A Matter of Chance

by Betty Neels

Was she in the right place at the wrong time? Cressida had lost her parents and badly needed a new focus. So going to Holland to help an elderly Dutch doctor with a book he was writing, giving up her own nursing job for a while, seemed ideal. Her new employer had two partners. One was elderly and friendly, like himself, while the other was younger and...not quite so friendly. Giles van der Tiele always seemed to be snubbing Cressida, putting her in her place. But when he wanted to, he could be extremely charming—too much so for her peace of mind!

Genres: Romance, Fiction, Harlequin, Harlequin Romance, Clean Romance, Contemporary Romance, Slow Burn

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

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]

If I’d read A Matter of Chance a few years back, I likely would have paid little attention to the central event that drives much of the story: a flu epidemic. Given the current pandemic, it was interesting to see how Betty’s nursing experience allowed her to frame much of the disruption and tragedy we’re now seeing for ourselves: the heroine’s parents have recently died from the flu, driving her to make a drastic change in her life that leads her to The Netherlands and our hero, where we see through her eyes the stresses upon the health care system, with doctor and nurse shortages, overworked and exhausted health care professionals, and the increasing urgency of the situation. No wonder she and the hero are at such odds throughout the story, as tired and beset as they are by outside forces!

This is one of Betty’s snappy, spatty stories, with our MCs bickering and misunderstanding each other throughout the story, despite their immediate attraction and the realization, on the hero’s part anyway, that Fate has stepped in and brought two soulmates, however unwilling, together. Once again, Betty gives a fangirl nod to Jane Austen, not just in the heroine’s name (Cressida Bingley, although she bears no resemblance to the snooty, unpleasant Miss Bingley of Pride and Prejudice), but in the title, derived from a P&P quote: “Happiness in marriage is a matter of chance….”

Our Rich Dutch Doctor, Giles van der Teile, disagrees most heartily with that assessment; for him, sure that he has found the woman he is meant to marry, all that remains is for them to get to know one another better and for Cressida to catch up with his certainty that they are meant to be together.

Full spoilage ahead:After their first meeting in Amsterdam, where he comes to Cressida’s aid when she’s lost (and don't believe that David Craig cover, where they're all smiles about it), and she fires up at him, sick of being hit on by strangers, and he reacts in typically high-handed and mocking RDD fashion, he’s completely unsurprised to encounter her again when she begins working for his medical partner. “You look surprised,” he says, when she’s surprised by the coincidence. “But my dear girl, it was inevitable.” We know that Betty’s third wheel, Fate, is on hand, as she so often is.

Giles knows he’s found the girl he intends to marry, but Cressida, uncertain she likes the good looking, arrogant doctor, has no idea. They strike sparks off one another. He calls her a touchy young woman, but he gives her a lot of cause. But he’s also perceptive and attuned to the fact that she is sad: “why is that?” She doesn’t want to tell him about her parents’ death quite yet, despite an “unexpected urge to tell him [that] took her by surprise…He didn’t even like her, and she was almost sure that she didn’t like him, with his easy self-assurance. She shook her head and said nothing at all, and after a moment he said quietly, “Ah well, you shall tell me some time—it’s good to talk about one’s sorrow. It eases it….” But he promises not to try to find out about her—he’ll wait for her to tell him herself. Betty’s reserved doctors are, as we know, private to the point of repression, and he allows her the same courtesy.

Giles is an interesting example of a “peak” (at 1977, 8 years into her writing career and her 35th novel) Neels’ hero: he’s typically hot and cold (unlike her later more paternal, placid, and all-in heroes), got a fiery temper that he mostly keeps under icy control, and is mostly unrevealing about his feelings for the heroine. Cressy is more transparent, although with a temper to match his, and recovering from a great grief. Neels does a wonderful and understated job of letting us glimpse her evolution from a kind of frozen sorrow to a more accepting and open state. The warmth and friendship she received from the elderly doctors she works for and their kindly, motherly housekeeper (“Naaldtje,” as Giles affectionately calls her) help her to overcome her initial, closely held sorrow, but it’s probably our RDDs needling and insistence on getting her out and about that do the most good. He’s typically high handed about it: “I’ll be here at nine o’clock,” her informs her of their first outing together (to see his friends Harriet and Friso of Tempestuous April, who have long since concluded their own love-battles and are now blissfully happy together, raising three sons). “Where would you like to go?”

