Heaven Around The Corner

by Betty Neels

A new place, a new job--and a new love!

Louisa did want desperately to get out from under the roof of her disagreeable stepmother, and she couldn't bear the thought of marrying Frank, who bored her. So after finishing nursing school, she jump at the offer of a challenging job that would take her to Norway.

But this exciting move didn't solve all her problems: Louisa was having lots of trouble with one patient, Claudia Savage, whose uncooperative brother Simon seemed to make matters worse. Louisa was doing her best; couldn't Simon see that Did he always have to be so unpleasant towards her?

Genres: Romance, Fiction, Harlequin, Medical, Ebooks, Slow Burn, Harlequin Romance

224 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 1, 1981

About the author

Evelyn Jessy "Betty" Neels was born on September 15, 1910 in Devon to a family with firm roots in the civil service. She said she had a blissfully happy childhood and teenage years.(This stood her in good stead later for the tribulations to come with the Second World War). She was sent away to boarding school, and then went on to train as a nurse, gaining her SRN and SCM, that is, State Registered Nurse and State Certificate of Midwifery.

In 1939 she was called up to the Territorial Army Nursing Service, which later became the Queen Alexandra Reserves, and was sent to France with the Casualty Clearing Station. This comprised eight nursing sisters, including Betty, to 100 men! In other circumstances, she thought that might have been quite thrilling! When France was invaded in 1940, all the nursing sisters managed to escape in the charge of an army major, undertaking a lengthy and terrifying journey to Boulogne in an ambulance. They were incredibly fortunate to be put on the last hospital ship to be leaving the port of Boulogne. But Betty's war didn't end there, for she was posted to Scotland, and then on to Northern Ireland, where she met her Dutch husband. He was a seaman aboard a minesweeper, which was bombed. He survived and was sent to the south of Holland to guard the sluices. However, when they had to abandon their post, they were told to escape if they could, and along with a small number of other men, he marched into Belgium. They stole a ship and managed to get it across the Channel to Dover before being transferred to the Atlantic run on the convoys. Sadly he became ill, and that was when he was transferred to hospital in Northern Ireland, where he met Betty. They eventually married, and were blessed with a daughter. They were posted to London, but were bombed out. As with most of the population, they made the best of things.

When the war finally ended, she and her husband were repatriated to Holland. As his family had believed he had died when his ship went down, this was a very emotional homecoming. The small family lived in Holland for 13 years, and Betty resumed her nursing career there. When they decided to return to England, Betty continued her nursing and when she eventually retired she had reached the position of night superintendent.

Betty Neels began writing almost by accident. She had retired from nursing, but her inquiring mind had no intention of vegetating, and her new career was born when she heard a lady in her local library bemoaning the lack of good romance novels. There was little in Betty's background to suggest that she might eventually become a much-loved novelist.

Her first book, Sister Peters in Amsterdam, was published in 1969, and by dint of often writing four books a year, she eventually completed 134 books. She was always quite firm upon the point that the Dutch doctors who frequently appeared in her stories were *not* based upon her husband, but rather upon an amalgam of several of the doctors she met while nursing in Holland.

To her millions of fans around the world, Betty Neels epitomized romance. She was always amazed and touched that her books were so widely appreciated. She never sought plaudits and remained a very private person, but it made her very happy to know that she brought such pleasure to so many readers, while herself gaining a quiet joy from spinning her stories. It is perhaps a reflection of her upbringing in an earlier time that the men and women who peopled her stories have a kindliness and good manners, coupled to honesty and integrity, that is not always present in our modern world. Her myriad of fans found a warmth and a reassurance of a better world in her stories, along with characters who touched the heart, which is all and more than one could ask of a romance writer. She received a great deal of fan mail, and there was always a comment upon the fascinating places she visited in her stories. Quite often those of her fans fortunate enough to visit Ho

Reviews

[Grrrrace · Rating 4 out of 5]

HATC is an outlier in several ways in the Betty canon. Although it seemed less odd on a re-read, it still has some unusual elements that made me wonder what might have been going on in Betty’s life to make her tackle, in a way, such unusual-for-her subject matter. Although it probably falls among my top third of Betty books, I’m still ambivalent about this one after a re-read: pretty good angst, but Simon Savage is one of Betty’s English Ogre non-doctor heroes, who are often hard to like. It also features a young nurse-heroine, Louisa Evans, who is one of Betty’s typically good and kind, not-quite-pretty young ladies who are perhaps a little too accommodating at times, and the hero’s stepsister, who remains as awful at the end of the book as she is at the beginning (which in itself I found interesting--I have to respect an author who doesn’t feel the need to redeem a major character who is not cast as a villain).

