Valley Deep, Mountain High

by Anne Mather

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Genres: Romance, Harlequin, Harlequin Presents

556 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

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.

Reviews

[StMargarets · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted a trainwreck. *pout*

I think the heroine is wearing off on me. I spent 100 plus pages with an 18 year-old femme fatale who tried to be nice to her poorer cousin on the Austrian ski trip her father had sent her on to get her out of the influences of her hippie friends. She is unimpressed with the hotel, the shopping, and the company - and finds her gormless cousin irritating. (True confession, I did, too.)

I didn't like any of the characters including the hero who is a poverty-stricken count turned ski instructor. He squires the cousin around and insults the heroine. Heroine falls in love (!?) after she turns her ankle skiing and then spends the night with him. (Nothing happens - they made out a bit).

Then the nefarious plot between the hero and the heroine's father is exposed. He was to watch over the heroine and break her heart so she will have learned her lesson. (?!) It's on tape for the heroine to listen to in the big gotcha moment. It's also in the blurb so this isn't a spoiler.

Heroine is heartbroken. Heroine's father is puzzled she seems so unhappy on her return to London. There is more falling action with the hero making a half-hearted effort to see her and the heroine being too heartbroken/proud to show any interest. It all ends as stupidly as it begins with the heroine begging the hero to take her back and let her live a life of poverty. The hero will sell the castle to the heroine's father. He'll open is his own ski school so he can meet nubile jetsetters while the heroine gives up her university education.

There is an epilogue of sorts with the now 19 year-old pregnant and the hero gloating that his millionaire father-in-law gifted them the castle and the money to restore if on their first anniversary. So much for independence and pride.

You know this is an Anne Mather novel when heroine has such an awful father and she finds herself in one part of a triangle between step-sibling.

[Kiki · Rating 1 out of 5]

The father should not have been allowed to be a parent.

I haven’t even caught up on the hero yet.
Oh yeah I have. He’s too proud, so heroine had to beg, when he should have grovelled on broken glass. Pride is a privilege given to the victims and the people who are right. Not an abuser and dishonest coward.

Anne Mather seriously had a missing moral compass.


Read Mgarbis's 4-star review of Valley Deep, Mountain High by Anne Mather
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Tia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I need to be honest and say that this was an emotional book for me, in some aspects. What the hero and the heroines father did was downright cruel. I couldn't believe that the hero would willingly play all those games on the heroine. Sure the heroine was a bit immature and selfish but she was only misguided. The way the hero hurt her where she began damaging herself with sleeping pills and not eating made me sick to my stomach. Sure we got a happy ending but at what costs?

[Lede · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this is the first hp I've read where the hero and the heroines father have colluded to destroy the 18 year old heroine.
Andrea goes from your typical teenager at the onset of her first big existential crisis ( perfect for someone who is about to start university), into a whipped, pregnant housewife giving dinner parties at the end of the book.
And the impoverished Baron von Ekwietnie, conveniently forgets about his pride at the end, proving Andrea right!

[Mgarbis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this because I was intrigued by the previous review. I felt that the h father was a way bigger jerk than the hero,who does that to their 19 year old daughter? Get a 33 year old man to try to seduce her than leave her when she finally realizes she loves him! I wish they would have elaborated more on her drug use and not eating and I think daddy should have felt way worse for being such a jerk. You can't figure why your daughters a spoiled brat when her " punishment" is a month at an Austrian ski resort? Really? I really liked the book I felt the hero was remorseful for his part and he really loved her. When Anne Mather gets it right she gets it right that's why I love the oldies....

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this is Anne Mathers version of taming of the shrew with a little King Thrushbeard thrown in. The H pretends to blackmail the h in to marrying him to teach her a lesson. She thinks he’s a (what’s the male version of a gold digger?) anyhoo. She thinks he wants a rich wife to pay for the upkeep of his Austrian castle. He then leaves and she listens to a recorded message (the one in the blurb) There's no marriage if you're wondering, well not until the HEA. I thought, when I began the book, that it was going to be one of those stories where she ends up pregnant and they have to marry. Fortunately this wasn’t the case! This is your typical, H/h bickering for most of the book, plots.

[Aishwariya · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is somuch fun to read. And i was searching something to measure the dumbness of the heroine. Story plot was different which makes it interesting.

[RomLibrary]

"Andrea," the voice began, "I told you once that I didn't care to be mistaken for a fortune-hunter. So, with your father's permission, I contrived to play a little trick on you...."

The tape continued to turn, but Andrea heard nothing more. It had all been planned, a calculated exercise to teach her a lesson.

And even after all she had learned, Andrea found it incredibly difficult to stop thinking about Axel-—to face the future when she was never to see him again!

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very old fashioned (70's). Old school, young heroine, domineering hero