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سيد الرعاة
Serena was almost desperate when she answered an advertisement that offered lifelong security to the successful applicant. it was a move that was to take her to far-off chile, to a husband she had never met--and to what else?
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First published January 1, 1976
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 17 reviews
October 2, 2019
Valley of Paradise is in Chile where eugenics is alive and well and not just in cattle breeding. Hero’s grandfather places an ad in an English newspaper asking for a “fair” applicant to marry his grandson. In return she will have life-long security. Seems his son married a blonde, blue-eyed Englishwoman and they were happy until their deaths in an earthquake. He’s hoping to replicate the results with this marriage of convenience.
Secretary heroine answers the ad. She has her infant sister to care for and she’s down to her last pound. She thinks the hero must be too shy to pick his own wife and decides to take pity on him.
So we’re off to Chile and a bit of travelogue before we meet the cowboy hero who likes drinking with his mates and whoring around with – er – whores.
They decide to marry to spike the old man’s guns until he dies and then they can divorce. Heroine gets the raw end of the deal since she has a cranky husband who slut shames her at their wedding reception by claiming they anticipated their marriage vows and he’s doing right by the child by marrying her. He also dirty-dances with an OW during their wedding after-party and generally acts like a single guy until they have been married for a month.
Grandpa sends them off for a honeymoon. H/h have fun together until they remember all their jealousy, etc. . . Heroine wins a lot of money at the casino and tries to escape. Hero stops her at the airport.
They finally have sex, but hero doesn’t let on that he knows she’s a virgin and the baby can’t be hers. It all comes out when the heroine watches her baby sister toddle into a bullring where the hero is performing. She faints and then declares her love when she sees him alive.
It’s all beyond ridiculous and the prose is so wooden, I couldn’t feel anything for the heroine or the hero. They were both unsympathetic, shallow creatures.
Secretary heroine answers the ad. She has her infant sister to care for and she’s down to her last pound. She thinks the hero must be too shy to pick his own wife and decides to take pity on him.
So we’re off to Chile and a bit of travelogue before we meet the cowboy hero who likes drinking with his mates and whoring around with – er – whores.
They decide to marry to spike the old man’s guns until he dies and then they can divorce. Heroine gets the raw end of the deal since she has a cranky husband who slut shames her at their wedding reception by claiming they anticipated their marriage vows and he’s doing right by the child by marrying her. He also dirty-dances with an OW during their wedding after-party and generally acts like a single guy until they have been married for a month.
Grandpa sends them off for a honeymoon. H/h have fun together until they remember all their jealousy, etc. . . Heroine wins a lot of money at the casino and tries to escape. Hero stops her at the airport.
They finally have sex, but hero doesn’t let on that he knows she’s a virgin and the baby can’t be hers. It all comes out when the heroine watches her baby sister toddle into a bullring where the hero is performing. She faints and then declares her love when she sees him alive.
It’s all beyond ridiculous and the prose is so wooden, I couldn’t feel anything for the heroine or the hero. They were both unsympathetic, shallow creatures.
November 23, 2018
I think he cheated on her, and he made no promise to remain faithful, either.
September 9, 2022
A dream she had sworn to relinquish found release against her weakened defenses, a dream she had cherished inwardly over the past year, a fantasy wherein a man strong as tempered steel, immovable as rock, indomitable of will, swept into her life to shoulder all her burdens, restore happiness to her aching heart, revive her flagging spirits and with arrogant charm arouse within her a flaming torch of love.
EDIT: Much like Anne Hampson’s BLACK EAGLE, this grew on me after looking back & fully digesting the reading experience. Also like BLACK EAGLE, I’ve kept my original rating & review intact (since the flaws haven’t magically evaporated), but it still landed on the keeper shelf, which is a rarity for contemp harleys…so I would classify it as a positive read with caveats. Sometimes 3-star books win you over despite their own best efforts to join the Goodwill fodder. :D
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
Not a bad story, but lacks action; I also disliked the Big Emotional Reveal(tm) being precipitated by Wendy the plot moppet, because c’mon. We’re all adults here, right? 🙄
Anyway.