This is the one with the newly qualified nurse-heroine who travels to Norway as private nurse to the hero's stepsister , who, we soon find out, is an alcoholic. Not Betty’s usual stomping ground in several ways—for one thing, no Holland in this one (although she has used Norway as a setting on several occasions—Midnight Sun’s Magic and A Promise of Happiness (a fave!) come to mind). And an unusual ailment to boot! Not your standard nursing challenge in a Neels book, where we’re more likely to encounter measles or accidents than addiction. And our hero is one of Betty’s rare non-RBD/RDDs: Simon Savage is a snarly engineer who (ironically?) builds bridges.

Louisa has just finished her training and passed her tests to become a registered nurse. She immediately begins looking for a private nursing position so that she can quit her job at a London hospital and get away from her horrible manipulative stepmother, who is pushing her to marry the local wealthy bore. For once, a Neels heroine is done with the unreasonable family demands (perhaps because stepmama isn’t a blood relation), and Louisa is planning to fly the coop now that she has her certification in hand.

She takes a job with a Claudia Savage, a pretty youngish lady (30s) with a rather vague liver ailment, who needs someone to travel and stay in Norway with her. Twenty-two year old Louisa gets the job, and flies off to Norway with Miss Savage and a handful of her fast, hard-drinking London friends, who stay a few days in Bergen. There’s not a whole lot of actual nursing for Louisa to do, but Claudia is capricious and selfish and prone to mood swings and tantrums, and Louisa doesn’t much like her friends’ influence on her. She does her best to establish a routine and see what she can of Bergen on her time off, and our hero doesn’t enter the book until around the 20% mark. We learn a little about the hero before we meet him—he and Claudia are not related by blood but by marriage; they don’t get along; he gives her a generous allowance that enables her to live an idle and quite luxurious life (so we know they are wealthy and upper class).

We get a sense of Simon even before we meet him when he calls for his sister and is very short and unfriendly to Louisa even on the phone, so she instantly dislikes him. He’s no better when he finally turns up in Bergen—she returns from a couple of hours time off one afternoon to find her patient in near-hysterics, faced with a furiously angry and domineering Simon. Betty seemed to have a type for her non-RDD/RBD heroes: long and lean and dark haired, good looking with aquiline features and a disagreeable demeanor. Simon is very much this type, similar to Charles Cresswell of Judith and Charles Trescombe of Magic in Vienna.

Simon doesn’t seem to think much of Louisa—she’s clearly inexperienced, too young, and naïve, which is why his sister chose her, he tells her. He questions Louisa about his sister’s ailment but doesn’t enlighten her as to its true nature (which is odd but okay—Betty wanted a more dramatic reveal, I guess?).
We find out soon enough when Simon meets Louisa at the bank to set up an account for her salary to be paid into, and they come home to find Claudia passed out with a bottle of vodka at hand. Our heroine is justifiably perturbed that no one bothered to tell her and explains that a lot of Claudia symptoms could have been the result of the ailments she was told Clauda was suffering from. Simon is mostly cold and a bit scornful of Louisa and not very nice to her.

To her credit, she stands up for herself pretty well. Louisa doesn’t much like Simon for quite a while, although she does find him good looking and occasionally wishes he were less surly and different. She DOES quite like the friendly bank manager she’s met, Lars, who asks her out on a date. She has a nice time with him, but she brings him back to the apartment for coffee, he immediately falls in love with Claudia, who is languishing prettily on the sofa, as usual. The attraction is mutual. Our lonely Louisa is a little sad seeing the possibility of a nice young man being a little interested in her slip right away—she’s one of Neels’ shy plain Janes whose sense of her own attractions has been squashed for a long time by her stepmother and her own insecurities, for one thing.