“Go?” repeated Crissida…“Are you asking me out?”

Hee.

Annoyed at his arrogance, she stiffly declines, but he coaxes her into agreeing: “They have a baby and two toddlers and three dogs.”

Cressida had to laugh. “Are those an inducement?”

“Yes. I think you like babies and children and dogs. Am I right?”

Despite their tendency to butt heads, they spend a delightful day together, visiting our friends from that earlier book (and Friso has mellowed, let me tell you)—and even the furry friends from that book make an appearance! Although she doesn’t find out much about Giles, as she had hoped to from Harry, Cressida finds that “just for a little while she felt happy and blissfully content; somehow her companion had, in a few hours, lightened her grief.”

(Can I say again how wonderful Betty is at understated emotion and drama? God, I miss that!)

Ah, but our amity doesn’t last long—before the day is over, our current tempestuous twosome are bickering, when she asks “artlessly” if he has far to go after dropping her off, and he reacts with typical RDD infuriating secrecy at her mild probing:

“No great distance.” And that was all he said, and that in a cool voice which didn’t invite any more questions…he need not have sounded so snubbing. She fires up at him: “How convenient for you that I accepted your invitation, although now I come to think of it, you didn’t invite me—you took it for granted that I’d come.” She added sweetly, “Pray don’t expect that a second time.”

“Who said anything about a second time?” he wanted to know silkily, and put his foot down hard, so that the Bentley shot forward at a pace to make her catch her breath….If it had been physically possible, she would have liked to box his ears for him.”

Hee… it’s just the start. The day ends with them NOT dining together (“my fault,” he tells her without explanation), and while Cressy feels that “she had been dropped from a great height and had the breath knocked out of her,” her last thought before sleep is of the doctor’s “lonely back as he had walked away from her on the doorstep.” Ahhh, Betty.

He’s her first thought the next morning too, and her muddled feelings make her throw herself into work on the book with her lovely, overworked boss, Dr. van Blom. She comes to wonder why he and his equally hard-pressed partner, Dr. Herrima, are not helped by their senior partner, Giles, and assumes that he, the eminent consultant, is “leading the well-ordered life of a top consultant, with only urgent cases disturbing his nights; junior doctors to do the spadework for him and almost certainly a nurse and secretary to help him in his consulting rooms.” We know this isn’t the case at ALL, for one of Betty’s dedicated and work-obsessed RDDs (and indeed it’s not: Giles is a silent partner who sought out the elderly doctors who helped his father during the German occupation and helped them to set up/expand their practice in gratitude). She makes the mistake of letting him know she thinks this, and it doesn’t improve the relations between them (and of course, he doesn’t set her straight because that’s not in the RDD code of reticence).

Enter the added complication of the apparent OW, Monique de Vries. She’s not one of Betty’s skinny horrors—she’s actually quite nice to our heroine and, although Cressy makes assumptions, just a friend to Giles, who had been asked by his best friend, her late husband, to look out for her (and her fortune). Giles and Cressy part, once again, on less-than-friendly terms.

Flu rears its ugly head, once again, and Drs. Van Blom and Herrima are stretched thin. Cressy helps them with nursing the sick and driving them to appointments. When Dr. van Blom comes down with flu, Cressy finally calls Giles behind their backs and asks him to help (quite upset that he hasn’t shown up earlier, unaware that he is dealing with his own crisis and impossible workload). She’s shocked to realize that he, too, is quite exhausted—but “he flicked her a mocking glance. ‘You see what a life of ease and idleness does to a man,’ he observed blandly.” The situation worsens when Dr. Herrima goes down with flu, too. But Cressy and Giles work together to handle the crisis, more and more exhausted and overtaxed, but drawing closer as a result.

