Seed of the Fire Lily

by Angela Devine

Desire burned out of control...

Adam Fletcher made no effort to hide his contempt for Caroline Faircroft, she'd become stranded in the Australian outback after venturing there alone. The feeling was mutual. Adam, the man Caroline now had to depend on survival, was proving as tough and unnerving as her search for a rare medicinal plant!

Relations between them were cold, verging on icy. Adam had valid reasons for distrusting interlopers. Caroline had lost faith in her ability to love and be loved. But hot days started melting into even hotter nights and suddenly they were playing with fire.

Genres: Harlequin Presents, Romance

288 pages, Hardcover Large Print

First published August 1, 1992

About the author

Angela Devine grew up in Tasmania, surrounded by forests, mountains and wild seas- it's no wonder she's not a fan of big cities. Before taking up writing, she worked as a teacher, librarian and university lecturer, As a young mother and PhD. student, she read romance fiction for enjoyment and later decided it would be even more fun to write. Angela is married with four children, loves chocolate and Twinings tea and hates to iron. Her current hobbies include gardening, bushwalking, traveling and listening to classical music.

Reviews

[StMargarets · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enemies to lovers story that starts out with the botanist heroine making the decision to take a “dotted line” road on her map of the Outback. She runs over some rocks and messes up the undercarriage of her jeep. The hero rides up on a camel and rescues her. He is angry she was so stupid. She is angry he is so unsympathetic.

Heroine is a reasonable person and cools down as they both ride together on the camel and spend two days camping to get back to the hero’s station.

The first night the hero kisses her and is rebuffed. He does not take rejection well. He becomes suspicious of the heroine when she tells him about a lily that she is seeking. It has promise for a leukemia drug and she wants to find more cuttings. Her plants have died and they want to obtain more. When she mentions how she got the seeds for the original plants, the hero goes ballistic and accuses her of working with art thieves who cut out aboriginal art from a sacred cave on his land. (The art museum in London found some seeds in the carton with the art and thought the botanists would be interested.) Turns out the guy did not have a legitimate title to the art, but the police can’t do anything.

Heroine denies this, but the hero says she must either leave or stay until he has time to talk to the aboriginal leaders about access to the site. Heroine settles into the Outback routine. The aboriginals tell heroine that the lily must burn in a fire before it sheds viable seeds. That won’t be until October. (It’s now July) Heroine decides to stay.

Hero takes her with him on his outings because he says he doesn’t trust her (but really he just wants her company). They are getting along fine – with some snake adventures and lots of travelogue. Then the hero puts the moves on the heroine and she freezes.

He thinks she’s thinking of her ex-husband and she is – just not in the way he imagines. Her ex only married her to get her in bed and then accused her of being frigid. He cheated on her the whole time as well. Heroine got her doctorate and has no plans to ever be involved with a man again. She lets the hero think she is still in love with her husband.

In anger, hero takes heroine to Canberra and reveals his other identity. He was a trade diplomat for eleven years, speaks Japanese, owns a stately house in the capital and still works for the Australian government on contract. He doesn’t tell her anything, just throws her in the deep end at a party with high ranking officials. His ex-fiance is there and she gets drunk and throws herself at he hero. Hero goes along with it to make the heroine jealous. Another guy takes the heroine back to the hero’s house while hero doesn’t return until the next morning. Hero accuses her of being jealous and won’t tell her what he did. (It was obvious he didn't cheat and says so later.)

They return to his station and maintain a polite distance. The heroine does a lot of drawings and learns a lot about plants from the locals. The lilies finally burn after a lightning strike and the H/h both go to gather the seeds. There is a storm and they are caught out in it. The adrenialin rush is enough to get the heroine over her misgivings and after a night of passion, the heroine finally opens up about her marriage.

The hero is happy, and they spend the next few weeks in bliss, but then he acts strangely when his family shows up for his birthday. His sister explains to the heroine that their mother and his ex-fiance both hated the Outback and that the hero won’t ask her to marry him until she reassures him that she loves the Outback. She does and he asks her to marry him.

They make plans for a wedding in May. (It’s now November). The heroine remembers that she has dropped an important piece of equipment by the fire lilies so she goes alone to find it. One of the hero’s stockmen follows her and they have a conversation about inviting everyone in the district to the engagement party. The stockman assures her that all the aboriginal people will come.

They do come – a good time is had by all. Until the hero finds out the next day that thieves have struck the cave again. He accuses the heroine of making sure the cave was left unguarded and that she is on the art theft. Her calls her a whore, etc. . . Then he forces sex on her (she still enjoyed it) and then kicks her out.

A month later the hero shows up at the heroine’s apartment in London. The art thieves had been caught. He knows she had nothing to do with it. He was jinxing their relationship because he didn’t think she really loved him.

Instead of pushing him into traffic, heroine forgives him and assures him of her love. HEA

Whew.

So much drama. Such an interesting travelogue. Such an emotionally stunted hero who ran hot and cold. To be fair, the hero had expressed his paranoia about the heroine’s part in the art theft at the beginning, but with the diplomat thing and the pots of money and the sophisticated, drunk OW, I had forgotten about it. So it felt out of left field.

I think that last black moment might have worked if the hero had sobered up the next day and apologized with the heroine letting him have it with both barrels. Then the heroine should had left his hiney for a month or two so he could sit in the corner and think about what he had done. It also would have helped to have the stockmen and all the people she befriended to defend her to the hero. His brief grovel wasn’t long enough – yes, he flew to London from OZ – but some jet lag with a booty call at the end of the journey is not suffering enough.

The abrupt ending cost this a star, but it’s still worth reading if you like the Outback trope.