I enjoyed the writing style, complete with purple prose, antiquated OTT dialogue, & quotable nuggets. What knocked it down was Juan’s controlling attitude toward her wardrobe (I really hate when heroes stomp on a heroine indirectly exploring her sexuality via colorful or seductive clothes, & his tearing up anything he labeled a misrepresentation of her overly-innocent prudery was obnoxious), & also his obsession with Serena’s “lack of virginity.” 🙄 Even tho she was twisting the truth about her relationship to Wendy’s father, he had no right to disparage her love for a dead guy he believed to have been Serena’s previous lover—that’s just pathetic on his part to deny that she’d cared for anyone else beforehand, even if it was a fabrication…not to mention slut shaming her AND making out with his previous mistress at their wedding party, all because he’s not the first guy between her legs (or so he thinks). But never fear—everything’s golden once he realizes she was a virgin! THANK GOD! 😱 Now he can actually mean what he says when he apologizes. Swoon! Not. 😑
That said, it was much better than my previous Rome. Serena wasn’t Xena reborn, but at least she had something resembling a backbone & sense of self, unlike that limp dishrag in CASTLE OF THE FOUNTAINS. As for Juan, eh. He wasn’t a hardcore douche, so I could’ve forgiven his bruising shoulder grabs & mean comments about her icy lack of passion—even the lolzy manho wedding scene—because I did like Serena & other aspects of the book, but… *gestures* …the clothes thing really annoyed me, so I can’t endorse him wholeheartedly. Then again, that annoyance plays into his comment about how Serena is among the imperfect living rather than the perfect dead, so perhaps this meandering review is proving Rome’s point? 🙃
3/3.5 stars.
EDIT: Much like Anne Hampson’s BLACK EAGLE, this grew on me after looking back & fully digesting the reading experience. Also like BLACK EAGLE, I’ve kept my original rating & review intact (since the flaws haven’t magically evaporated), but it still landed on the keeper shelf, which is a rarity for contemp harleys…so I would classify it as a positive read with caveats. Sometimes 3-star books win you over despite their own best efforts to join the Goodwill fodder. :D
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
Not a bad story, but lacks action; I also disliked the Big Emotional Reveal(tm) being precipitated by Wendy the plot moppet, because c’mon. We’re all adults here, right? 🙄
Anyway.
I enjoyed the writing style, complete with purple prose, antiquated OTT dialogue, & quotable nuggets. What knocked it down was Juan’s controlling attitude toward her wardrobe (I really hate when heroes stomp on a heroine indirectly exploring her sexuality via colorful or seductive clothes, & his tearing up anything he labeled a misrepresentation of her overly-innocent prudery was obnoxious), & also his obsession with Serena’s “lack of virginity.” 🙄 Even tho she was twisting the truth about her relationship to Wendy’s father, he had no right to disparage her love for a dead guy he believed to have been Serena’s previous lover—that’s just pathetic on his part to deny that she’d cared for anyone else beforehand, even if it was a fabrication…not to mention slut shaming her AND making out with his previous mistress at their wedding party, all because he’s not the first guy between her legs (or so he thinks). But never fear—everything’s golden once he realizes she was a virgin! THANK GOD! 😱 Now he can actually mean what he says when he apologizes. Swoon! Not. 😑
That said, it was much better than my previous Rome. Serena wasn’t Xena reborn, but at least she had something resembling a backbone & sense of self, unlike that limp dishrag in CASTLE OF THE FOUNTAINS. As for Juan, eh. He wasn’t a hardcore douche, so I could’ve forgiven his bruising shoulder grabs & mean comments about her icy lack of passion—even the lolzy manho wedding scene—because I did like Serena & other aspects of the book, but… *gestures* …the clothes thing really annoyed me, so I can’t endorse him wholeheartedly. Then again, that annoyance plays into his comment about how Serena is among the imperfect living rather than the perfect dead, so perhaps this meandering review is proving Rome’s point? 🙃
3/3.5 stars.
October 2, 2019
Valley of Paradise is in Chile where eugenics is alive and well and not just in cattle breeding. Hero’s grandfather places an ad in an English newspaper asking for a “fair” applicant to marry his grandson. In return she will have life-long security. Seems his son married a blonde, blue-eyed Englishwoman and they were happy until their deaths in an earthquake. He’s hoping to replicate the results with this marriage of convenience.
Secretary heroine answers the ad. She has her infant sister to care for and she’s down to her last pound. She thinks the hero must be too shy to pick his own wife and decides to take pity on him.
So we’re off to Chile and a bit of travelogue before we meet the cowboy hero who likes drinking with his mates and whoring around with – er – whores.
They decide to marry to spike the old man’s guns until he dies and then they can divorce. Heroine gets the raw end of the deal since she has a cranky husband who slut shames her at their wedding reception by claiming they anticipated their marriage vows and he’s doing right by the child by marrying her. He also dirty-dances with an OW during their wedding after-party and generally acts like a single guy until they have been married for a month.
