Anne Mather is the pseudonym used by Mildred Grieveson, a popular British author of over 160 romance novels. She also signed novels as Caroline Fleming and Cardine Fleming. Mildred Grieveson began to write down stories in her childhood years. The first novel that she actually finished, Caroline (1965), was also her first book to be published. Her novel, Leopard in the Snow (1974), was developed into a 1978 film.
Lani St. John first saw hero Jake Pendragon when she was fourteen and on holiday in Cornwall with her parents (who were trying to make an attempt to save their bad marriage). But after Lani's mother Clare discovers that her husband Roger (a solicitor) is planning on visiting a client during this holiday she gets fed up and leaves. So just Lani and her father are left to enjoy the rest of the holiday together. Lani first meets Jake at his grandmother's house (Roger's client) and she later follows him home to his house on the cliff by the sea. Jake is annoyed that she followed him home but he invites her in and they talk. They don't see each other again for six years.
Six years later Lani's mother and father are divorced. Lani rarely sees or hears from her mother Clare, who is a popular opera singer. Clare always seems to have a new man in her life. And to Lani's dismay, her latest man is Jake Pendragon. Lani and Jake eventually meet again. Jake thinks Lani looks familiar, and then to his surprise he discovers Lani is the girl he met six years ago in Cornwall and that she's Clare's daughter. Lani finds herself attracted to Jake but she is trying to stay away from him because she thinks he's involved with her mother. Jake is known as Clare's protégé. Clare discovered Jake playing piano in a nightclub in San Diego and without Clare's assistance and financial help Jake wouldn't be where he is today. Jake recently gave a piano recital at the Royal Albert Hall and he is rapidly gaining popularity and recognition as a great pianist.
Jake keeps trying to meet up with Lani, who is trying to avoid him. But eventually they become lovers.
This was a captivating story with a lot of tension and drama. The main couple had good chemistry. It wasn't labeled as a Harlequin Presents but it was just like one, only longer at 382 pages. A good vintage read.
An Anne Mather Squick fest – and the director’s cut, no less. This is 300 plus pages of trainwrecky, angsty dramatic goodness that kept me turning the page even though I really didn’t like any of the characters all that much. But I had to find out what was going to happen next.
Our heroine, for some sins in another life, is saddled with a divorced mommy (opera signer) and daddy (lawyer) from hell.
The hero (a concert pianist) only has an evil, bed-ridden grandmamma (who disowned his mother for marrying his father) from hell.
The heroine (a children’s author and illustrator) has no friends except for the wanna-be OM who is her agent, and her cousins, a married couple with three kids. They are in the story, I presume, to remind us what sane people are like.
The last character in this story is the hero’s cliffside home in Cornwall, adjacent to his grandmamma’s estate.
This is the claustrophobic physical world our heroine inhabits. She also lives in her own tortured head when she can’t find people to be dramatic with.
She met the hero at 15 when her father paid a lawyer-type house call on the H’s grandmother. Hero was 23 at the time and the heroine was instantly attracted to him. He was cruel-to-be-kind to her as it was obvious he was just as attracted.
She never forgot him and was in agony when she discovered the H was her mother’s newest boy toy.
*Sigh *
Yes, it’s one of those mother vs. daughter for the hero stories.
And yes, eventually the hero sleeps with the h and they declare their love for each other.
Did he sleep with the h’s mother? He says he didn’t. The h’s mother says he did. The h’s mother is a world-class liar/psychopath – so I’m inclined to believe the H. (And if I’m going to believe this HEA – I’d better believe him.)
So it’s an OTT scenario to begin with – how can the narrative soar ever higher?
Don’t expect to feel good at the end of this story – but do expect to stay up until you finish it – it’s that kind of story.
This book was one hell of a book. As a fellow reviewer said, Wild Concerto to a trainwreck is what the Titanic is to a boating accident. I cannot agree more. I was gripped immediately from the first few pages and the angst began right from the 1st? 2nd? Chapter and lasted right till the last page. And oh God, the angst! The ending, even with the epilogue, wasn't enough for me. I suppose Margaret Pargeter endings have spoiled me. (I shudder to think what will happen when I go back to reading Betty Neels.)
The hero was quite something, all right. He was exactly the way I like em, inscrutable, OTT and alphahole-y. I loved that I couldn't see through his real motives very clearly (although there were hints for those smart enough to pick them up), and I loved how I myself felt not confident enough in his real feelings for the heroine. The book was so, so good. It is probably one of the first few 300+ page books that are exactly how I like them (Magnolia by Diana Palmer being one of the others).
The heroine herself was also perfect. She was so strong, so loving, so trusting, and didn't give up on the hero until the very end. The angst, oh the angst, of how horribly said hero treats her. She didn't do anything I disliked, even though I disliked the 'supposed' OM who wasn't even much of an OM anyway, because our h doesn't give him the slightest chance.