Outback checklist
Car trouble.
Importance of shade and water
Beauty and mystery of nature
BBQs
Flash Flood
Heroine brings feminine touches to the neglected family home
Hero is a pilot
Hero understands the Aboriginals

[boogenhagen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Re Seed of the Fire Lily - Angela Devine's second and last HP outing isn't much better than her first.

The h is a divorced 28 yr old English botanist who has indifferent parents, a really bad marriage and no self confidence cause the slime swiller she married convinced her she was a frigid nerd. She is in the Northwest Territory of Australia to find the seeds of a pretty little plant she calls a fire lily and she thinks it might hold the cure for childhood leukemia. Her four year old godson died from it and in memory of him the h is hoping this plant can provide a cure or at least a treatment.

The H is somewhere in his 30's and a part time international diplomat who is utterly devoted to his 800,000 acre NWT cattle station. He is also a rapist sewer blobule who thinks nothing of trying to swing the lurve club with a head injured woman he rescued two or three hours before. He appears to be an exhibitionist with all the parading around and swinging his junk he does too.

So the h takes a back country track and wrecks her jeep when she doesn't know how to boulder hop. The H comes along on a camel and rescues her. The stay overnight at the closest watering hole and the skinny dipping on both parts starts right away.

The H warns the h about crocodiles and when she thinks she sees one, a massive roofie kissing session ensues and the H gets really, really angry when the h backs off. She barely knows the man, has only had her husband for experience and is having terrible flashbacks of how awful the lurve club act was when she tried it before.

The H drags her to his homestead and then they go walkabout to check his fences for a few weeks. Serious petting and mouth moving events happen, but the h has another flashback and the H has a hissy fit again when the lurve club doesn't hit the target.

The H is also suspicious that the h is really an ancient antiquities thief or at least in league with one. There are ancient aboriginal rock arts on his land and a guy came along a few months earlier, charmed his way to the location and cut out a part of one and stole it. The h met the thief unknowingly at her museum and that is where she got the seeds for the plants the first time around, but all the plants died and they did not undergo abscission (seed shedding.)

The H explains that the plants need to be burnt to seed and then he tells her she has to wait two months and get the tribal elders permission - the plant is very near the rock arts and he won't let her go there without permission from the tribe.

So the H and h do a little excursion to the big city and the h finds out about the H's diplomatic status. In a really incredibly tacky move, the H takes the h to a formal state intimate dinner and then dumps her to escort his ex-fiance home - after the h found them playing tonsil hockey in the kitchen.

The h is hurt, even tho technically they don't have a committed relationship and when the H doesn't return until the next day, he taunts the h about her jealousy. He also doesn't say he did not have a lurve club moment with the ex either.

(And honestly, with how vindictive and obnoxious this H is towards women, I have no problems believing he did a revenge lurve club on the woman - who wants him to reinstate the engagement. The OW calls the H a few times during the story and then fades into the HP mists. But I also think the H is keeping her in a love nest in the city and plans to swing his club with her a few more times - the tonsil hockey session looked to seriously score and the H probably means to have home comforts at both his station and his city home.)

So the h hangs out at the H's cattle station for two months and does botany things. The H's family comes along the day after the full lurve club mojo explodes and the H finally gets a leg over the h. The H is back to being an utter horses hiney and the h is upset cause she finally confessed how horrible her marriage was and the H can't help but make nematode remarks about her using him and leaving.

Then the h admits she loves him and he claims he loves her back - tho really I think it was only cause the h was really, really pretty, hadn't slept around a whole lot and was willing to live 120 miles from the nearest neighbor and seed mini H's. The H and h agree to marry and the h decides to throw an engagement party and invite everyone, including all the members of the very friendly tribe and their elders who helped her botany project so much.

During the party, no one is watching the rock arts and they get stolen. The H has another massive hissy fit, accuses the h of being in cahoots with the real thief, (the guy who stole one before) and then he rapes her - tho technically she doesn't try to fight him, based on her experience with her ex, it wouldn't have done her any good.

(AD has the h having a physical response, but rape is rape and this H is a rapist. We are all pretty much tired of that trope in HPlandia by now - even in 1994.)

Then the H kicks the h out and she goes home to London. Where the H shows up a few months later claiming he had cameras at the rock arts and the cameras show the h was innocent. The police caught the thief and now the h can apologize for breathing and then go back to Australia to marry the H and live a life of distrust and domestic violence with the nearest help 120 miles away.

I wasn't feeling the love at all on this one and as a diplomat, this H just plain sucked. You would think a man who is supposed to be the premier Australian First Diplomat would have a little finesse, rather than raging about like a bull in a china shop.

This h needed therapy to fix her lousy taste in men and maybe some time in peaceful retreat to contemplate her stupidity. But fortunately for my liver and my impending chocolate coma sugar response, we can bid goodbye to Ms. Devine and go on to better days at the HPlandia office.

[Nancy Lines · Rating 2 out of 5]

The ending of this book could've been a lot better, I didn't like how the book ended.
Adam has trust issues, accused Caroline of being a liar, sleeping with Michael and being involved with the stolen paintings. I started to laugh, then Adam comes back to her desperately asking for her forgiveness and wins her love back.

[Nikki · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hero is very mean in the end, like it was such a switch. The story is a bit repetitive and the ending was so abrupt so it didn't feel earned or satisfying. So I say skip it.

[RomLibrary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Desire burned out of control...
Adam Fletcher made no effort to hide his contempt for Caroline Faircroft, she'd become stranded in the Australian outback after venturing there alone. The feeling was mutual. Adam, the man Caroline now had to depend on survival, was proving as tough and unnerving as her search for a rare medicinal plant!
Relations between them were cold, verging on icy. Adam had valid reasons for distrusting interlopers. Caroline had lost faith in her ability to love and be loved. But hot days started melting into even hotter nights and suddenly they were playing with fire.