Grandpa sends them off for a honeymoon. H/h have fun together until they remember all their jealousy, etc. . . Heroine wins a lot of money at the casino and tries to escape. Hero stops her at the airport.
They finally have sex, but hero doesn’t let on that he knows she’s a virgin and the baby can’t be hers. The heroine's true feelings come out when the heroine watches her baby sister toddle into a bullring where the hero is performing. She faints and then declares her love when she sees him alive.
It’s all beyond ridiculous and the prose is so wooden, I couldn’t feel anything for the heroine or the hero. They were both unsympathetic, shallow creatures.
Secretary heroine answers the ad. She has her infant sister to care for and she’s down to her last pound. She thinks the hero must be too shy to pick his own wife and decides to take pity on him.
So we’re off to Chile and a bit of travelogue before we meet the cowboy hero who likes drinking with his mates and whoring around with – er – whores.
They decide to marry to spike the old man’s guns until he dies and then they can divorce. Heroine gets the raw end of the deal since she has a cranky husband who slut shames her at their wedding reception by claiming they anticipated their marriage vows and he’s doing right by the child by marrying her. He also dirty-dances with an OW during their wedding after-party and generally acts like a single guy until they have been married for a month.
Grandpa sends them off for a honeymoon. H/h have fun together until they remember all their jealousy, etc. . . Heroine wins a lot of money at the casino and tries to escape. Hero stops her at the airport.
They finally have sex, but hero doesn’t let on that he knows she’s a virgin and the baby can’t be hers. The heroine's true feelings come out when the heroine watches her baby sister toddle into a bullring where the hero is performing. She faints and then declares her love when she sees him alive.
It’s all beyond ridiculous and the prose is so wooden, I couldn’t feel anything for the heroine or the hero. They were both unsympathetic, shallow creatures.
September 2, 2021
Read it in Arabic long time ago , I want to read it again in its original text .
I promised to upload a photo of my Arabic copy with the mantila head piece so here we go
https://ibb.co/CmhwzSP
update :Read it again in English ,and loved it more ..Margret Rome is one of my favourite romance writers though her books and information about her are so limited :(
I promised to upload a photo of my Arabic copy with the mantila head piece so here we go
https://ibb.co/CmhwzSP
update :Read it again in English ,and loved it more ..Margret Rome is one of my favourite romance writers though her books and information about her are so limited :(
January 22, 2024
One thing to say about books written a few decades ago, is that they look like historical ones.
This is one of them.It was first published in 1975. Or was it 1875?
Apart from a few details that belong to present times, it could have been a victorian romance. Complete with a chaste heroine, a "rake" hero, an marriage of convenience, shameful secrets and old people running their families' lives.
That's the only reason for my rating. As a contemporary story, it would only be 2/5.
This is one of them.It was first published in 1975. Or was it 1875?
Apart from a few details that belong to present times, it could have been a victorian romance. Complete with a chaste heroine, a "rake" hero, an marriage of convenience, shameful secrets and old people running their families' lives.
That's the only reason for my rating. As a contemporary story, it would only be 2/5.
March 12, 2022
رواية رائعه احببتها
واحب قرائتها دائمااا انا مغرمه بروايات عبيير
انها جمييله ورومانسيه الزمن القديم اي منتصف القرن العشرين
واحب قرائتها دائمااا انا مغرمه بروايات عبيير
انها جمييله ورومانسيه الزمن القديم اي منتصف القرن العشرين
November 6, 2016
Pure nostalgia. Opening one of these books is like opening a time capsule. I wish I had a truckload of them.
July 2, 2024
براثن الزواج
نفس القصة بس الاسماء مختلفة
سيد الرعاة
الصدفة خير من ميعاد ... قول مأثور كثيراً ما يبرهن صدقه في حياة الناس ومصائرهم . وما حصل لسيرينا كان أكثر من صدفة وافضل من ميعاد لانها كانت على شفير الانهيار الاقتصادي والمعنوي عندما قذفت بنفسها في مغامرة لا يقتحمها سوى من كان يائساً .. وأي يأس ! غير ان القدر ابتسم لها بعيداً في البلاد التي يتوقف فيها المطر ولا تغيب عنها الشمس . في الشيلي حيث تزوجت خوان دي فالديفيا سيد الرعاة وارث الوادي الذي يشبه الفردوس . انقذها هذا الزواج وانقذ شقيقتها اليتيمة من الضياع لكن خوان لا يحبها .. ووسط عالم عنيف وشرس تفتش سيرينا عن طريقة للفرار فالفقر افضل لديها من الثراء بلا حب .