Recommended for anyone who loves trainwrecks, OW angst, and unrequited love angst as much as I do (I know there aren't many of such readers around, judging by the other reviews of the book, but I do know that us unrequited-love-from-the-h's-side lovers and heroine-haters like to stick around. This one's for you.)
I stayed up all night reading this cause the angst was delicious and I couldn't stop turning the pages. I am not a big fan of this author but this is definitely one of her best books!
This author has a dirty mind. Married men cheating, half brother and half sister having the hots, aaaaaaand mothers who steal the boyfriend from their daughters. This last one is the plot of this book. The heroine met the hero when she was a young girl and he a young man, he plays the piano and she tempts him with her innocent charms. She’s the daughter of a famous singer, who divorced her father and became notorious for her lovers, and for her talent. Ehem. Years later the heroine’s mother is pictured with her latest beau, and guess who, it’s the hero. Of course he doesn’t know who’s who and so when they meet at her mother’s he’s petrified and she is disgusted. She treats him like what he is, a gigolo who is kept by an older woman in exchange for sex. They meet other times, the hero tries to tell her things are not what they seem but the heroine doesn’t believe him. Then one day he goes to her house and they have sex. When her father finds out she’s dating him he has a tantrum because he’s still obsessed with his ex wife and of course it’s a lil bit tacky that the daughter helps herself with her mothers leavings. Not good taste at all, heroine. The heroine though follows him to his hotel suite and there they find her mother who after being rejected by the hero, goes out with the keys of his car and dressed in a nightie. H/h try to stop her but the woman mows them both. Really? Really! The heroine is only concussed but the hero had nasty injuries and his hands are smashed. So the second part of the book is the hero sulking and pouting and the heroine taking care of him until he’s recovered. The evil mom is not in jail. Why? Heroine’s father tell her it was him who called evil mum when she went away with hero, so it’s basically his fault what happened. The heroine leaves and sends her parents from hell just there where they belong. The grumpy hero tries to get rid of the heroine and eventually he succeeds, but only when she sees a letter from her mother she decides to leave him and go back to her life that was an interesting and nice life full of friends and a good career too. Thank god no typist here. Evil mum goes to see heroine and tells her lies about the hero and her getting back together and going to Switzerland, but some days later the hero is back and tells the heroine they are all lies and he loves her while her mother was only his sponsor. No sex with the cougar then. Yes, and I’m Santa! This book was weird and dysfunctional. Heroine’s parents are evil and awful. Her father is jealous of her so is her mother, who’s also a dangerous psychopath and not fit to be left roaming free. The best thing the heroine did was to get rid of both parents once and for all, even if in the end, at her marriage, they are both there. No good. Hire a hitman, heroine, it’s less expensive. The hero was no prize too. He had a rich grandma but since they quarreled years before he preferred to be kept by an older woman who used him as a toy boy. And even if he told the heroine he didn’t have sex with her mum I don’t believe it. And I’m one of those that usually believe what is told in the romance. But the man went to the Caribbean with mummy dear and the woman is described as a beautiful and young lady, and his expression of guilt when he understands she’s the heroine’s mum tells another story. So IMO he had sex with cougar mummy and then with younger model the heroine. Yuk! The heroine was the only nice person in the story, even if she let the hero treat her like dirt for some time, never mind if he’s hurt and injured and doesn’t want her to sacrifice her life on a cripple. Interesting book with triggers and weird things, as AM often offers.
Oh my! I am not even at the 50% mark and the angst fest is out the WAZOO. I'ma tellin'. Worst mother, no, worst parents ever.
Where do I start? Let me hark back to my SAT days an eon ago, Wild Concerto is to a train wreck as the Titanic is to a boating accident.
The overall mood of this book is a little seedy. It would actually be an awesome movie with bleak wet streets of London, smoky piano joints, classical music events, sophisticated cocktail parties, and a rundown house in Cornwall.
Lani meets the brooding Jake Pendragon (awesome name) when she is a teen. Her parents divorce and her mother, her self-involved, vain, vapid opera singer mother leaves her in her father's custody, her overbearing, smothering father. Years later she meets up with Jake again, now a piano-playing-maestro-in-training, who is now a protege of her mother. Or is he?
Clare, mummy dearest, is a piece of work. She apparently took parenting classes from the Medea School of Mothering. Not content to ignore Lani for years at a time, she pitches a fit when the girl, shock, gets a life. I did not care for Clare. At. All.
Lani and Jake have sex all under the umbrella of the mystique of whether Jake is Clare's boy-toy. There is a lot of maneuvering by both parents, which Lani follows Jake down to Cornwall where neither character acts very mature.
Normally HQ heroines try and resist the magic P and all it's cruel tendencies. Not this girlie girl. She throws herself into the fire with gusto and faces our tortured and very cranky hero until she doesn't.
There is a HEA where two of the broodiest characters are suddenly giggling like teenagers. I give the a 60% chance.
