her siblings with his financial benevolence so they would all feel obliged to feel gratitude towards him.

It also didn't sit well with me that every one in the heroine's circle of family, acquaintances and friends, chided the heroine for her pride and pimped her out to the hero.

When the hero's marriage proposal is rejected by the heroine, a proposal, I might add, that he made on the fly and completely out of the blue because he happened to bump into the heroine accidentally while trying to avoid her, he gets angry and quotes her from a poetry book that refers to some Christian slave girl who destroyed herself in the midst of trying to destroy the man who had once humiliated her. Now tell me if that is the action of a heartbroken man or a man whose own fierce pride has been dented and is lashing out at his alleged bien-aimee?

I never warmed up to either of these characters and a last minute Great, Big, Terrible Misunderstanding engineered by an OW who, to be fair, was given a fair dose of encouragement by the supposedly desperately heart broken hero (YEAH RIGHT!), was lame-o.

Still, if you like vintage Harlequins, this might be your cuppa. Or you might try Anne Weale's Lord of the Sierras, a story with a similar premise but a more believable, romantic and steadfast hero. Chacun son choix.