Across the Great Divide

by Kerry Allyne

Nicole's experience had made her bitter!

She'd been badly hurt when her fiance jilted her. When she left Sydney for western Australia, she was determined never to be as trusting again.

Yet, against her will, her feelings were stirred by Lang Jamiesona handsome, powerful rancher who made her realize she was far from unmoved by his passionate embraces.

But if Lang was going to marry his possessive neighbor, Eunice Blanchard—as rumor reported—could he really be interested in Nicole? Or was he cheating?

Genres: Romance, Harlequin, Harlequin Romance, Australia, Fiction

Paperback

First published September 1, 1979

About the author

Kerry Allyne was born in England, UK. Her early childhood was uneventful, she remembered, until her father came home one day and began talking about emigrating to Australia. When they eventually arrived in Australia, Kerry took to her new land with a passion. During the family's first years "down under," she explored as much of the country as she could, journeying northward into Queensland and out onto the Great Barrier Reef, and sometimes south through New South Wales into Victoria. As a adult she returned to England for a short time. A long working holiday enabled her to travel the world before returning to Australia where she met her engineer husband-to-be, and they had a couple of children. The family eventually moved to a rural area and she started to write. She used the people and countryside as inspiration for her romances. She was published by Mills & Boon from 1976 to 1994.

Reviews

[Naksed · Rating 2 out of 5]

I will remember this one for the unusual method the OW adopts to run the h out of town. She shows up at a public town hall to make a motion to get heroine fired as a swim coach because of alleged incompetence in teaching her recalcitrant son how to swim. The intensity level was like something out of the McCarthy hearings lol. Otherwise forgettable.

[StMargarets · Rating 2 out of 5]

Heroine is jilted by her dry stick boyfriend so he can marry the bank owner’s daughter. Heroine is bitter and in no mood to be nice to her father’s new boss when she discovers she crawled into bed next to him by mistake. Hero thinks it’s a big joke, but heroine is shrewish – to him, to her father, and in her thoughts.

I was tired of her by the end of chapter one.

Unfortunately, the reader has to travel with her to her new job as a swim instructor in the town next to the hero’s cattle station.

Heroine bickers with the hero between trying to teach the OW’s son and fending off the advances of a teacher who boards at the same house. As Naksed says in her review, the unhinged accusations of the OW about the heroine’s incompetence as a swim instructor were amusing.

[Margo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The h is ridiculously, and often irrationally, defensive and the H appears to be more in lust than in love. Still, this is a good read.

.

[RomLibrary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nicole's experience had made her bitter!

She'd been badly hurt when her fiance jilted her. When she left Sydney for western Australia, she was determined never to be as trusting again.

Yet, against her will, her feelings were stirred by Lang Jamiesona handsome, powerful rancher who made her realize she was far from unmoved by his passionate embraces.

But if Lang was going to marry his possessive neighbor, Eunice Blanchard—as rumor reported—could he really be interested in Nicole? Or was he cheating?

[Myrna · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

'You may be able to set my adrenalin pumping faster than any female I've ever met, but I'm damned if I'm going to let you kill me by inches while you amuse yourself playing advance and retreat as and when the mood takes you!'

Heart-broken jilted Nicole wakes up with a stranger in her bed. After coming home in tears she doesn’t notice a sleeping man who appears to be her father’s new boss. The H practically demands she accepts a post of a swimming instructor in his part of woods.
They bicker, argue and behave childishly with pushing each other into the swimming pool. Of course there’s an OW who causes trouble for Nicole when her son starts swimming lessons.

[Annarose · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the night Nicole discovered her ambitious cheating boyfriend intended to propose for his boss's daughter instead of her, she rushed home in bitter resentment of all men. By coincidence, it was also the night she slept in the same bed with Lang Jamieson, her father's new boss, by mistake. Nicole didn't like him one bit nor his explanations of the situation, so she was rude to him. Yet, when her father stubbonly decided he wouldn't go to western Australia to Lang's farm without her, she had no choice but to go along with him and to work as a swimming instructor there.

The book is by no means boring, yet it sadly lacked conviction. The heroine certainly puts it away! She attacks the hero most of the time because of one innocent incident and because of her mistrust of men after her boyfriend's betrayal. The hero himself is lacking. He claims to have fallen in love with Nicole since the beginning, yet he didn't seem to approach her willingly! He was either invited or had to deal with her because of work. Their romance leaves a lot to be doubted. An okay read though to pass time.

[Telaara Dunwin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ich wurde bisher noch nie enttäuscht, wenn ich mal nach einem Heft dieser Roman-Serie aus dem CORA-Verlag gegriffen habe. Bis heute! Das war mit Abstand eine der am schlechtesten geschriebenen Liebesgeschichten, die ich je gelesen habe. Ich würde sogar so weit gehen zu sagen, dass ein "Still a better love story than Twilight" hier nicht angebracht ist.

[Last Chance Saloon · Rating 2 out of 5]

The heroine (21) apparently has cute looks, but she's mean to the hero from start to finish. He doesn't do a thing wrong, but because she has been dumped by her boyfriend (he had a lucky escape), she takes it out on the hero. He gets her a job, drives miles to collect her, lets her use his pool (she is a swimming instructor), is nice to her father and clearly thinks she's lovely. But she treats him with distain and even listening to her dumb thoughts is irritating. I didn't much fancy the swimming pool setting either.
This one is a miss for me.

[Christy · Rating 3 out of 5]

After being jilted, Nicole Lockwood takes a job as a swimming instructor in the outback. She also develops a crush on Lang Jamieson, the president of the swim club she works at and her father's boss. Unfortunately, Lang is involved with the mother of one of Nicole's students and resulting tension leaves Nicole vulnerable.

Although there are lots of stress points in the story caused mainly by misunderstandings, the ending works out so that both Nicole and Lang are satisfied and happy.

[Kerry Allyne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Betrayed by one man Nicole wasn't going to put her trust in another, but then again as Nicole herself said; "new places, new faces"...

http://www.amazon.com/ACROSS-THE-GREA...

[Judio · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd rated it a 2 originally. No reason to change the rating after this re-read.

[Melinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had some humorous moments.