طير في عدن

by Kay Thorpe, كاي ثورب

عندما خطبت اخت ايف الصغيرة لاسباني مجهول في جزر الكناري ,شعور ايف كان اكثر من قلق بشان الموضوع .
امر جميل بالنسبة للين ان تحب وتعشق لكنه اسباني وليس انكليزي والفكرة الاسبانية في الزواج وواجبات الزوجة لايتلائم على الاطلاق مع مانشات عليه لين.
لذلك فكرت ايف بالذهاب الى تنريف ,لتتحقق من الوضع ولتتعرف على ذلك الاسباني المجهول خوان بيرستريللو,فعرت في البداية ان له شقيقا تواما ,يدعى رامون .
والشيء الثاني الذي وعته ان رامون ذلك جذابا جدا,وانها تقع في حيه بسرعة وجدية ,وكل المناقشات بشان الزواج الاسباني ممكن ان تكون نفسها لايف كما بالنسبة للين .

Genres: Harlequin Romance

Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Kay Thorpe was born on 1935 in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, UK. An avid reader from the time when words on paper began to make sense, she developed a lively imagination of her own, making up stories for the entertainment of her young friends. After leaving school, she tried a variety of jobs, including dental nursing, and a spell in the Women's Royal Airforce from which she emerged knowing a whole lot more about life - if only as an observer.

In 1960, she married with Tony, but didn't begin thinking about trying her hand at writing for a living until she gave up work some four years later to have a baby, John. Having read Mills & Boon novels herself, and done some market research in the local library asking readers what it was they particularly liked about the books, she decided to aim for a particular market, and was fortunate to have her very first, completed manuscript accepted - The Last of the Mallorys, published in 1968. Since then she has written over seventy five books, which doesn't begin to compare with the output of some Mills & Boon authors, but still leaves her wondering where all those words came from.

Sometimes, she finds she has become two different people: the writer at her happiest when involved in the world of books and authors; and the housewife, turning her hands to the everyday needs of husband and son. Once in a while, she finds it difficult to step from one role to the other. She likes cooking, for instance, but she finds that it can be an irritating interruption when she's preoccupied with work on a novel, so the quality of her efforts in the kitchen tend to be a little erratic. She says, "As my husband once remarked, my writing gives life a fascinating element of uncertainly: one day a perfect coq au vin, the next day a couple of burned chops!"

Luckily Kay has daily professional help with her housework, and that leaves her time to indulge in her hobbies. Like many other Mills & Boon authors, she admits to being a voracious consumer of books, a quality she shares with her readers. She likes music and horseback riding, which she does in the countryside near her home. But her favorite hobby is travel - especially to places that will make good settings for her books.

Kay now lives on the outskirts of Chesterfield in Derbyshire, along with husband, Tony, and a huge tabby cat called Mad Max, her one son having flown the coop. Some day she'll think about retiring, but not yet awhile.

Reviews

[Grrrrace · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good vintage (1973) read, heavy on the cliched romance culture clashes (dominant Spaniard and independent English rose) and some interesting meta-musing on emerging sexual freedom and changing social mores. No explicit sex of course, but some great sexual tension between hero Ramon and heroine Eve that shows that you can have fireworks without explicit scenes. I enjoyed this one overall.

24-year-old heroine Eve has raised her kid sister Lynn for the past five years. 19-year-old Lynn's a willful wild-child, so Eve is alarmed when her sister quickly goes from an au pair job in Spain to being engaged to a Spanish man who lives on Tenerife. She's been invited by the family to come and stay and get to know them, so off she goes, taking a holiday from her dull bank job, worried about her impulsive sister.

She assumes the gorgeous but infuriatingly mocking man who picks her up at the airport is her sister's fiance, but it's actually his brother, Ramon. From the get-go, Ramon is clearly attracted and in pursuit of our auburn haired heroine. Eve, who has been in a safe, dull (and likely platonic, though it's not addressed explicitly) two-year relationship back home, is equally attracted but reserved and wary. Ramon quickly shows himself to be the more magnetic and dominant brother, and it's clear that her sister Lynn has a crush on him and is second-guessing her engagement.

