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Winter Sunlight
She loved Max too much to marry him
Sophie Carter was good at her job, the best her agency had to offer. When the von Hartogs, an eminent Austrian family, needed a substitute nanny, she was asked to fill in.
Sophie never socialized with her employers. Maximilian von Hartog, however, uncle of her two charges, refused to take no for an answer.
In the quaint snow-covered village of Kitzbuhl, Sophie fell in love with the determined baron. But when Max offered marriage she refused. There was so much he didn't know about her--so much she didn't want him to know.
Sophie Carter was good at her job, the best her agency had to offer. When the von Hartogs, an eminent Austrian family, needed a substitute nanny, she was asked to fill in.
Sophie never socialized with her employers. Maximilian von Hartog, however, uncle of her two charges, refused to take no for an answer.
In the quaint snow-covered village of Kitzbuhl, Sophie fell in love with the determined baron. But when Max offered marriage she refused. There was so much he didn't know about her--so much she didn't want him to know.
190 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1987
2 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
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Susan Alexander
151 books19 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
August 12, 2016
Sophie Carter accepts a job as a substitute nanny for a family in Austria. When she arrives she meets the children, Emil and Erika, and their handsome uncle, Baron Maximilian von Hartog. (I liked how the hero persistently pursued the heroine. I'm a sucker for a smitten hero). Eventually the hero proposes to Sophie but she declines because she has some secrets in her past. Sophie sometimes seemed a bit reserved but it may have to do with things in her past (she was adopted and thought she was less attractive than her pretty step-sister and less loved by her adoptive parents, etc...). This book was enjoyable and had lovely settings (a quaint town in Austria called Kitzbuhl), some skiing, and even an avalanche.
January 24, 2025
It was a nice change to see a reformed rake become completely OBSESSED with making the heroine his wife while she keeps rejecting him and asking if she could be his mistress instead! LoL
Our nanny heroine has been down on herself her whole life because as a baby, she was dumped at an orphanage. She believes that she must have been an illegitimate baby rejected by her shamed parents.
Then, as a child, she was terrorized by one of the nuns there, who told her she should abstain from sex so as not to pass on her supposedly defective genes to her progeny. Eventually, she was adopted but her adoptive family turned out to be horrible as well. After they miraculously conceived a biological daughter of their own, after years of infertility, they treated their adoptive daughter like unwanted garbage, especially because their bio daughter was the picture of conventional beauty, all petite and cute and doll-like while the heroine was a big girl with an awkward teen stage.
When h reaches adulthood, she somehow pulls herself together and decides to earn her living as a nanny, so at least she could bestow her maternal love on children who needed her, even if they were not her own. She meets a Fairy Godmother, a refined older woman running a nanny agency, who teaches her not only professional skills but also, on a more personal level, how to make the most of her statuesque body and looks with clothes, hair, and makeup that highlight her best traits.
The h becomes a cheerful and positive person who is universally liked by her friends and employers, and who is very successful at her job, but she has no romantic prospects, mostly because she feels so unworthy. Then, one day, she meets the aristocratic Count hero while babysitting for his cousin and his awful OW wife. For the hero, it is the coup de foudre from the first instant and he is in complete despair when the heroine turns down his marriage proposal because she thinks she is not good enough for him. He pursues her, stalks her at her new job, pleads with her, seduces her, and finally guilts her into visiting his beloved grand-mere, the family matriarch, in the hopes of changing her mind.
Our hero, who is one of the rare graduates of the Latoya Jackson Online Correspondence School for Private Investigation, soon delves into our heroine's background and clears up all her misconceptions. After interviewing an assortment of nuns, priests, and social workers from her past, he prepares his dossier and triumphantly reports back to the heroine that:
a) Far from, being an illegitimate baby rejected by her parents, it is likely that her parents died and that's how she ended up in the orphanage;
b) the nun who told her about her defective genes fed her a pack of lies;
and, most importantly,
c) he doesn't give a hoot even if a) and b) are true, he loves her, and the rest of his life won't be long enough time to worship her the way he wants.