The epidemic at its height, they do their best to work out schedules and sneak in brief periods of sleep. Cressy is a trooper: “’I’m used to long hours,’ she tells him, ‘or at least I was until I left hospital.’” “Why,” he asks, and she finally opens up to him: “’My father was ill. He died, and my mother died a few days after him.’…Strangely, she felt better now she had told him, but it wouldn’t do to bore him with details….his voice was gentle and kind [as he said]: ‘it’s not right to lock one’s grief away as though it were something to be ashamed of. Sorrow is for sharing, and so is love…’” And we have our first kiss, bristly chin and all!

Ah, but we’re still a long way from our ILYs and HEA; Cressy comes down with flu too, and when she recovers enough to regain her appetite and shakily sneak downstairs looking for food, she finds Monique wrapped in Giles arms with her head on his shoulder. She assumes the obvious, and has her Dawning Realization: “she wanted him to stay forever…It was, she told herself gloomily, the silliest time in which to discover that she loved him.”

Recovered, she throws herself back into work, determined to finish the job as soon as possible. Giles shows up a few days later and invites her to dinner and to meet someone who would like to meet her. It’s his mother, who is in the hospital—a formidable lady who takes to our heroine immediately. “Of course Giles would not have told you that he was bringing you to see me,” she tells Cressida. “His mind is almost wholly occupied with other people’s chest [being a professor of respiratory ailments], you know, and he has no time for the niceties.” As we have seen!

She spills a lot of beans to Cressy—including the fact that our busy and successful RDD, with a large private practice and consultancies and lectures at multiple hospitals, still has managed to open a clinic to serve the poor and underserved. RDDs HATE having their good works broadcast, and when Giles finds out what his mother’s been telling Cressy, he is clearly “in a cold rage” about it. When his mother bullies him into taking Cressy to see the clinic, Cressida naughtily “gave way to a desire to stoke his rage a little. How tiresome he was, and how she loved him. ‘I’ll not tell anyone,’ she assured him in kindly tones, and was rewarded by a glacial look.”

Outmanned, he reluctantly takes her to the clinic, although he has a few things to say about it: “You are a scheming minx, Cressida…I don’t know how you managed to worm so much out of my mother, but you succeeded very well. It was—unworthy of you.” After all, he didn’t pry before she was ready to tell him about her parents’ deaths, and he’s doubtlessly feeling betrayed that she didn’t afford him the same courtesy. RDDs are private to the point of repression, until they choose to be otherwise!

Cressy is not pushover though—she’s so mad that she tries to slide out of the Bentley at a stop and he hauls her back in. “I will not have dinner with you!” she rages, and not for the first time, a heroine bites off her nose to spite her face and goes to bed hungry (or would have, except that she later sneaks down for a snack once she’s back home and finds him still there—and we have our second kiss!).

Giles once again shows up (“what have I done? Or haven’t done? Or said? Or haven’t said?” Hee.), taking her to visit his mama for a second time, where we learn that Giles has a fierce temper, like his father, “although he seldom allows it to show, but he can be—difficult at times… I expect he has annoyed you?” :-p She had her own RDD to deal with in Giles’ father: “…a doctor too, and a brilliant one; he was also a man of iron will, with a fierce temper…We were ideally happy, which is strange, because I am strong-willed too.” A blueprint for the future!

We have a dramatic rescue scene, a la Betty, not long after: a car goes into a canal and Giles and Cressy (who can’t swim) work to rescue them. He takes her home to clean up and warm up afterward, where we meet his FRR, Beeker (I can only see the Muppet now, MEEP!) and faithful furry companion, Barker (and I can almost see Betty’s amusement at her own name choices). The next day, Giles shows up at Cressida’s work and asks her to marry him. He hasn’t said he loves her, and she thought he was planning to marry Monique, she tells him. He isn’t, he tells her “blandly,” and anyway, Monique is in Paris getting married that day—something he didn’t know until that morning, Cressy discovers.