Ramon has a lot to say about the need for men to "master" their women, otherwise, they'll be dissatisfied and start looking around for someone who will. That's a pretty central theme to the book and sure to piss off a lot of modern readers but it works in the context of the story and is hardly unusual for romance novels of this era. Pretty soon, his brother is taking a leaf from his book and spanking the bratty sister, which makes her realize that, hey! Juan really is the guy for me. But Eve is a tougher proposition, and butts heads with the hero when he loses his easy-going guy facade frequently and shows a much tougher and dominant core.

Any potential sister rivalry is sidelined very early in the book, and the rest of the story focuses on Ramon's determined pursuit of Eve, who assumes he is a playboy only looking for some holiday fun and tries to keep from getting too entangled. It's a lost cause, and she falls for him pretty quickly, and it's clear from the start that he's in serious pursuit, but she's scared and doubtful and also doesn't much like his occasionally chauvinistic ways. Mostly he's fun to be with, showing her around the island and taking her out for dinner and dancing. But they also frequently clash because he's a masterful vintage-Harley Spaniard at heart and she's an independent modern "I am Woman hear me roar" 1970s young woman, and she doesn't much like when he enforces his will with the punishing kisses (although she definitely likes the hot, nonpunishing kisses). Nonetheless, Ramon is a modern day young man--he applauds that arranged marriages are becoming a thing of the past in Spain and doesn't see anything wrong in making love outside of marriage. Too bad he can't convince Eve of that, although to be truthful, he doesn't try very hard, having more long-term goals in mind that she can't quite see.

There is some mild OM drama (which the hero forcefully shuts down), and the heroine is in love but thinking there's no future by the time she has to go back to London. She'll see him again at the wedding in a few months, but she doesn't have much hope that there's anything permanent between them, particularly because he very casually let her go back to London with an hasta la vista.

Nonetheless, she breaks it off with the dull long-time boyfriend, knowing that she no longer wants safe and secure and dull, and is back working at her bank job when the hero shows up. He has followed her to London. He takes her out and manipulates events in order to stay over at her apartment, even though she refuses to sleep with him. They argue more, between hot chemistry and kissing, and even when he tells her he's going to marry her--that week, as soon as they can get the paperwork done--she still scraps back against his dominant ways. They fight it out and he gives no quarter, but she realizes that in this case, she really wants what he wants, so why battle... this time? It's pretty clear they expect future fireworks, but it's a really well done HEA with two well-matched, occasionally adversarial, lovers and a nicely paced romance with a side-benefit travelogue of Tenerife.

Definitely an old-school "women love to be mastered" trope here, but KT does a wonderful job in setting up real sparks between these two, with fast-paced snarky dialogue. I liked Eve--she is cautious but her backstory accounts for it, and she is definitely someone who needs to feel secure even as she realizes that Ramon may be worth taking risks for. Ramon is interesting too--on the surface, he's irreverent and casual, mocking and romantic in turn, but at his core he is extremely alpha and dominant and when push comes to shove, he's going to make the heroine toe his line. Anachronistic, sure, but kind of hot in the dommie alpha stakes. And KT shows that the heroine is not going to be any kind of doormat, now or in the future:

"Do you think we'll often fight?

He laughed. "Sure. You are what you are and I am what I am, and no one changes completely. But you'll soon learn to handle me, just as Abuela learned to handle her husband, and then I'll be lost."

"Down but not defeated," she murmured. "You make it sound like a game."

"It is," he said. "The greatest gamble of all." His arms tightened around her. "But I was born to win."

And so, apparently, thought Eve, was she.

[Aayesha · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've had ENOUGH of dumb, stubborn, stupid, idiotic bitchy heroines! And this one takes the cake, turning hot one second and cold the other, giving the hero mixed signals! It was so damned obvious, right from the beginning that Ramon was so taken with her. And she, the stupid woman, was much too dense and scared to open her eyes and see it. 

I actually kind of liked her halfway through the story, you know. Disliked her in the beginning, started to understand and kind of like her in the middle and then after the Tony fiasco, I absolutely HATED her, the slut. Ugh. Even at the end she was much too stubborn to yield. She didn't even give an inch. And this was after her confession that she loves him and after she says yes to his proposal. I really hate heroines who are much too stubborn to see the goodness that is right in front of their eyes.

Ramon was a naughty, smirking and very likeable hero. I loved the banter between the two. But even then I didn't like him much. I've had enough of overbearing alpha heroes. I'm in the mood for a quiet and controlled beta now.