Simon decides given his step-sister’s backsliding, he’ll remove her to the Arctic reaches of northern Norway, to Tromso, where he’s building a bridge. The young ladies travel by ship up the fjords (and we get a nice little travelogue along the way, although Claudia is interested in nothing but herself and our curious and delighted heroine only has snatches of time in which to enjoy the adventure. They arrive in Tromso, and from there are met by Simon, who takes them by boat to an even smaller island. Claudia, as usual, has no interest in the trip, but our curious Louisa goes up on deck, where Simon surprisingly and impulsively kisses her rosy not-so-plain self as he pulls up her hood. It’s one of only a few times that Simon lets his guard down with Louisa, although it’s clear to us that he’s attracted to her and doing his best not to be.

They settle into the hero’s temporary home (“a dump” according to Claudia, who is not given to sharing staterooms or bathrooms if she has a choice—which she doesn’t) in a small settlement boasting a hotel, a general store, and not much else (too small to even have its own doctor).
Louisa is really likable. She’s delighted by Norway and the simple pleasures she finds there; she learns to ski and does her best to keep her difficult charge entertained, cheerful (which is not a state that Claudia approximates ever), and sober. Claudia, in love with Lars, is still mostly unpleasant but she believes she can overcome her alcoholism for a future with Lars (love being an all-conquering force in fiction if not IRL I guess). I don’t for a minute believe that Claudia and her intended are going to get a HEA, but at least it will get Claudia off Simon’s back for a while. And this isn’t the story of Claudia and Lars, after all—it’s Simon’s and Louisa’s tale.

Simon is still mostly a jerk and Louisa mostly doesn’t suffer it in silence, but there is an increase in sweeter moments between them. There’s a movie/dinner dance night at the hotel that’s a big social occasion for these remote outlying areas, and Simon mostly watches Louisa as she watches The Sound of Music, misty eyed despite seeing it before, and then dances with her exclusively afterwards. Later that night, he rouses Louisa from her bed to help save victims of a boat accident, showing them both at their best—Simon as a trusted and well-respected member of his temporary community and Louisa as a calm force in an emergency and an excellent nurse. We get a second kiss, this one more serious.

But afterward, rather than bringing them together, the experience seems to make Simon more remote and distant. Even after Louisa uses her newly acquired ski skills to go after Claudia, who heads out in a pending storm, and Simon and people from the village come to their rescue, our MCs only temporarily draw closer (with a third, even more passionate kiss that Louisa returns, as proof), before Louisa, certain that Simon feels nothing for her, tries to hide her love for him and pass it off as just an impulse of the moment.

And her job is at an end. She’s no longer needed as nurse, and her travel has been arranged by Simon back to England. Claudia remains the same selfish bitch she’s always been, basically telling Louisa thanks but she’ll will be glad to see the back of her because though while Louisa is nice enough, she’s mainly just been a necessary evil. Let’s hope that Louisa won’t have much to do with her future step-sister-in-law. Louisa, already upset by her Dawning Realization that she’s in love with the bad-tempered and likely uncaring Simon, isn’t helped much by this piece of ingratitude from someone she’s spent the entire time taking care of and defending.

Our poor heroine, just coming to realize that as imperfect as our hero is, he’s perfect for her and probably there will be no one else for her. There’s a really heartbreaking little scene Louisa’s last day when she goes down to breakfast and Simon’s there alone and after trying to put on a brave face, she almost starts crying and whispers his name, to no avail, or so it seems.

But we get a nicely all-in avowal from our irascible hero, finally—he can’t live without her, her tells her—in an abrupt HEA when, as she’s departing, he joins her on the launch and then tells her he’ll be traveling with her all the way to England. Where they’ll be married—she’d gotten “under his skin, into his bones, his very heartbeat” from the start, says Simon, but did his best to make her hate him because he was determined to get over it. But he didn’t, and he is in love with her and wants to marry her. Many many kisses later, we get a glimpse of his beautiful English home and their beautiful English future together. So while it’s one of Betty’s hard-won-love stories, as is often the case with her more cranky heroes, we get there in the end.

[Teri-K · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very mixed feelings about this Neels book. The best part was the description of Norway. It really made me want to book a tour - or better yet, move there right away! And I love books that can make me feel like I've been somewhere interesting. Especially if they have mountains and snow.