It’s a misunderstanding that will make up the remaining page count. Cressida reacts with rage and the assumption that he is asking her to marry him on the rebound. He’s equally angry at her assumption that he’d do something so low—but she has some valid points to make: “What else am I to think? I can hardly suppose that you love me—I may be a fool, but not such a fool as all that! Why, you don’t even like me, you get furious with me for no reason at all…the other night, in that beastly canal—you—you shouted at me because I fell in and you didn’t mind at all when I didn’t get any supper, and when you were here it was: Cressida, get up, Cressida, go to bed, Cressida, help in the surgery, Cressida, drive the Bentley… and now you are…” her voice rose with the strength of her feeling “asking me to marry you!” Hahaha—as BN heroine blow-ups go, that’s first rate!

Giles backs off fast. “Now when he spoke, his voice was quite different; kind and gentle and understanding. ‘I’ve taken you by surprise, and you are quite right, I have never given you any reason to believe that I loved you, and now I have been clumsy…’” He won’t say what he intended to say for the time being—she should go back to England and think about it and make up her mind, but he wants to see her as much as possible until she goes—he thinks they might be very happy together. And we get our third kiss. And a fourth one, not so long after, “with fierce urgency”—pretty hot for Betty!

There’s the familiar heroine flit back home, and the comfort of her wonderful Aunt Emily—that rarity: a kind heroine relative in Neelsland—but Cressida finds that, despite the tea and sympathy, she is haunted by Giles’ memory. Giles shows up a week later, but they fight again, and he takes goes back home. “Have you had a tiff with that nice-looking man who just plunged out the front door” asks Aunt Emily. Haha.

In a turnaround, Cressida follows Giles back to Holland to clear things up. This might be a first! She goes to his house, Beeker (Meep!) tells her he’s giving a lecture at the hospital. She sneaks into the lecture hall, but uncertain afterward, tries to sidle out, only to have him pop out of a side door and gently haul her off into the Bentley. Back at the house, she’s ill at ease and uncertain of his feelings still, but he soon clears that up: “do you really suppose that I could stop loving you just because you flew into a rage?... I had to leave you, my darling, to make up your own mind once you discovered you trusted me as well as loved me. And that I loved you.” We get a long, lingering kiss, and there’s our HEA, folks.

A sweet and funny story, as only Betty can deliver, with old-fashioned warmth and sincerity and a belief in a kinder, gentler world that gets me every time.

Betty car porn:

The hero drives that RDD fave, a Bentley. Let's go with the T2 Continental, introduced in 1977 (and discontinued 4 years later). It featured "featured rack and pinion steering, improved air conditioning, rubber-faced bumpers, a new fascia and for Non USA Spec. cars a front air dam" (Wikipedia).

Our elderly doctors that the heroine works for drive (and so does she in the course of the book):

Dr. van Blom's "splendidly kept dark blue Chevrolet": "They drove very slowly through the city...and she wondered if there was something aobut Dutch motoring laws that she didn't know--a twenty-mile speed limit in towns for instance, and yet everyone else was traveling twice as fast...he achieved a steady thirty, while cars flashed past at thrice that speed, and Cressida, who in happier times had driven her father's car rather well, longed to stretch out a neatly booted foot and slam in down on the accelerator, for it seemed to her a crying shame to own such a powerful car and not make use of it." Hahahah! Let's go with a '77 Chevy Caprice:

"Dr. Herrima runs a BMW. I do not know if you would feel competent to drive either of them?" Cressida thought of the snail like pace at which they had driven from Leeuwarden and replied soberly that she thought she would be capable of driving either of the cars." How about a '77 first-gen 3 series E21 model--"in 1977, a carburetted inline 6-cylinder engine replaced both the 320 and 320i models":

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Betty Neels loves to make her heroes bide their time as her heroines figure out just why it is he annoys her so much. They then spark irritation and frustration and totally misunderstand each other, making for some fun reading.

In this one, Cressida has recently lost both her parents during a flu epidemic and has decided to take a break from hospital nursing in favour of private cases. A job in Holland comes her way as a typist to an elderly doctor writing a book. And this puts her in the realm of Giles, the senior partner in the doctor's practice.