The author wrote really well. Her story had a surprising depth to it that is not usually found in Harlequins. I liked the subtle philosophising between the lines. Like I said, pretty damned deep for a Harlequin.

Another thing that surprised me was the passion. You don't usually find descriptions of the sparks flying between the hero and heroine in vintage Harlequins. And you most certainly don't find them discussing so casually about 'making love'. (Yup, of course it was Ramon who mentions it.)

I wouldn't say the book was a complete waste of time, though, even if my hatred for the heroine knows no bounds. I liked the author's writing, it was pleasantly different.

[Leona · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not worthy of review. Definitely different and I think I might have read this one back when it was first published. I had shades of scene recognition, but certainly not memorable. I still think Olive Island remains my favorite by this author.

[Nightwitch · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was just... annoying, honestly; the hero and heroine were both thinly-characterized stereotypes and hoo boy did Thorpe lean fully into the Macho Spanish Men/Weak English Lady With Betraying Body dichotomy. Our hero (who is a big muckety-muck in the cigar industry) routinely sexually harasses the heroine, gets cranky at the idea of her so much as speaking to another man, lectures her on not letting him open his door, punishes her with kisses, threatens to spank her, tells his brother to spank his nineteen-year-old fiancee, and claims all women have a streak of masochism that makes them unable to respect men who don't dominate them. When the heroine insists that she wants to give two weeks' notice to her boss instead of quitting on the spot, he says he'll quit for her if she doesn't do it. And the heroine realizes that "the conditions she was trying to impose on her own emotions seemed petty and unimportant" and she should just let him have his way, because he's doing it out of love. Oh, and her nineteen-year-old sister - who changes her mind every ten minutes, is spoiled rotten, doesn't like anyone in the extended family, and loathes children - is going to marry his thirty-something twin brother and get pregnant right away because she'll just "have to adjust" somehow.

I mean, I guess I didn't expect it to be any better than this, so it's not really a one-star read? But it's also not particularly good, or even particularly engaging.

[RomLibrary · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Eve's flighty young sister got engaged to an unknown Spaniard over in the Canary Islands, Eve thought she ought to go there herself and investigate the matter, and find out what this Juan Perestrello was like. She found, for a start, that he had a twin brother, Ramon.

[أجمل زهرة · Rating 3 out of 5]

طير في عدن
روايات عبيرالجديدة

عندما خطبت اخت ايف الصغيرة لاسباني مجهول في جزر الكناري ,شعور ايف كان اكثر من قلق بشان الموضوع .
امر جميل بالنسبة للين ان تحب وتعشق لكنه اسباني وليس انكليزي والفكرة الاسبانية في الزواج وواجبات الزوجة لايتلائم على الاطلاق مع ما نشأت عليه لين.
لذلك فكرت ايف بالذهاب الى تنريف ,لتتحقق من الوضع ولتتعرف على ذلك الاسباني المجهول خوان بيرستريللو, فعرفت في البداية ان له شقيقا توأما ,يدعى رامون .
والشيء الثاني الذي عرفته ان رامون ذلك جذابا جدا, وانها تقع في حبه بسرعة وجدية ,وكل المناقشات بشأن الزواج الاسباني ممكن ان تكون نفسها لايف كما بالنسبة للين

[More Books Than Time · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the type of sick story that gives Harlequin romances a bad name.
Sister Lynn is engaged to Juan but is having second thoughts, maybe brother Ramon would be a better choice? So Lynn is obnoxious and finally Juan spanks her. Yup, and does it in front of Lynn's sister, our heroine Eve and Ramon. Then Ramon gets miffed and shakes Eve. Hard.

The shaking is in between lots of sexual innuendo and semi-forced kissing.
Yuck and double yuck.
Did not finish. Got about a third the way through and skimmed a page here and there and that was far too much.

[Last Chance Saloon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a really tedious book for Kay Thorpe. The heroine (24) is very dull, slightly aggressive, a little smarmy and a lot annoying. Her sister (19) is a brat and their interaction turns the heroine into a middle aged bore. The hero (30) is a know-it-all, smooth operator and if it only his obvious penchant for the heroine redeems him in any way from being a one star hero as he's a medallion wearing chauvinist with no vulnerability.
An off-day for Kay Thorpe.