The Intruder

by Jane Donnelly

Vintage paperback

Genres: Harlequin Romance

186 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Jane Donnelly began earning her living as a writer as a teenage reporter. When she married the editor of the newspaper she freelanced for women's mags for a while. After she was widowed she and her 5 year old daughter moved to Lancashire. She turned to writing fiction to make a living while still caring for her daughter, she sold her first Mills & Boon romance novel as a hard-up singleparent in 1965. She wrote over 60 romance novels for Mills & Boon until 2000. Now she lives in a roses-round-the door cottage near Stratford-upon-Avon, with four dogs and assorted rescued animals. Besides writing she enjoys travelling, swimming, walking and the company of friends.

Reviews

[Myrna · Rating 2 out of 5]

The h is disgusting. Resenting a distant relative merely because he resembles a notorious ancestor, and fearing he might have inherited his supposedly bad traits, is one thing. It is quite another to actively manipulate other family members, trying to make them distrust the H and drive him away.
The h even plots with her sister to get the H into an awkward situation that will spoil his relationship with the uncle. Accusing the H of a sexual assault makes her unredeemable in my eyes. No matter how uncomfortable she is about it.
And I don’t believe for a second that she’s the right person for the H. She isn’t right for a mere photographer, but she has absolutely no potential at all as a millionaire’s wife.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heroine could be annoyingly childish. But loved the way the hero 1. took photographs of her surreptitiously because pictures captured the moment when she was falling in love with him and 2. fetched her in the end. It showed that he was - patiently - enamoured with her.

[Bárbara · Rating 1 out of 5]

O enredo sobre bruxos distantes na linhagem da família Langard era um prato cheio para mim, mas ele foi eclipsado por um romance sem sal de uma jovem que decidiu até fingir ser abusada para tentar mandar embora o homem por quem ela de apaixonou mas vivia a negar tudo por medo de perder uma herança que nem dela é. Foi frustante como o livro abandonou aquilo que mais importava em prol desse casal que achei medíocre em termos de relacionamento, pois era um jogo horrível de gato e sapato com cenas estranhas que me deixou aflita. Provavelmente culpa do tempo, naquela época homens babacas eram cultuados como mocinhos charmosos. Argh perda de tempo total... (adendo, a tradução deixou a desejar errando em vários pontos do livro, triste)

[Bea Tea · Rating 2 out of 5]

*sigh* - once again a wonderful premise utterly marred by a complete c**t of a heroine. I really liked Daisy right up until she hatched a a scheme to lead the H on, then accuse him of sexual assault, because she imagines he's trying to muscle in on her inheritance. At one point she's even joking about crying rape and calling the police, and I'm so fucking *disgusted* with her, she became irredeemable in that moment and I simply loathed her for the rest of the book and willed her never ever to have a HEA.

The rest of the book is a whole lot of dithering. Dither dither dither. After getting so mad about the false accusations of sexual assault I was just bored numb.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sweet coming of age story set in the lovely Cotswolds. It started off well but after the big misunderstanding the book plummeted, until the ending, which was short but sweet.

[More Books Than Time · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts were very good and parts when h started plotting and pushing H away were annoying.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Frustrating mind candy - that's what these kinds of books are - I don't read them very often and only at someone's recommendation. This one was okay, but but no comparison to the host of better books out there. It was, fortunately, clean, and ended okay, but I'm glad it's over. (I guess it would do in a pinch, better than having nothing to read, which was why it was recommended to me in the first place.)