From the moment Giles meets Cressida he's intrigued by her, observing that she is as "good as she is beautiful" and wondering why she is so sad. He tells Cressida that the housekeeper is trying a bit of matchmaking but that "she's wasting her time - I've found the girl for myself and I intend to marry her." To which Cressida replies, "If she'll have you". Giles than declares "You're a touchy young woman, aren't you? Ready to swallow me alive, given half a chance."

Of course, Ms. Neels has Cressida's imagination all over the place when it comes to Giles, first he's freeloading on the elder partners' practice, and then he's asking her to marry him because he's on the rebound. None of this is true, for Giles is the dedicated overworking doctor Mr. Neels is particularly fond of, and he's been in love with Cressida from "the moment I set eyes on you, being so dignified about getting lost in Amsterdam."

[Pamela Shropshire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reread 5/23/17. Adding to the P&P references: Giles actually quotes JA to Cressy: "Happiness in marriage is only a matter of chance," then he says he does not agree with Jane.

Also, Giles, like Mr. Darcy, makes an awkward, unsuccessful marriage proposal at 75%. At least Mr. Darcy expressed passion; Giles didn't.

Cressy has to apologize for having mistaken Giles' concern for Monique for love, like Lizzy apologizes for believing Wickham's lies.

*********

First, I'll give TGB points for the title, which comes from a Jane Austen quote (Charlotte Lucas speaking to Elizabeth Bennet while rationalizing her decision to marry Mr. Collins). Betty was clearly well-read, which contributes to her excellent writing. Also Cressida's last name is Bingley. And Cressy is somewhat ill-tempered like Caroline Bingley, although not nearly so nasty and snobbish.

Sadly, however, the title and JA references are the best things in the book. In spite of her impressive skill set (Medical Ward Sister, excellent typist, excellent driver), Cressida Bingley (her name is also borrowed from Pride and Prejudice) is a waffler. I admired her willingness to stand up to Giles, but she too quickly wilts under his icy glare.

In this book, I actually enjoyed the runaway scene and thought it fit Cressy's character (summons the courage to admit her feelings, but too cowardly to face the consequences). I do wish the denouement would have come when Giles traveled to England. I really hated Giles when he got angry and walked out - she was finally pouring our her heart to him. At that point, Cressy should have procured a job in Bora Bora - let Mr. Icy Stare come find her for a change. But, no, Cressy follows him back to Holland and sets herself up for a lifetime of capitulation. HEA, you say? Humph!

[Fiona Marsden · Rating 4 out of 5]

A typical Neels with nurse Cressida getting a job in Holland as a typist for an elderly doctor writing a book. While there, she meets Giles van der Teile and of course makes some hasty judgements about him which she later realises are wrong. There is the usual Neels style Other Woman and Giles is so busy being enigmatic you want Cressy to run off and marry someone else just to shake him up. Well not really but he would deserve it.

[Jite · Rating 4 out of 5]

always a comfort read…

As a huge Betty Neels fan, I can say that Cressida and Giles’ story was rather silly, and yet I loved it. After losing her parents and needing a change of scene, Cressy takes up a job typing up a book in English for an elderly Dutch doctor who happens to have a younger, wealthy partner, Giles. Immediately sparks fly and the two always seem at odds as Giles insists on being enigmatic and Cressida insists on finding every possible conclusion to jump to. Yet, I loved it and would add it to my favourites to definitely read again. I can’t claim to understand the Monique angle as it went absolutely nowhere but I don’t care. I enjoyed this one. Certainly one for the fans of all things Neels.

[Mirella Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like this novel... As usual, as the author is Betty Neels, the romance was very sweet. This novel was not about marriage in convenience (which happens a lot at Neels novel). But I did really appreciate the heroine of this novel, who did the first to express her feeling for the hero.

Well life was not easy, and this was happening to Cressida. Both her parents died in few days time, first was her father and 2 or 4 days later was her mom.

In order to relieve her feeling, she accepted a job in Holland, even though in means that she has to quit her job as nurse in Royal Hospital London. Her job was to type a script of medical book, include correcting and simplifying the English language.