I thought his declaration was rather sweet!
It is absolutely true that hero dangles OW to make heroine jealous and he never confronts or tells OW off on the page. But I 100% believe they were NOT carrying on an affair and that he was disgusted by OW, especially after she tried to ruin his relationship with the heroine. I do believe that if OW turns up her nasty nose around again, he will put her firmly in her place. His grandma told heroine he had quite a ruthless streak and she had seen him in the past rebuke wannabe golddiggers brutally That the author chose not to put that confrontation between H and OW on page was disappointing of course. I like my bit of comeuppance but most Harlequin authors almost always shy away from writing these scenes, probably because they or their editors are afraid of making the protagonists unlikable. C'est la vie.
Which brings me to the slap scene. Yes, he did slap the heroine. But it is only fair to point out that she slapped him first. I know two wrongs don't make a right but I think we will have to chalk it up to the Harlequin Manual of yesteryear, which promotes the trope that slapping one another silly is just an indication of the passion they feel for each other *eye roll*
To round the story nicely, we have the satisfaction of meeting heroine's snotty sister in a short scene that effectively demonstrates karma is a bitch: The snooty sister, despite having all the parental love to herself, all the material comforts that money could buy, and supposedly all the conventional beauty and the perfect white picket house with the right husband, actually has a miserable, adulterous, acrimonious marriage and an unhappy life that seems about to implode. Her comeuppance is that she is seething with jealousy over the heroine's glamorous, cosmopolitan life as a traveling nanny to the rich! lol I can't wait til she hears how heroine snagged herself an Austrian Count LMAO.
In short, imho, I believed in their HEA, I enjoyed the world building, and that made it a successful read for me :)
Our nanny heroine has been down on herself her whole life because as a baby, she was dumped at an orphanage. She believes that she must have been an illegitimate baby rejected by her shamed parents.
Then, as a child, she was terrorized by one of the nuns there, who told her she should abstain from sex so as not to pass on her supposedly defective genes to her progeny. Eventually, she was adopted but her adoptive family turned out to be horrible as well. After they miraculously conceived a biological daughter of their own, after years of infertility, they treated their adoptive daughter like unwanted garbage, especially because their bio daughter was the picture of conventional beauty, all petite and cute and doll-like while the heroine was a big girl with an awkward teen stage.
When h reaches adulthood, she somehow pulls herself together and decides to earn her living as a nanny, so at least she could bestow her maternal love on children who needed her, even if they were not her own. She meets a Fairy Godmother, a refined older woman running a nanny agency, who teaches her not only professional skills but also, on a more personal level, how to make the most of her statuesque body and looks with clothes, hair, and makeup that highlight her best traits.
The h becomes a cheerful and positive person who is universally liked by her friends and employers, and who is very successful at her job, but she has no romantic prospects, mostly because she feels so unworthy. Then, one day, she meets the aristocratic Count hero while babysitting for his cousin and his awful OW wife. For the hero, it is the coup de foudre from the first instant and he is in complete despair when the heroine turns down his marriage proposal because she thinks she is not good enough for him. He pursues her, stalks her at her new job, pleads with her, seduces her, and finally guilts her into visiting his beloved grand-mere, the family matriarch, in the hopes of changing her mind.
Our hero, who is one of the rare graduates of the Latoya Jackson Online Correspondence School for Private Investigation, soon delves into our heroine's background and clears up all her misconceptions. After interviewing an assortment of nuns, priests, and social workers from her past, he prepares his dossier and triumphantly reports back to the heroine that:
a) Far from, being an illegitimate baby rejected by her parents, it is likely that her parents died and that's how she ended up in the orphanage;
b) the nun who told her about her defective genes fed her a pack of lies;
and, most importantly,
c) he doesn't give a hoot even if a) and b) are true, he loves her, and the rest of his life won't be long enough time to worship her the way he wants.
I thought his declaration was rather sweet!