This novel was definitely full of angst. The hero whom she was in love with had finally come back into her life. The only issue was the fact that the heroine believed he'd had an affair with her mother. Jumping to all the wrong conclusions the heroine damages herself until she finally figures out that maybe the hero was telling the truth.
Lani met Jake Pendragon when she was almost fifteen, in the month when her mother, Claire, decided to leave her with her father to file for a divorce. They met because her father, the lawyer, wanted to discuss matters with his grandmother. Five years passed and Lani's life revolved around her father and her career as a writer and illustrator of children's books only. She didn't expect her now very famous pianist mother to come back to revive her relationship with her nor did she bargain for her mother's affair with Jake Pendragon himself- a man 12 years younger than her 42 mother! Yet, these things happened and her life was no more peaceful because of these two characters!
There are certain things in this book that really bothered me to the extreme. One of them is the main characters and the secondary ones!
1. The heroine slept with the hero even though she knew he was having an affair with her mother! She didn't regret it either! OMG!
2. The hero knew about her suspicions of his affair with her mother, yet he choose to ignore her question and prefer not to answer directly in the scene when he was asking her to sleep with him!!
Lani hesitated. "But, you do .. sleep with Claire, don't you?" "I've slept with a lot of women," he replied flatly. "If that's what this charade is all about, then yes. I'm quite normal in that respect."
What kind of answer is that to a women who is asking if you are sleeping with her mother! Honestly! Even if it was the 80's, this is too much! Too heavy to rationalize or excuse!
3. The heroine at 15 handled the hero much better than when she was at 21. She was much more mature in her adolescent years than when she is a grown up woman! Women at 21 do not run away in parties unnoticed nor start car racing along London streets to get rid of the heroes who wanted just to talk to them!
4. The heroine's mother is the villain and stays a real vibrant villain till almost the very end and then miraculously she becomes docile after abusing and trying to separate her own daughter from her lover and causing a grieve accident out of jealousy!
5. The heroine's father is the lawyer of the hero's grandmother or he was at least involved in her affairs once. (She was once his client, or so it was alluded) Yet, when the name of the hero is presented to him in the newspapers as the potential lover of his ex-wife, he claimed he didn't know the hero! Unbelievable!
Anne Mather certainly had so many other better books which I fully enjoyed. However, this one did not pass me as one of the good ones. Terrible characters to associate or sympathize with.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Um livro cliché para ser lido numa tarde de Verão. Lani aos 14 anos vai com o pai à Cornualha para o pai tratar de uns negócios e conhece o neto dessa senhora, Jake Pendragon. Anos mais tarde, Lani descobre pelas revistas cor-de-rosa que a sua mãe está envolvida com um conceituado pianista muito mais novo do que ela. Qual não é a surpresa de Lani quando descobre que esse rapaz é nem mais nem menos que Jake, aquele rapaz arrogante que conheceu com 14 anos. Há literalmente uma disputa com a sua própria mãe por Jake que mexe com os seus sentimentos. Mas quem será a vencedora? Com muitas reviravoltas e peripécias e algum erotismo é um livro cliché que lemos bem. E dado que foi escrito em 1984, era muito à frente para a época.
My favorite Anne Mather of all times. You have the broodiest hero ever with the back drop of rainy London and Cornwall in every other chapter. Puuurfect!
I enjoyed reading this book and didn't put it down until I reached the last page. The novel was basically about innocent, then 15 year old Lani, who meets young Jake Pendragon, aspiring pianist and fancies herself in love with him. Years after their one chance meet, they meet again and Lani's feelings for Jake all resurface. However, there's a bit of competition for Jake's heart, and Lani's competition was none other than her own mother
The book was captivating. It was angsty, especially the first half. I must say I wasn’t entirely sold on the heroine. Both MCs were flawed and it made the story that more interesting. There were some doubts about H’s relationship with heroine’s mother. The other half was slower and not as good. In the end the “reconciliation “ with Clare seemed too easy after all she put them through. Nevertheless I enjoyed the book.
3.5 🌟🌟🌟This was a great book that I almost DNF'd on the beginning. It did lose some momentum in the second half of the book, which is why I took away a half star. My biggest complaint is that the evil mother did not get her comeuppance and was allowed back into the family. She deserves to be punished and she got nothing!!
Il bipolarismo in versione cartacea . E anche volendo contestualizzare le caratterizzazioni al 1984 “No! Te ne vai adesso, e non tra un minuto o due. Subito. Va’ via di qui prima che ti rompa quella testa dura", lo dici a soreta!
Nb La Mather una delle mie preferite Nell'ambito romance harmony, qui ha toppato alla strabig,almeno un centinaio di pagine di " si , no , forse " andavano tagliate.
"Ti odio e poi ti amo e poi ti odio e poi ti amo... Non lasciarmi mai più..." Le parole del testo cantato da Mina sono un degno riassunto di questo libro. Anne Mather è una grande!