The first day in Amsterdam, she lost her way back to the hotel and then met Giles, a charming doctor who accompanied her back to her hotel. She found that Giles -even though charming- was also annoyed her so much. She hoped not to meet him again, but fate told the other way.

Turned out that Giles was the senior partner of Dr. Van Blom, Cressy's employer. Therefore, Cressy met Giles occasionally. During their meetings, Cressy fell in love with Giles, but how about Giles' feeling for Cressy?

[Olly · Rating 5 out of 5]

gile! Ini buku pertama terbit tahun '58! Tapi ceritanya emang bener-bener keren. Tokoh ceweknya, perawat yang berhenti sebentar dari profesinya, cari suasana baru untuk mengobati kesedihannya, dengan menjadi typist sekaligus editor bagi seorang dokter yang sedang menulis buku. Cressida gadis yang agak judes dan bermulut tajam. Piawai nyetir mobil hingga sering harus mengantar majikannya kesana kemari mengunjungi pasien.
Sang hero, dokter Belanda yang ganteng dan menyebalkan. Tapi seperti karakter hero bet-neels lain, charming 'n lovable.
Betty neels selalu menampilkan mobil-mobil keren. Kali ini giliran Bentley 'n BMW.
Keren deh, meski jadul 'n alim banget. Jangan harap ketemu adegan sex yang hot. Tapi tanpa bumbu-bumbu kayak gitu toh asyik juga.

[Megzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can always leave it up to Betty for a pleasant, enjoyable read. Giles seems to be younger in age than most Betty's physician dutch heroes. He is not in tuned to Cressida's feelings as we usually expect from Betty's lead male character. There is an OW and some misunderstandings to the nature of their relationship.

[Susan in NC · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a favorite...

Now I know why I've only read this one once before...Cressida and Giles are both stuck on their high horses and refuse to speak to each other, I got tired of the never-ending misunderstandings...nice supporting cast of two elderly doctors and their housekeeper, though.

[Aarathi Burki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought This was a bit different from regular Betty Neels novels wherein the heroine gets a job to assist a doctor who is writing a book even though she is a nurse by profession.
Cressida has recently lost both her parents and to come out of her grief she chooses a different job which takes her to holland and work as an assistant to a doctor, the job mainly involves typing a medical book and condensing it. Though she doesn’t know Dutch cressida settles down well in her job and happens to meet Giles a partner of her employer. Tempers always fly whenever they meet and Giles though secretly falls in love with Cressida at first sight somehow feels she doesn’t like him. Giles has a lady friend Monique who is his best friend’s widow and Cressida thinks he loves her, the small misunderstandings continue and when Giles finally asked her to marry him Cressida doesn’t take him seriously as she thinks he wants to marry her out of rebound as a Monique married some other guy. But then all misunderstandings clear and they finally unite.

What I liked about this book was the 2 senior doctors who worked round the clock in and around their small village without caring for their own health and leisure and when a flu strikes the entire village how they all work round the clock which was really touching.

All in all a good book better than the books I recently read by the same author.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a Betty so I gotta love it, but I didn't love as much as I usually do. Mainly because the hero needs to be kinder to this heroine. He's not mean and tormenty, he's cold and mercurial. In a tad more detail, you may read my thoughts at my blog post:

https://missbatesreadsromance.com/202...

[Linda (NOT RECEIVING NOTIFICATIONS) · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was disappointing to say the least. Cressy was beautiful but extremely moody. Giles had it all except what little common sense it took to tell her he loved her. Instead, he came across as a bully until the very end.

I know, I know, this is a familiar plot with many of the TGB’s romances but this time the MCs never shined.

[Margo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The h is wonderful and once the H stops being so pouty, he will be a good match for her. Grrrrace's review gives a great overview.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice read.