OTOH, I was really uncomfortable with the subplot of the young woman who was an alcoholic for eight years. It had resisted every previous treatment, but now she's cured because she in love. She even says something like "What if he doesn't want to marry an alcoholic" and the nurse says "You're not an alcoholic now that you have him." For a book that was first published in 1981 that's stretching an HEA too far. Plus, she's still a self-centered drama queen. I felt sorry for her guy.

My other problem was with the hero. He's not nice to our heroine at first, which we expect from Betty. And sparks fly for good reason between the two. But he also treats his step sister harshly, never explaining anything or really even trying to see things from her point of view. The later attempts to turn him into a nicer guy are pretty feeble. I prefer my heroes to be basically nice people, and for the two of them to actually know something about each other before they decide they're in love.

So, read it if you want for the descriptions of Norway, not the plot. Unfortunately.

[Leona · Rating 3 out of 5]

I kept waiting to like someone in the book. Very middle off the road for Betty.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 ½ ~ This Betty Neels classic is one of her few love stories where the hero is not a rich Dutch doctor. Simon is a Civil Engineer contracted to build several bridges in Norway. Our lovely heroine is 22 year old Louisa who just passed her nursing certification exam.

Having her certification means Louisa is now free to leave her London training hospital and take a job away from the influence of her demanding step-mother. When a patient shows her the ad for a private nursing job that would take her to Norway for several months, she promptly memorizes the phone number and later jots it on the hem of her apron. Her perspective patient is Claudia a young woman in her 30's suffering from a liver ailment, which Louisa later learns is due to alcoholism.

Once they are in Norway, Louise meets Claudia's bullying step-brother Simon. Immediately, Louisa finds herself clashing with his domineering manner, and dislikes him immensely. Simon seems to be purposely pushing Louisa's buttons, and later we learn he was. He's quite taken with her, but doesn't want to be, and so continually pushes her away. Claudia is a difficult patient, and once Louisa learns of her private drinking habits, she understands her many mood swings. To remove Claudia from any temptation, Simon insists that they stay with him in a remote part of the country where he is building his bridge. This of course, doesn't sit well with Claudia. Just days before they make the trip, through Louisa, Claudia meets Lars, the local banker. Suddenly she discovers she has a purpose to get well, and Louisa encourages their relationship.

Once in the north country, Claudia is forced to settle down, but not without tantrums and arguments with Simon. At times he's astounded when Louisa defends her patient quite forcefully. While Louisa thinks he's privately laughing at her, he's actually smiling at her spirit and her refusal to be intimidated by him, the man that pays her wages. "He really was beastly; perhaps he was a misogynist." Theirs is a battle of wills that is quite fun to read.

While some readers find this to be a lesser of Ms. Neels romances, I actually found it refreshing. I adore a heroine who isn't afraid to give the hero a piece of her mind. Louisa may lack in experience, but she has sound common sense and is good at her job.

She began on her porridge and dropped the spoon at his sudden roar.
‘Are you defying me, Nurse Evans?’
She sugared her porridge. ‘Well, yes, I believe I am,’ she told him placidly. ‘I don’t interfere with your bridges, Mr Savage, I don’t think that you should interfere with my nursing.’

‘You surprise me, Louisa, or are you putting on an act for my benefit?’
She paused, fork half way to her mouth. ‘An act? Why ever should I bother to do that with you?’
His bellow of laughter sent heads turning in their direction. ‘Aren’t I worth it?’
‘No,’ said Louisa roundly, and applied herself to her dinner. She was a little surprised to find that although she disliked him still she wasn’t…scared wasn’t the word—intimidated any more.

[Clare · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book I thought was a little different from what I've read from her books, the h Louisa I did like and I'm happy that her stepmother was only in a few pages but the H Simon I didn't really like in this book, to me he seemed more 2 dimensional than her usual characters and he would be luke warm for a second or two and then cold to Louisa again.
His step sister whom Louisa was looking after was very spoilt and an alcoholic and was magically cured by her lover and there was a few times where I wanted Louisa to tell her exactly what she thought of her especially towards the end.
I did like the description of Holland and the little tea shops, it makes me want to go lol.

[Annemarie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked the setting, the description of Norway, and that's about it. Unplausible. Unlikable cast. Alcoholic magically healed by love? ugh.