نفس القصة بس الاسماء مختلفة
سيد الرعاة
الصدفة خير من ميعاد ... قول مأثور كثيراً ما يبرهن صدقه في حياة الناس ومصائرهم . وما حصل لسيرينا كان أكثر من صدفة وافضل من ميعاد لانها كانت على شفير الانهيار الاقتصادي والمعنوي عندما قذفت بنفسها في مغامرة لا يقتحمها سوى من كان يائساً .. وأي يأس ! غير ان القدر ابتسم لها بعيداً في البلاد التي يتوقف فيها المطر ولا تغيب عنها الشمس . في الشيلي حيث تزوجت خوان دي فالديفيا سيد الرعاة وارث الوادي الذي يشبه الفردوس . انقذها هذا الزواج وانقذ شقيقتها اليتيمة من الضياع لكن خوان لا يحبها .. ووسط عالم عنيف وشرس تفتش سيرينا عن طريقة للفرار فالفقر افضل لديها من الثراء بلا حب .
March 18, 2018
I never got past that her parents had a late in life surprise baby that lead to their demise. I don't care if she found a hot, filthy rich dude in Chile after that. Who could ever get over losing your parents in such a tragic way. Plus he was an ass who practically made out with his mistress right in front of her and everybody on their wedding day. Lots of wtfery though. There's that.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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November 8, 2018تحت عنوان: سيد الرعاة
October 1, 2022
روعه شبه الافلام المصريه القديمه
May 27, 2023
"Η ώρα της εκδίκησης"- Μάργκαρετ Ρόουμ, Συλλογή 306, έτος έκδοσης: 1975.
"Αν δεν την παντρευτείς, δεν πρόκειται να σου παραχωρήσω τη διαχείριση της Χασιέντα". Έτσι ο Ζουάν ντε Βαλντίβια υποχώρησε στον εκβιασμό του παππού του και παντρεύτηκε τη Σερένα, η οποία δέχτηκε τον εξευτελιστικό γάμο, γιατί δεν είχε άλλη εκλογή. Η ζωή της ήταν κόλαση διπλα σ' αυτόν τον αυταρχικό άντρα, που δεν έχανε ευκαιρία να την ταπεινώνει. Είχε όμως τον τρόπο να τον εκδικηθεί και θα το 'κανε. Θ' άφηνε τον κόσμο να πιστέψει ότι η Γουέντυ ήταν παιδί της και για όλους θα ήταν ο άντρας που παντρεύτηκε μια γυναίκα μ' ένα νόθο, τσακίζοντας έτσι, την περηφάνια του.
"Αν δεν την παντρευτείς, δεν πρόκειται να σου παραχωρήσω τη διαχείριση της Χασιέντα". Έτσι ο Ζουάν ντε Βαλντίβια υποχώρησε στον εκβιασμό του παππού του και παντρεύτηκε τη Σερένα, η οποία δέχτηκε τον εξευτελιστικό γάμο, γιατί δεν είχε άλλη εκλογή. Η ζωή της ήταν κόλαση διπλα σ' αυτόν τον αυταρχικό άντρα, που δεν έχανε ευκαιρία να την ταπεινώνει. Είχε όμως τον τρόπο να τον εκδικηθεί και θα το 'κανε. Θ' άφηνε τον κόσμο να πιστέψει ότι η Γουέντυ ήταν παιδί της και για όλους θα ήταν ο άντρας που παντρεύτηκε μια γυναίκα μ' ένα νόθο, τσακίζοντας έτσι, την περηφάνια του.
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November 25, 2016Me gustó la historia, una chica huérfana al cuidado de la pequeña que ve como solución a sus problemas económicos responder a un anuncio del periódico; el protagonista es un patán, qué feo y cruel al decirle que ella es una esposa de segunda mano y barbaridad de cosas más.
December 27, 2022
Serena was almost desperate when she answered an advertisement that offered 'lifelong security' to the successful applicant. It was a move that was to take her to far-off Chile, to a husband she had never met - and to what else?
August 12, 2023
من أفضل التراجم العربيه للروايات الرومانسيه ،قراتها بالأنجليزيه تحت أسم Valley of Paradise Margret Rome
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