[Barty · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.4 stars. this is the one where a beautiful nurse h gets lost in Amsterdam and is annoyed when yet another man stops to talk to her and she insists she is not lost and doesn't need his help, but the handsome man high-handedly and snarkily treats her like a foolish tourist and insists on taking her back to her hotel and safety.

our h has come to Holland for a job as a secretary typist to an elderly doctor who has written a book. she needed a change of scene after the recent death of both of her parents.

when she turns up at her new job days later, the H turns out to be the senior partner at her new boss's practice. she is shocked and annoyed to see him and a bit excited too. he says something about it being fated they would meet again.

then comes them working together through a flu crisis side by side and helping each other out.

the main problem for me with this book was that I couldn't really feel good chemistry between the characters. their constant snapping and spatting came across as immature, especially on the h's side. she sometimes acted like an ignorant interfering prig, accusing the H to being lazy and saying he wasn't helping his 2 elderly partners out, but without asking why or even using her brains to have a little think. if she had, she'd have realised he has many busy practices of his own and is only a silent partner in this one. she came across as a whiney silly harridan. it annoyed me and all of her actions and reactions became seen through this lens.

SPOILERS

there is a pseudo OW plot with a beautiful friend of the H's being around and the h seeing him holding the OW in his arms. but the OW isn't mean and we can easily tell she isn't there to steal the H away so it doesn't add much to the story conflict and generates little angst.

MORE SPOILERS

H did his usual thing of not communicating properly but in a more annoying way than usual because I think Betty maybe forgot part of her own plot. About 2/3 into the book the H asks the h to marry him, but then he mentions that the OW has eloped with another man just recently. so the h furiously accuses the H that he has only proposed to her on the rebound and that it was really the OW he wanted to marry. he is furious with her for thinking this if him but doesn't explain. h doesn't exactly turn him down and, after another spat, he says she should take time to make up her mind.

then at the end of the novel when she has said she loves him but thinks he doesn't love her, and she accuses him of loving the OW, he is furious again and says how could he deny loving the OW if h never told him any of that. BUT she HAD told him. this totally annoyed me and spoiled the ending because it made no sense. she told you dude and you didn't deny it at the time! idiot.

also, her running away back to England just felt like a silly self pitying strop in this book because the H hadn't done anything major this time to make her desperate to flee. it all felt like unnecessary self indulgent high drama on her part. and because they are a spatty pair, when he does chase her down in England they have a hissy fit of a spat again and he leaves. in my mind, she was justified in accusing him about loving the OW because she had already told him this before and he hadn't answered. so his walking out felt like a temper tantrum on his part. so when she decides she has wronged him and must go chase him down, I was embarrassed for her and annoyed. I prefer when the H does the final grovel. when she finds him, she did the grovel but then he did say some nice stuff about how he loved her from the start and was scared of losing her and show a bit of vulnerability that made up for it.

even so, this was not a strong Betty book IMHO. it was a bit all over the place and these two people made no sense to me. I didn't really feel the romance in their time together. on the other hand, it's fairly fast paced and wasn't boring so others may enjoy it.

[Gogol · Rating 1 out of 5]

This one was an incredibly annoying case of angst by stupid misunderstanding and pigheaded assumptions and lack of communication and tantrums which took 8.8 chapters of the 9 chapters. First the heroine assumes the hero to be in love with his dead best friend’s wife on the strength of simply seeing them once together, and therefore doesn’t plan to accept his proposal of marriage! This could be excused perhaps because there were circumstances and insinuations which if one tried very hard could perhaps explain her misunderstanding but then there is a very annoying instance of hero’s complete and frankly exaggerated reserve when he needless stays silent near the end where on the way to the airport being driven by one of the old doctors she had been working for, he having obviously contrived with the hero to take her to the hospital on the way on some pretext or other so that the hero could get a minute to speak with the heroine, she finally declares that she loves him and is refusing his proposal and leaving Holland because she believes he doesn’t love her, only for the ward sister to come in, interrupt, and say she had to speak about a case with the doctor. The doctor, speaks with the sister, gets up and leaves the heroine. Without a word. She goes back to England and it takes him a week to get to her at her aunt’s! Even if he worked in the emergency ward, nothing could have been important enough to leave her at that juncture without a single word of assurance or any gesture.
He goes to England after a week of radio silence and instead of declaring his feelings throws a tantrum over needing to explain himself about not being in love with the dead friend’s wife and accusing her of peeping in the room. She gets angry in turn, and has some harsh words for him and then he leaves!!! She gets stricken with regret, and goes back to Holland to apologise, cue happy ending. So far the worst Betty Neels book and hero that I’ve read.