[Lea Woodard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very out of date

I can ignore what a spoiled pill Miss Savage is, that's par for the course for secondary women in Neels' books. But good lord, what dangerous and outdated views she had of alcoholism! "It's a pity she isn't married." Yes, all one needs is a husband to cure one of an addiction. Then if course Claudia Savage gets a man (and an unlikely one too) and suddenly she's 'cured' and on the road to recovery. Simon Savage, while not unusual in a Neels hero, is quite cold, and often downright unpleasant. Aside from waking our poor heroine up from her bed to help with an overturned boat they have no significant encounters, and yet she's supposed to have fallen in love with him. He's a jerk and even his love confession, while nicely worded, isn't enough to overcome the fact that he doesn't actually seem to like Louisa, and she doesn't know anything about him--except that he's an I'll natured grouch who bullies his sister and builds bridges.

[Helen Manning · Rating 5 out of 5]

Different for Ms. Neels. Yes Louisa is a Nurse (newly qualified and eager to escape the machinations of her hideous stepmother) and takes a post withe the complicated Claudia whose stepbrother Simon is a civil engineer. Interestingly, Claudia turns out to be an alcoholic and she is a horrible person. Not once throughout the book did I feel badly for her. Simon is by turns tactiturn and unpleasant but still in BN fashion Louisa falls in love with a difficult man. Norway is glowingly described and the story is rock solid. Great book.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this one was unusually bad. The alcoholic villainess is miraculous cured by love. The hero is a grump. It's set in Norway, I think mostly so that there are several opportunities for people to freeze nearly to death. Bleah.

[Partridge Public]

neels,betty

[Black Sun · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweet, short, perfect.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Betty Neels, but this one had major pacing and plausibility problems. I read it on my phone, which changes the page count, but at one point when they were still in Bergen, I checked my progress and saw incredulously that the book was already halfway over. And the central couple had already talked at all! What's more, nothing really seemed to start happening until chapter seven, at which it almost seemed like Betty saw her word-limit nearing, panicked a bit, and tried to wrap things up as quickly as possible. But to me it strained plausibility to the very limit.

Simon's character arc basically goes jerk-jerk-jerk-jerk-jerk-jerk-jerk-kissy jerk!-jerk-jerk-kissy-jerk!-jerk-love interest. What?!!

Aspects of the story developed well enough -- and Neels did make good use of the novel-for-her Norwegian setting -- but I think this story would have worked far better with either a word-count limit that let the Bergen-set section occupy the percent of the story it merited (probably no more than a third, but an overall longer length than usual) or a ruthless edit to the Bergen section that compressed Louisa's discovery of Claudia' true ailment and gave Neels more time and space to develop the relationship between Simon and Louisa.

A disappointing read, but I guess with a 134-book output, you've got to expect a few duds along the way.

[Caro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Traducido como:" Mi cielo eres tú" .

Novela rara, totalmente diferente al canon Betty...si bien la heroína es una enfermera, Louisa Evans,él protagonista masculino no es un doctor sino un ingeniero Simón Savage.
La acción se desarrollará en Noruega (?) si bien se inicia en Londres,los viajes aquí serán frecuentes en zonas inhóspitas y lejanas.
Nuestra protagonista es la enfermera particular de una joven (Claudia) que padece de una enfermedad, y que se está recuperando de ella. Conforme avanza la trama nos enteramos que la chica sufre de alcoholismo! Asistimos entonces a esos momentos de embriaguez,así como de abstinencia de la joven muchacha.

Nuestra sensata Louisa es contratada por el hermanastro de la enferma,un rudo y gruñón joven que siempre está molestando y respondiendo de mal humor a nuestra chica. Obviamente detrás de esos modales y broncas entre ambos está el amor.
Me llama la atención lo diferente de la relación entre ambos personajes sí los comparamos con otros de la misma autora, ambos son francos,se dicen todo a la cara y no se molestan en aparentar, inclusive él la besa cuando quiere, así también se muestra indiferente.

[Deane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this story...one reason is that I traveled to Norway....weather much like Canada...

Louisa has passed all her nursing exams in London and now has her certificate. She dislikes her ruling stepmother so she applies for a job being a private nurse to Claudia who is an alcoholic (which no one tells Louisa) but has to move to Norway if she wants her brother, Simon to keep giving her an allowance.

They advertise for a nurse to accompany Claudia from England to Norway and even though this wasn't the type of job she wanted, Louisa accepted so that she could get out of England and away from her stepmother.