It is absolutely true that hero dangles OW to make heroine jealous and he never confronts or tells OW off on the page. But I 100% believe they were NOT carrying on an affair and that he was disgusted by OW, especially after she tried to ruin his relationship with the heroine. I do believe that if OW turns up her nasty nose around again, he will put her firmly in her place. His grandma told heroine he had quite a ruthless streak and she had seen him in the past rebuke wannabe golddiggers brutally That the author chose not to put that confrontation between H and OW on page was disappointing of course. I like my bit of comeuppance but most Harlequin authors almost always shy away from writing these scenes, probably because they or their editors are afraid of making the protagonists unlikable. C'est la vie.
Which brings me to the slap scene. Yes, he did slap the heroine. But it is only fair to point out that she slapped him first. I know two wrongs don't make a right but I think we will have to chalk it up to the Harlequin Manual of yesteryear, which promotes the trope that slapping one another silly is just an indication of the passion they feel for each other *eye roll*
To round the story nicely, we have the satisfaction of meeting heroine's snotty sister in a short scene that effectively demonstrates karma is a bitch: The snooty sister, despite having all the parental love to herself, all the material comforts that money could buy, and supposedly all the conventional beauty and the perfect white picket house with the right husband, actually has a miserable, adulterous, acrimonious marriage and an unhappy life that seems about to implode. Her comeuppance is that she is seething with jealousy over the heroine's glamorous, cosmopolitan life as a traveling nanny to the rich! lol I can't wait til she hears how heroine snagged herself an Austrian Count LMAO.
In short, imho, I believed in their HEA, I enjoyed the world building, and that made it a successful read for me :)
August 6, 2016
Re Winter Sunlight - the h in this one is a 26 year old nanny, she has very few close personal contacts because of continual rejection by her parents and their beloved youngest daughter. The h has always felt excluded from being loved because, as her family has continually enforced, she is rather plain and very tall. The h is also adopted and when the book opens she is coerced by her one close friend, who is also her boss who runs a nanny placement service, into subbing as a nanny for a few weeks for a wealthy noble Austrian family.
The h is walking into a very volatile situation, the children she is nannying are visiting their uncle (actually he is their second cousin but they go with uncle,) because their parents are divorcing. The uncle is very charming and debonair and has been involved with the children's mother in the past, it is stated that he was engaged to the children's mother but she threw him over to marry the wealthier at the time older cousin. The h and uncle spend a lot of time together while caring for the children and the H is extremely domineering in trying to coerce the h into dating him. His motives are a bit suspect and the h has a policy of not getting involved with her employers but the h is also wildly attracted to the H.
Then there is a big avalanche that the H winds up digging her out of. They wind up in a little cabin alone together and the H claims that he is in love with her. (How that happened when they have know each other approximately a week and with only the children's outings together beats me, but this H is pretty ruthless in his manipulations.) The h is still in shock from the avalanche and turns him down. Then the H takes off for while on his own affairs and when he returns he has the children's mother with him. She is also a doctor in her own right and clearly not a good mother. She tries to dismiss the h and send her on her way and she is extremely possessive of the H.
Things come to a boiling point when the H demands the h attend a party he is hosting with the OW and she declines. The OW makes it clear that she doesn't want her there and the h is leaving the next day, so she just wants to get packed and mope about her hopeless crush on the H. The H demands she attends the party after the children go to bed and threatens to drag her downstairs after he dresses her if she doesn't. (This H continually threatens violence when he doesn't get his way, and even for an HP H it got to be little much.) She reluctantly changes and go downstairs to the party only to find the H playing tonsil hockey with the OW a bit later on in the evening. I don't think the h was too far off the mark when she figures he was doing it to get revenge on her turning him down.
The h runs off and the H drags her back and then admits he supposedly only kissed the OW to make the h jealous. He had seen the h talking to a young man earlier that day and wanted some payback. The h is crying and the H smugly decides that she won't leave him now. Then he proposes and the h feels that she can't accept his offer.