[Mudpie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75*

Not the best but neither one of the worst.

As usual Cressida started off not having a good impression of our RDD Giles. He was not the first guy who approached her as she got lost on the streets of Amsterdam so by then she was really unfriendly fighting off men's attention.

He kind of fell in love with her at first sight! Poor guy.

She continued to have misconceptions about him after meeting him by chance at her new employer's. He thought she disliked him even though she changed her opinion. Cressida did not help the situation when she'd say I love you and then I hate you...poor guy was confused by her too haha!

I didn't like that he's got a mean streak at times, not giving her dinner because he thought she'd not want to dine with him.

All the 'misunderstanding' got a bit tedious by the end.

Giles's mother was awesome though! the two elderly doctors were old dears and their 'fast driving' of their fast cars...LOL.

We meet Tempestuous April's Haughty Harry and Friso too! 3 kids now wow!

[Deane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A romance involving a nurse and a surgeon in Holland written in 1977, the days before cell phones and internet. After reading several dark, modern mysteries or thrillers, I like nothing better than reading a light, fluffy story and Betty Neels is one of my favourite authors for this type of novel.

The nurse, Cressida of England has lost both parents within a two-week span, has to leave the rectory which has been her home for several years, needs to 'get away' so leaves her job in London and goes to Holland to type up a book written by an older doctor, who of course, has as a younger, very handsome partner who is well-known and respected for his work with chest ailments. One knows how the story will end but it is fun to read how it all happens.

A fun novel that only takes a couple of hours to read.....

[michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Betty Neels has a way with words and continually provides excellent, sweet stories that are a delight to read.
More likeable and realistic characters portraying the events that lead to a love we all seek but few find.
Well written and with perfectly described surrounding, the events unfold in a simplistic style that leaves me wanting to read another one of her cherished stories.

[Maggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read some of Betty Neels books in the late 60s and really liked her simple plots and that her major characters misunderstood each other for the major part of the book in ways that were funny. This one made me laugh as well, but the end was a bit of a stretch. Then, again, it's a romance so the entire book is a stretch for me at this point in my life.

[Tausha Duncan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful story!

Giles and Dress I'd a have a lot of misunderstandings along the way to discovering they love each other. This book is very refreshing. It does start out fairly sad, but there is also a lot of humor to it. For once, the story doesn't follow the exact same pattern as the others and it's pretty darned great! I loved this story and I believe you will too!

[Amara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Someone write a biography on Betty Neels. Did she meet a jerk of a Dutch doctor who played school yard crush on her, proposed and then jilted her? Or did she meet a Dutch doctor who had no interest in her whatsoever but she was infatuated with him? Inquiring minds and all that...

[C. Michael]

All the ingredients that make up a typical Betty Neels novel - English woman who's a nurse, Dutch man who's a wealthy doctor, nice car, nice houses, misunderstandings, a couple of crises, and a happy ending. This particular one is set mostly in the Netherlands, much in the village of Augustinusga.

[Mrs J Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written with a very satisfactory ending despite having read it about 5 times before.

[Naant · Rating 2 out of 5]

The hero was rude and immature because usually BN heroes always had beautiful manner even in the worst situation. And i didn't feel he love heroine enough.

[Nightwitch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty standard Betty Neels. I am not sure how I feel reading about a flu epidemic just now.

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

Very nice

I enjoyed this book very much. The nurse wasn't really being a nurse at first but she still got the doctor.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Betty Neels romance that drags; the hero is kinda a jerk and the heroine is grieving for her parents. It didn't have the comfort and coziness that I expect from a Neels romance.

[Mj Weisenburger · Rating 4 out of 5]

My escape writer…easy reading, light , romantic

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25
I really enjoyed some of the hero's questions in this older Neels, along with the heroine's cranky outbursts.