It's miserable several weeks for Louisa because Claudia is spoiled, cares for no one but herself, is rude, unkind, moody, and a real problem. The brother, Simon seems to be hard hearted and angry and he has every right to ber so.

They travel to northern Norway where Simon is building bridges and Claudia couldn't be any harder patient....poor Louisa....but she falls in love and the story ends well.

[Tausha Duncan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not the typical story!

This book was very interesting because it isn't one of Betty Neels' typical doctor/nurse stories. While Louisa is certainly a nurse, Simon isn't A doctor. He's an engineer..... at least that's what I would call someone who builds bridges. Louisa is nursing Simon's sister Claudia, who I never learned to like. I guess you're supposed to feel sorry for her and sympathize with her eventually, but I consider her just a horrible spoiled brat. You get that impression early on and there's nothing to make her seem any better. She, at least, did choose Louisa as her nurse, so I can give her credit for that. Overall, the story is a really good one. I enjoyed that most it wasn't set in the hospital. I like the little hints along the way that Simon isn't as indifferent as he seems. I absolutely love Louisa. I did expect a little bit more to the ending, but it worked out okay. Sometimes, there are just other loose ends I wish were all tied up.

[Mudpie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Savages sure live up (or down) to their name...both were rude but Claudia was nasty and had a mean streak in her...cunning and casually cruel. Spoilt rotten, stupid Lars what did he see in her other than a pretty face going to waste soon? She had no class, even with all the money Simon gave her!

Simon...oh he explained how he tried to be rude to keep Louisa a distance, but it just came out plain rude and terrible! He was nice to everyone but her!

The stars go to beautiful Norway and Louisa, though her enabling Claudia's bad behaviour made me roll my eyes so hard!

I dare say this is one of my least favourite BN novels...I REALLY dislike Claudia, and Simon to a certain extent.

[Glaidene Ramsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heaven Around the Corner

Louisa has just graduated from nursing school. She has a Stepmother who tries to run her life. There is also Frank a Mam her Stepmother would like her to marry. Louisa wants nothing more than to lead her life as she wants. Louisa gets a job that takes her to Norway. There her life will change again. Enjoy the story , I did!!!!!

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

The only romance was Norway. It was a beautiful setting. The rest was blah. I hated Simon…I wanted to push him off the bridge he was building. And this book gave us an alcoholic character that was so irritating to read about. Her “recovery” was a bit unrealistic too. According to this novel, falling in love will cure your addiction. Please.

[Michael Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fjords and Rovers

A very good novel with a setting so very different from her other novels. One can visually see glimpses of Norwegian life and learns to be careful of skiing unprepared. Once again the younger lady and the grumpy man come together.

[Monique E. Lacroix · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it

I didn't like Claudia much, such a self centered person and sneaky to boot but at least she decided to change her life around. Louisa grew up nicely in this story and got the man.

[Michelle David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely

If you enjoy your romances light, clean, fluffy and vintage then you will enjoy the wonderful work of Betty Neels

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something different than the usual Neels. Enjoyable escapism.

[dot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another competent orphan heroine, but our older vague hero isn’t a physician OR Dutch!

[Eunice Coorlas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Louisa newly graduated from nursing school takes a job with a young lady, whose actions are strange and mercurial. Added to her patient’s idiosyncrasies is the fact that her brother Simon is added into the equation. Steer, severe, ogre like Luisa is completely put off by his presence and his actions. Rest assured those feelings will begin to transform into something much more pleasant and life-changing. Another great read from Betty Niles.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 Stars
Norway...a young Nurse...horrible stepmother...Spoiled Brat Patient with rich Civil Engineer stepbrother who builds bridges...BLAH...
I didn't like this one all that much, I must be use to the RDD ones. Sort of bored me out of my mind. Oh well, on to the next one.

[Barty · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars. lovely. a slightly shorter novel. I love how bad tempered and cold the mmc is in this book and how brisk and competent the fmc. he is Mr grouchy McGrouch grouch lol. Nice little touch of angst. no ow drama in this one. just a selfish ill tempered drunkard stepsister who needs "nursing". I like to imagine an epilogue where the selfish cow gets dumped and miserable whilst our fmc is blissfully in love and lives happily ever after