Since the h was adopted she tried to find her birth parents and was told that she was illegitimate, her mum died when she was born. The H is an aristocrat and she doesn't feel that having an illegitimate wife would fit into his aristocratic social set. (Which was kinda stupid really, the h was adopted but that wasn't widely known, as far as the world was concerned she had two parents and they died when she was 20 or so, nothing to see there really.) The h also has another reason, but we don't find that out until later.
The h leaves, she was willing to have an affair fling for a bit, but she doesn't want to marry the H and then he comes up with a bogus marriage plan. She will go live him in his ancestral estate, care for his ailing grandmother and run his estates and entertain his clients and then she can leave when ever she wants and he can be the heartbroken husband in public. ( So basically he gets his cake and eats it too, for someone who is supposedly in love with the h, he is extremely set on getting his own way and maintaining his social reputation as a good person.) The h is like no way, and leaves for her new job.
Then the H tracks her down to her new job and demands that the h go visit his grandmother, he piles on the nasty remarks about how selfish she is until she caves under the guilt and goes. The h winds up liking the grandmother and taking over the management of the H's estate and staff. The grandmother clearly wants the h to marry the H and tells several stories about how ruthless and manipulative he is when going after something he wants.
The h proves her devotion and unquestioned kindness when she helps the grandmother stay of out the hospital when she is ill. The grandmother knows she is sick but is afraid that if she goes in hospital she will die. The H pursues the h some more and goes on about how well she runs everything and is so loyal and unobtrusive in handling the estate and how he wants kids etc and the h finally confesses that she can't have children cause the nuns at the orphanage she was adopted from told her that her bio father had some inherited disease that he died from and she could pass it on to her kids.
The h, not knowing what she might inflict on a child, decided not to have kids and she turns the H's proposal down again. The H leaves again and the h is getting ready to go home from her visit when the H returns with the OW. The OW berates the h for not marrying the H so that he and she can continue their affair while the h runs his family estates for him and is his broodmare.
The h is devastated and even more so when the entire house, including the grandmother try to guilt her into staying. The H goes to the h to tell her that he found out a bit about her parents. They were married but the parents did not approve of the marriage, so the mum wound up alone and then died at the h's birth. The H figures the nun lied about the inheritable disease as a deterrent to the h getting preggers or sleeping around before marriage. That is only an assumption tho, the questions about the h's parents are left hanging.
The h still rejects him and then the H slaps her and bullies her until she explains about what the OW said about him needing someone like her to cover up his affair with his cousin's wife. Then he takes the h to bed. The H actually asks the h if his behavior in hiding an affair with the OW is what she thinks he is capable of and of course the h says no but in my opinion, that is exactly what the H was doing.
He has shown multiple times that he is willing to ruthlessly use and manipulate the h in getting his way. He admits he needs a wife that can run things while he is frequently away on business. He makes it clear that she will come last on a very long list of priorities. He also says that he had a teen age infatuation with the OW but never explains the engagement. He flat out lies when he dismisses the OW as meaningless, if she was so meaningless why isn't he calling her out on the carpet about what she said to the h? The woman was probably only stating things the way she saw it, and since the OW was right there in the house, why didn't the H haul her and the h downstairs and confront her if she was lying? This H does none of that, he seduces the h instead and uses the lurve club mojo to win her over. The h and H are lurving it up in bed when the h agrees to his proposal for the HEA.
This book has a ton of angst, but the resolution is poor and too many unexplained plot lines are just left hanging. It isn't terrible by HP standards but this h should really think twice before tying herself to a man who slaps her, lies to her and won't confront his mistress on her behalf. I did not see a long term HEA and was actually hoping the h wakes up the next morning, has a confrontation with the OW in the H's presence and dumps the lot of them for something better.
