When Lois Tarrant, who worked as a model for a London designer, flew to Madrid to deliver an item to a Spanish bride, her trip turned out to be much longer than anticipated. The postponement of the wedding meant that suddenly Lois was traveling to Andalusia and facing new adventures with the bride. It was not at all a bad way to spend her days, if only it weren't for the girl's terribly arrogant guardian Don José Farrara de Martinez y Arova, although there was also something intriguing about him... The 20th-century story by Rose Burghley, a pseudonym of the romance writer Ida Pollock, offers a memorable love tale set in romantic Spain.A must-read for fans of literary romance and surprising twists of fate.-
One of many pseudonyms used by Ida Julia Pollock, née Crowe.
Mrs. Pollack was a British writer of several short-stories and 125 romance novels that were published under her married name and under a number of different pseudonyms: Joan M. Allen; Susan Barrie, Pamela Kent, Averil Ives, Anita Charles, Barbara Rowan, Jane Beaufort, Rose Burghley, Mary Whistler and Marguerite Bell. She has sold millions of copies over her 90-year career. She has been referred to as the "world's oldest novelist" who was still active at 105 and continued writing until her death.
Ida and her husband, Lt Colonel Hugh Alexander Pollock, DSO (1888–1971), a veteran of war and Winston Churchill's collaborator and editor, had a daughter, Rosemary Pollock, who is also a romance writer.
Eh. The opening chapter was intriguing, but then things devolved into a typical uber-polite battle between the English Flower heroine’s demure allure + bitchy OW’s tediously transparent shenanigans. The end result is a rather soporific harley with repetitive scenes of misunderstanding & willfully clouded motivation. Zzzzz. (I liked how the hero wasn’t fooled by the OW’s excuses & kept urging the English Rose to grow a spine & fight back…but then he never called out the OW himself, or even bothered to remove her from his intimate social sphere, so pfft. *dismissive gesture*)
Ms Pollock’s daughter Rosemary Pollock did a much better version of “Aristocratic Latino Boss falls for his English Rose sorta-employee” in THE MOUNTAINS OF SPRING, so I humbly suggest reading that one instead of this limp lettuce vintage.
Cover FYI: This is an actual scene, complete with accurate colors of hair, clothes, & horses…except the hero should be wearing a hat. Maybe the artist didn’t want him looking like Zorro…?
Model Lois Tarrant is in Madrid with the wedding dress of Inez who is the ward of Don Jose when she faints from the heat. From there the day only gets worse with the Groom involved in an accident.
Somehow Lois ends up as the companion of Inez and swept off to the Spanish countryside where she naturally falls in love with Don Jose who is gathering a bouquet of lovely women around him. This includes French widow Helene who does her best to ruin any hope of a romance for Lois.
Written in 1965 in the heyday of the enigmatic hero, Don Jose is nevertheless charming and now and then lets his suave demeanour slip.
It's lovely reading of the clothing (gloves and suede shoes and handbags etc) which give away the vintage setting even without the old-fashioned nature of the courtship. He kisses her hand and OMG her palm before he gets carried away kissing her lips right at the end.
I just love it.
Note: I just reread this in commemoration of Ida Pollocks death. She lived to be 105 and was apparently still writing to the last.
This was a book I enjoyed very much when I read it as a pre-teen. Again it is of its time in regard to gender politics and this in no way interferes with the romance of the story.
This author wrote under several pseudonyms of whose books I have also enjoyed reading. Such as Susan Barrie, Averil Ives, Pamela Kent etc.
I...I don't know what just happened. I'm going to have to give it a day or so before I write a full review, but I will say this for now: there's a big difference between enjoying a book because it's good and enjoying it because of its entertainment value.