The h is walking into a very volatile situation, the children she is nannying are visiting their uncle (actually he is their second cousin but they go with uncle,) because their parents are divorcing. The uncle is very charming and debonair and has been involved with the children's mother in the past, it is stated that he was engaged to the children's mother but she threw him over to marry the wealthier at the time older cousin. The h and uncle spend a lot of time together while caring for the children and the H is extremely domineering in trying to coerce the h into dating him. His motives are a bit suspect and the h has a policy of not getting involved with her employers but the h is also wildly attracted to the H.
Then there is a big avalanche that the H winds up digging her out of. They wind up in a little cabin alone together and the H claims that he is in love with her. (How that happened when they have know each other approximately a week and with only the children's outings together beats me, but this H is pretty ruthless in his manipulations.) The h is still in shock from the avalanche and turns him down. Then the H takes off for while on his own affairs and when he returns he has the children's mother with him. She is also a doctor in her own right and clearly not a good mother. She tries to dismiss the h and send her on her way and she is extremely possessive of the H.
Things come to a boiling point when the H demands the h attend a party he is hosting with the OW and she declines. The OW makes it clear that she doesn't want her there and the h is leaving the next day, so she just wants to get packed and mope about her hopeless crush on the H. The H demands she attends the party after the children go to bed and threatens to drag her downstairs after he dresses her if she doesn't. (This H continually threatens violence when he doesn't get his way, and even for an HP H it got to be little much.) She reluctantly changes and go downstairs to the party only to find the H playing tonsil hockey with the OW a bit later on in the evening. I don't think the h was too far off the mark when she figures he was doing it to get revenge on her turning him down.
The h runs off and the H drags her back and then admits he supposedly only kissed the OW to make the h jealous. He had seen the h talking to a young man earlier that day and wanted some payback. The h is crying and the H smugly decides that she won't leave him now. Then he proposes and the h feels that she can't accept his offer.
Since the h was adopted she tried to find her birth parents and was told that she was illegitimate, her mum died when she was born. The H is an aristocrat and she doesn't feel that having an illegitimate wife would fit into his aristocratic social set. (Which was kinda stupid really, the h was adopted but that wasn't widely known, as far as the world was concerned she had two parents and they died when she was 20 or so, nothing to see there really.) The h also has another reason, but we don't find that out until later.
The h leaves, she was willing to have an affair fling for a bit, but she doesn't want to marry the H and then he comes up with a bogus marriage plan. She will go live him in his ancestral estate, care for his ailing grandmother and run his estates and entertain his clients and then she can leave when ever she wants and he can be the heartbroken husband in public. ( So basically he gets his cake and eats it too, for someone who is supposedly in love with the h, he is extremely set on getting his own way and maintaining his social reputation as a good person.) The h is like no way, and leaves for her new job.
Then the H tracks her down to her new job and demands that the h go visit his grandmother, he piles on the nasty remarks about how selfish she is until she caves under the guilt and goes. The h winds up liking the grandmother and taking over the management of the H's estate and staff. The grandmother clearly wants the h to marry the H and tells several stories about how ruthless and manipulative he is when going after something he wants.
The h proves her devotion and unquestioned kindness when she helps the grandmother stay of out the hospital when she is ill. The grandmother knows she is sick but is afraid that if she goes in hospital she will die. The H pursues the h some more and goes on about how well she runs everything and is so loyal and unobtrusive in handling the estate and how he wants kids etc and the h finally confesses that she can't have children cause the nuns at the orphanage she was adopted from told her that her bio father had some inherited disease that he died from and she could pass it on to her kids.
The h, not knowing what she might inflict on a child, decided not to have kids and she turns the H's proposal down again. The H leaves again and the h is getting ready to go home from her visit when the H returns with the OW. The OW berates the h for not marrying the H so that he and she can continue their affair while the h runs his family estates for him and is his broodmare.
The h is devastated and even more so when the entire house, including the grandmother try to guilt her into staying. The H goes to the h to tell her that he found out a bit about her parents. They were married but the parents did not approve of the marriage, so the mum wound up alone and then died at the h's birth. The H figures the nun lied about the inheritable disease as a deterrent to the h getting preggers or sleeping around before marriage. That is only an assumption tho, the questions about the h's parents are left hanging.
The h still rejects him and then the H slaps her and bullies her until she explains about what the OW said about him needing someone like her to cover up his affair with his cousin's wife. Then he takes the h to bed. The H actually asks the h if his behavior in hiding an affair with the OW is what she thinks he is capable of and of course the h says no but in my opinion, that is exactly what the H was doing.
He has shown multiple times that he is willing to ruthlessly use and manipulate the h in getting his way. He admits he needs a wife that can run things while he is frequently away on business. He makes it clear that she will come last on a very long list of priorities. He also says that he had a teen age infatuation with the OW but never explains the engagement. He flat out lies when he dismisses the OW as meaningless, if she was so meaningless why isn't he calling her out on the carpet about what she said to the h? The woman was probably only stating things the way she saw it, and since the OW was right there in the house, why didn't the H haul her and the h downstairs and confront her if she was lying? This H does none of that, he seduces the h instead and uses the lurve club mojo to win her over. The h and H are lurving it up in bed when the h agrees to his proposal for the HEA.
This book has a ton of angst, but the resolution is poor and too many unexplained plot lines are just left hanging. It isn't terrible by HP standards but this h should really think twice before tying herself to a man who slaps her, lies to her and won't confront his mistress on her behalf. I did not see a long term HEA and was actually hoping the h wakes up the next morning, has a confrontation with the OW in the H's presence and dumps the lot of them for something better.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 4, 2021
Set in Austria, this was a memorable story that was short of actual scenes between the H/h. The heroine is a nanny and agrees to take a short stint watching out for the hero’s cousin’s children while they have their ski holiday with their father.
Heroine is very capable and it’s great to see her handle the kids and the servants at the ski lodge. Later in the story she again shows her competency when she visits the hero’s grandmother at the family villa and has to take over those servants during a crisis. Girl has skills.
The hero is besotted with the heroine from the first time he sees her and he makes his intentions known. He is shocked that she eludes him - especially after he saves her from an avalanche and then proves they are sexually compatible.
Turns out heroine has a deep dark secret
This had a great heroine, a besotted hero, interesting minor characters. So why only three stars?
The author dropped so many plot threads that the story didn’t feel complete. What about the adulterous sister? The unloved children of the OW? The OW? The hero’s mother in the convent? The heroine’s chances of having children?
I still had too many questions at the end.
Heroine is very capable and it’s great to see her handle the kids and the servants at the ski lodge. Later in the story she again shows her competency when she visits the hero’s grandmother at the family villa and has to take over those servants during a crisis. Girl has skills.
The hero is besotted with the heroine from the first time he sees her and he makes his intentions known. He is shocked that she eludes him - especially after he saves her from an avalanche and then proves they are sexually compatible.
Turns out heroine has a deep dark secret
This had a great heroine, a besotted hero, interesting minor characters. So why only three stars?
The author dropped so many plot threads that the story didn’t feel complete. What about the adulterous sister? The unloved children of the OW? The OW? The hero’s mother in the convent? The heroine’s chances of having children?
I still had too many questions at the end.
August 27, 2019
So so!
October 24, 2020
I kind of um and ah between loving and loathing this one for all the reasons that Boogenhagen mentions in her excellent review.
She stands no chance against this H as he is in constant pursuit and won't take no for an answer even going behind her back to try track down her biological parents so that he can get his own way though he tries to pass it off as doing it for the h's benefit. I'm not convinced.
Check out Boogenhagens review for all the details on this one.
She stands no chance against this H as he is in constant pursuit and won't take no for an answer even going behind her back to try track down her biological parents so that he can get his own way though he tries to pass it off as doing it for the h's benefit. I'm not convinced.
Check out Boogenhagens review for all the details on this one.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 12, 2012
The heroine is a nanny and when she goes to Vienna to temporarily nanny some children she meets her hero. He falls in love with her instantly but due to her past, she must not give in. Eventually after a battle and argument over marriage, she leaves him. Only for the hero to hunt her down and get her to meet his grandmother. After that, it's quite simple, the hero will stop at nothing until the heroine becomes his wife, forever..
Good read bu I was abashed about the whole character insight. I wanted to know more about the heroines biological parents. It left too many unanswered questions.
Good read bu I was abashed about the whole character insight. I wanted to know more about the heroines biological parents. It left too many unanswered questions.
September 8, 2023
Sophie always thought of herself as ordinary - if not ugly - because of her average features and her super height. This impression was made worse because of her aloof family. So, when she learned later she was adopted, it was not shock to her and tried to build her own life and have her own carieer. She became an expecienced and highly estimated nanny. Her latest mission was to take care of two kids of a divorced couple. It was an easy ordinary mission yet Maximilian Von Hartog, the kids uncle, made it extremely difficullt. He was insistant in his pursuit of Sophie. He wanted to make her his women, his wife! She had to fight him because she had a secret she's rather not tell anyone about.
The story was proceeding fine and promising till the avalanche incident! Then it became too incredible to believe! Sorry to say it was too haste for me because it was impossible for the hero to fall so deeply in love in one day and after three extremely brief meetings with the heroine at that!! And the secret she kept was illogical because no sane woman would stay calm without physically checking herself in a hospital from time to time if she carried such a disease in her blood! While reading the book, I thought the writer throw events haphazardly for the sake of finishing the book and getting ride of it through publlication instead of truelly putting her heart and thoughts in it to pleasure the reader.
Not a book I'm willing read again even.
The story was proceeding fine and promising till the avalanche incident! Then it became too incredible to believe! Sorry to say it was too haste for me because it was impossible for the hero to fall so deeply in love in one day and after three extremely brief meetings with the heroine at that!! And the secret she kept was illogical because no sane woman would stay calm without physically checking herself in a hospital from time to time if she carried such a disease in her blood! While reading the book, I thought the writer throw events haphazardly for the sake of finishing the book and getting ride of it through publlication instead of truelly putting her heart and thoughts in it to pleasure the reader.
Not a book I'm willing read again even.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 18, 2024
Bit of a 1940s black and white hammily acted melodrama vibe to this one. Given my total lack of desire to go skiing, I am actually rather drawn to ski settings for romance. Possibly because of the dearth of Germanic Hs normally. Very partial to a stern teutonic I am. This also has the kind of off key pacing which sees the H proposing out of nowhere and multiple passionate kisses interspersed with long absence and misunderstandings. Anyway, nanny Sophie and Austrian baron Max are a seemingly mismatched pairing. He's a tall, handsome aristocrat and she's a junoesque, plain, illegitimate woman who refuses his proposal for utterly bizarre reasons that she even more bizarrely will not even discuss with the man she desperately fancies and who keeps asking her to marry him. It's all a bit nuts. I mean, I finished it and it concludes with a very satisfactory prenuptial bedding so it had something.
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April 9, 2018She loved Max too much to marry him
Sophie Carter was good at her job, the best her agency had to offer. When the von Hartogs, an eminent Austrian family, needed a substitute nanny, she was asked to fill in.
Sophie never socialized with her employers. Maximilian von Hartog, however, uncle of her two charges, refused to take no for an answer.
In the quaint snow-covered village of Kitzbuhl, Sophie fell in love with the determined baron. But when Max offered marriage she refused. There was so much he didn't know about her--so much she didn't want him to know.
Sophie Carter was good at her job, the best her agency had to offer. When the von Hartogs, an eminent Austrian family, needed a substitute nanny, she was asked to fill in.
Sophie never socialized with her employers. Maximilian von Hartog, however, uncle of her two charges, refused to take no for an answer.
In the quaint snow-covered village of Kitzbuhl, Sophie fell in love with the determined baron. But when Max offered marriage she refused. There was so much he didn't know about her--so much she didn't want him to know.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews