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ذروة الاحداث #٢٠٤
She was truly out of her depth!
Perhaps Serena had rushed into accepting work in a nightclub just shy of respectable. But she'd been desperate. And wasn't her new job as governess at an isolated grazing station more dangerous still?
The fatherless boys were handful enough, but their arrogant guardian uncle, Sean Wentworth, was the kind of challenge her troubled past made her ill-equipped to deal with.
Sean was forceful, probing, mockingly intent on keeping Serena off balance. And when her rash behavior and a violent storm forced them to spend the night together in his Land Rover, Serena was lost...
Perhaps Serena had rushed into accepting work in a nightclub just shy of respectable. But she'd been desperate. And wasn't her new job as governess at an isolated grazing station more dangerous still?
The fatherless boys were handful enough, but their arrogant guardian uncle, Sean Wentworth, was the kind of challenge her troubled past made her ill-equipped to deal with.
Sean was forceful, probing, mockingly intent on keeping Serena off balance. And when her rash behavior and a violent storm forced them to spend the night together in his Land Rover, Serena was lost...
Unknown Binding
First published February 1, 1989
42 people want to read
About the author
Lindsay Armstrong
318 books92 followersGillian Smith (alias Lindsay Armstrong) was born in South Africa. She grew up with three ambitions: to become a writer, to travel the world, and to be a game ranger. She didn't achieve the last one, but her fascination for wildlife and that special something about Africa and its big game still remains with her. When she went to work it was in travel, at an agency and an airline, and this started her on the road to seeing the world.
Lindsey met her New Zealand-born husband, who had been working in West Africa, when he was on his way home through Johannesburg. He did go home but in a matter of weeks he was back in South Africa, and six months later they were married. Three of their five children were born in South Africa. Then one in London and one in Australia, after they made the decision to emigrate from South Africa.
It wasn't until her youngest child started school that Lindsay sat down at the kitchen table determined to tackle her other ambition to stop dreaming about writing and do it! She hasn't stopped since. She's not happy unless she has a book under way, and she's discovered she can write through just about anything.
Lindsay and her husband have moved around a lot. They've trained racehorses,farmed, and lived on their boat for six months while they sailed it from the Gold Coast to the Torres Strait and back, an epic voyage! They currently live in Queensland, overlooking the water; they sold their farm, and they're looking around for another boat. She and her husband love to travel and have been back to Africa twice in the past few years. The highlight of one of their trips was a visit to the Serengeti, in Tanzania, where Lindsay did the one thing she swore she would never do: take a ride in a hot-air balloon. She was a nervous wreck as the balloon tottered upright, but will remember it as a unique experience to see the game spreading out on the Serengeti plain beneath her as the sun rose.
"They say you can take someone who was born in Africa out of the bush but you can't take the bush out of someone born there..."
Despite this passion for wildlife and Africa, Lindsay considers Australia her home now and loves the country. She travelled to Sydney to witness the closing weekend of the Olympic Games in September 2000; it made her proud to be an adopted Aussie!
Lindsey met her New Zealand-born husband, who had been working in West Africa, when he was on his way home through Johannesburg. He did go home but in a matter of weeks he was back in South Africa, and six months later they were married. Three of their five children were born in South Africa. Then one in London and one in Australia, after they made the decision to emigrate from South Africa.
It wasn't until her youngest child started school that Lindsay sat down at the kitchen table determined to tackle her other ambition to stop dreaming about writing and do it! She hasn't stopped since. She's not happy unless she has a book under way, and she's discovered she can write through just about anything.
Lindsay and her husband have moved around a lot. They've trained racehorses,farmed, and lived on their boat for six months while they sailed it from the Gold Coast to the Torres Strait and back, an epic voyage! They currently live in Queensland, overlooking the water; they sold their farm, and they're looking around for another boat. She and her husband love to travel and have been back to Africa twice in the past few years. The highlight of one of their trips was a visit to the Serengeti, in Tanzania, where Lindsay did the one thing she swore she would never do: take a ride in a hot-air balloon. She was a nervous wreck as the balloon tottered upright, but will remember it as a unique experience to see the game spreading out on the Serengeti plain beneath her as the sun rose.
"They say you can take someone who was born in Africa out of the bush but you can't take the bush out of someone born there..."
Despite this passion for wildlife and Africa, Lindsay considers Australia her home now and loves the country. She travelled to Sydney to witness the closing weekend of the Olympic Games in September 2000; it made her proud to be an adopted Aussie!
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 25, 2017
Re Heat of the Moment - LA brings us a very sweet, completely innocent 18 yr old h paired with an extremely cynical 31 yr old Australian Station owner H.
The story stars with the h dressed in a bunny girl outfit and a rain coat almost being attacked outside the club she works at, until the H intervenes. He rescues the h, (and this becomes the overriding theme of the book,) but gives the h a sharp lesson on wolves in sheep's clothing when he almost seduces her with a few roofie car kisses before letting her go. The h has a very mysterious past and seems to be a very well educated and well brought up young lady, she is fired from her club waitressing job when her boss realizes that she just is too innocent and nice for the vagaries of his den of sin and vice.
She needs another job ASAP, so she applies as a governess for two young boys on a remote cattle station and gets her landlady, coupled with her old girl's school headmistress to write her a reference. She gets the job and arrives at the station and guess who the owner is? The H with the roofie car kisses of course.
So after some pranks of bolting horses, wrangles with her two new charges, (the H's nephews,) and their glamorous but absent a lot mother whom every one blames for the death of the H's younger brother, plus getting caught in a Land Rover with the H during a flood and rescuing a small scrawny cat named Rupert, the h finally settles in. But she gets into a lot of scrapes and sticky situations from which the H has to continually rescue her. He seems to enjoy it however, and frequently has some quite dry and witty comments on whatever mix up the h finds herself in.
The h adores the H of course, and even proposes a marriage of convenience to him when her evil, conniving step-mother sends her licentious and conniving brother after the h to cart her back to her family home so he can force himself on her and steal her inheritance.
(The h's mum died when she was 14, the h's father remarried a conniving gold digger and then died. He left his own fortune and sheep station to the h, but made the evil step mother her guardian until she was 21. The evil step mother kept the h virtually a prisoner and then set her disgusting brother-supposed brother, I was sure he was probably more than that but the sub plot petered out,- to harassing the h and trying to force or bully her into marriage. The h ran away and that is what was up at the start of the book.)
The H wastes no time in turning down the h's offer but he also kicks the disgusting carbuncle off the station and puts the Fear of the H's Manly Wrath into him too, and sets up an audit of the h's inheritance to make sure the evil step mother isn't doing bad things and that is last we hear of them.
Then the h and H and Rupert the small cat all go off to visit the H's friends while the two nephews are visiting their mother. At a party the h is jealous that the H is looking at some woman and has a certain look in his eyes, but the h soon gets into another scrape when one of the male guests recognizes her from her prior club job and makes some gropey moves.
The H kicks the gropey guy's hiney of course, this H's day isn't complete unless he can rescue the h, and he decides that he isn't waiting anymore. He and the h are marrying after all - cause he loves her and now he is sure she loves him. Plus someone has to be around to save her from things, he is so into her he even wandered around the various seedy clubs the day after he first met her to haul her off to his cattle station. Then she plopped right into his lap, so to speak, when she applied for the governess job.
So they marry and they are happy, until the h finds out that there was another woman the H wanted but couldn't have and that soured him a bit until he met the h. Then she found out that the women involved was the H's sister in law, mother of the nephews and that she drove a wedge between the H and his younger brother who was so despondent over the attraction that he wasn't paying attention and died in an accident - even tho nothing happened between the two of them.
So the h decides she has to leave and she writes the H a big long letter with a lecture about punishing the woman he loves by marrying another woman and she tells the H to look after Rupert until she can sort herself out. She takes the H's Land Rover, intending to drive it to the main highway and get a ride into a town.
But she gets lost in the bush and the H has to rescue her AGAIN. This time the H decides she is going to learn some bushcraft and maybe how to read a map before getting her out of her most recent escapade. The H is also going to convince the h he really loves her too. His sister in law was just a strong physical attraction, but he neither liked her nor really wanted her and when she made his brother so miserable, the two of them just got locked in some weird behavior patterns.
Anyhow his explanation to the h is truly eloquent and he and we already knew the h adores him, so we learn a bit about Outback roughing it and the potential for future mini H's for the big HEA. This one is cute and fairly funny too, the h is hilarious in her various predicaments (tho not the initial one that sent her running,) and the H is really, really funny in his remarks when he has to rescue her.
However the h is terribly naive and innocent and LA always has that dark undercurrent of angst and obsession running through even her lightest works. This one is very like a Patricia Wilson, except the h doesn't have ANY common sense and the whole brother/sister in law/H thing was kinda weird. Still the h is cute and cuddly, the H was great and this is a good story for an HPlandia visit with a really believable HEA.
The story stars with the h dressed in a bunny girl outfit and a rain coat almost being attacked outside the club she works at, until the H intervenes. He rescues the h, (and this becomes the overriding theme of the book,) but gives the h a sharp lesson on wolves in sheep's clothing when he almost seduces her with a few roofie car kisses before letting her go. The h has a very mysterious past and seems to be a very well educated and well brought up young lady, she is fired from her club waitressing job when her boss realizes that she just is too innocent and nice for the vagaries of his den of sin and vice.
She needs another job ASAP, so she applies as a governess for two young boys on a remote cattle station and gets her landlady, coupled with her old girl's school headmistress to write her a reference. She gets the job and arrives at the station and guess who the owner is? The H with the roofie car kisses of course.
So after some pranks of bolting horses, wrangles with her two new charges, (the H's nephews,) and their glamorous but absent a lot mother whom every one blames for the death of the H's younger brother, plus getting caught in a Land Rover with the H during a flood and rescuing a small scrawny cat named Rupert, the h finally settles in. But she gets into a lot of scrapes and sticky situations from which the H has to continually rescue her. He seems to enjoy it however, and frequently has some quite dry and witty comments on whatever mix up the h finds herself in.
The h adores the H of course, and even proposes a marriage of convenience to him when her evil, conniving step-mother sends her licentious and conniving brother after the h to cart her back to her family home so he can force himself on her and steal her inheritance.
(The h's mum died when she was 14, the h's father remarried a conniving gold digger and then died. He left his own fortune and sheep station to the h, but made the evil step mother her guardian until she was 21. The evil step mother kept the h virtually a prisoner and then set her disgusting brother-supposed brother, I was sure he was probably more than that but the sub plot petered out,- to harassing the h and trying to force or bully her into marriage. The h ran away and that is what was up at the start of the book.)
The H wastes no time in turning down the h's offer but he also kicks the disgusting carbuncle off the station and puts the Fear of the H's Manly Wrath into him too, and sets up an audit of the h's inheritance to make sure the evil step mother isn't doing bad things and that is last we hear of them.
Then the h and H and Rupert the small cat all go off to visit the H's friends while the two nephews are visiting their mother. At a party the h is jealous that the H is looking at some woman and has a certain look in his eyes, but the h soon gets into another scrape when one of the male guests recognizes her from her prior club job and makes some gropey moves.
The H kicks the gropey guy's hiney of course, this H's day isn't complete unless he can rescue the h, and he decides that he isn't waiting anymore. He and the h are marrying after all - cause he loves her and now he is sure she loves him. Plus someone has to be around to save her from things, he is so into her he even wandered around the various seedy clubs the day after he first met her to haul her off to his cattle station. Then she plopped right into his lap, so to speak, when she applied for the governess job.
So they marry and they are happy, until the h finds out that there was another woman the H wanted but couldn't have and that soured him a bit until he met the h. Then she found out that the women involved was the H's sister in law, mother of the nephews and that she drove a wedge between the H and his younger brother who was so despondent over the attraction that he wasn't paying attention and died in an accident - even tho nothing happened between the two of them.
So the h decides she has to leave and she writes the H a big long letter with a lecture about punishing the woman he loves by marrying another woman and she tells the H to look after Rupert until she can sort herself out. She takes the H's Land Rover, intending to drive it to the main highway and get a ride into a town.
But she gets lost in the bush and the H has to rescue her AGAIN. This time the H decides she is going to learn some bushcraft and maybe how to read a map before getting her out of her most recent escapade. The H is also going to convince the h he really loves her too. His sister in law was just a strong physical attraction, but he neither liked her nor really wanted her and when she made his brother so miserable, the two of them just got locked in some weird behavior patterns.
Anyhow his explanation to the h is truly eloquent and he and we already knew the h adores him, so we learn a bit about Outback roughing it and the potential for future mini H's for the big HEA. This one is cute and fairly funny too, the h is hilarious in her various predicaments (tho not the initial one that sent her running,) and the H is really, really funny in his remarks when he has to rescue her.
However the h is terribly naive and innocent and LA always has that dark undercurrent of angst and obsession running through even her lightest works. This one is very like a Patricia Wilson, except the h doesn't have ANY common sense and the whole brother/sister in law/H thing was kinda weird. Still the h is cute and cuddly, the H was great and this is a good story for an HPlandia visit with a really believable HEA.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 30, 2017
I don't know who is fluffier - the wide-eyed, accident prone 18 year-old heroine or her undersized kitty named Rupert. This story begins with a meet cute - if saving the heroine from rape is cute. The heroine is dressed in her playboy bunny type waitress outfit and the hero happens to drive by as a thug on a motorcycle tries to wrestle her to the ground. Our hero dispatches the thug, bundles the heroine in his car and then kisses her in an empty parking lot to show her how vulnerable she is running around in an outfit like that so late at night.
LA tries to put some menace into this opening and the heroine's desperation about her situation back home - but it just doesn't come off. The heroine is too sunny, too innocent, and too much of a Ms. Magoo of a character who constantly runs into a buzz saw of trouble and is constantly being snatched away in the nick of time. LA also tried to make the hero tortured about his obsession with a woman he despised but lusted after in the past, but he's so smitten with the heroine that that backstory doesn't ring true, either. These halfhearted angsty notes deflate this little souffle of a story.
Boogenhagen has written an extensive review below, so I won't belabor the plot. Needless to say, the hero rescues her a lot, marries her, and then has to rescue her at the very end of the story because that is their foreplay or something. The dude is seriously into this bumbling heroine and thank goodness he knows tracking and survival skills because he'll need them in the future. Still, they're both happy and I kept reading to see what dopey thing the heroine was going to do next.
LA tries to put some menace into this opening and the heroine's desperation about her situation back home - but it just doesn't come off. The heroine is too sunny, too innocent, and too much of a Ms. Magoo of a character who constantly runs into a buzz saw of trouble and is constantly being snatched away in the nick of time. LA also tried to make the hero tortured about his obsession with a woman he despised but lusted after in the past, but he's so smitten with the heroine that that backstory doesn't ring true, either. These halfhearted angsty notes deflate this little souffle of a story.
Boogenhagen has written an extensive review below, so I won't belabor the plot. Needless to say, the hero rescues her a lot, marries her, and then has to rescue her at the very end of the story because that is their foreplay or something. The dude is seriously into this bumbling heroine and thank goodness he knows tracking and survival skills because he'll need them in the future. Still, they're both happy and I kept reading to see what dopey thing the heroine was going to do next.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 14, 2017
I really wish this had been titled, Nothing but Trouble because from the gitgo the heroine is in need of rescuing from one calamity or another.
You know you have trouble in River City when in the first two pages the heroine is called a dolly bird and a sheila by an unwanted swain. The stalwart hero rescues her for the first of many times from a lug who follows her from the KitKat Bar or Pelican Bar, whatever. To teach her a lesson, the H plants a kiss on her to let her know that trouble can be alluring as well as violent. Serena the h is a complete and total calamity. Virginal, of course, even her manager at the shady bar she works at fires her for his own good and the fact she broke 70-something glasses when a customer tried to touch her.
So in the ways of Harlequin, she ends up being governess to the H's two nephews way out in the Outback wilderness which suits her fine as she's running from a creepy step-somebody who wants to marry her for her sheep station. The H dispenses the creep step-(uncle I think), and the bad seed is never seen again. Disappointing as evil-doers add so much spice.
The H and h end up in a MOC which is consummated right away although the sex scene is so subtle I had to read it twice to make sure that there was no hope of an annulment.
A low key other woman is involved whose existence rather than evil deeds creates contrived problems and the heroine gets herself in yet another jam and has to be rescued yet again. In between the first rescue and this one there are at least two other incidents the H rescues her from: stranded in the Outback and punching another fresh suitor.
Completely anachronistic. It reads more like the 70s despite being written in 1989. I have decided that there must be a ten to fifteen year lag in HarleyLand in regard to standard mores and customs.
Three kind of wimpy stars. It could have been much better if one, there was some identifiable passion between the two main characters, and two, if the heroine's scattiness had been emphasized a tad more.
You know you have trouble in River City when in the first two pages the heroine is called a dolly bird and a sheila by an unwanted swain. The stalwart hero rescues her for the first of many times from a lug who follows her from the KitKat Bar or Pelican Bar, whatever. To teach her a lesson, the H plants a kiss on her to let her know that trouble can be alluring as well as violent. Serena the h is a complete and total calamity. Virginal, of course, even her manager at the shady bar she works at fires her for his own good and the fact she broke 70-something glasses when a customer tried to touch her.
So in the ways of Harlequin, she ends up being governess to the H's two nephews way out in the Outback wilderness which suits her fine as she's running from a creepy step-somebody who wants to marry her for her sheep station. The H dispenses the creep step-(uncle I think), and the bad seed is never seen again. Disappointing as evil-doers add so much spice.
The H and h end up in a MOC which is consummated right away although the sex scene is so subtle I had to read it twice to make sure that there was no hope of an annulment.
A low key other woman is involved whose existence rather than evil deeds creates contrived problems and the heroine gets herself in yet another jam and has to be rescued yet again. In between the first rescue and this one there are at least two other incidents the H rescues her from: stranded in the Outback and punching another fresh suitor.
Completely anachronistic. It reads more like the 70s despite being written in 1989. I have decided that there must be a ten to fifteen year lag in HarleyLand in regard to standard mores and customs.
Three kind of wimpy stars. It could have been much better if one, there was some identifiable passion between the two main characters, and two, if the heroine's scattiness had been emphasized a tad more.
June 25, 2024
Another one where the hero had a "thing" (if not physical then definitely emotional and obsessive) with his sis-in-law. LA just LOVES writing her heros as pining for glam OW and using the heroine as a substitute. Then she has them "wise up" on the last pages after the heroines dump their hinies. Just not my thing...*sigh*
April 30, 2017
I liked both the main characters and everything that happened between them, but the years-long, admittedly passionate and irresistible attraction between the H and his sister-in-law bothered me unduly. Even if it was unconsummated, maybe even worse because it was never acted-upon because it leaves the question up in the air.
When I read about an overwhelming desire between two characters who fight tooth and nail against their mutual attraction, yet can't help feeling it even after several years separation and despite their honor and integrity, it makes me think the real romance should be between them. I couldn't help thinking, even if the Hero swears he's cured since meeting the heroine, if the h happened to have an unfortunate accident and the other woman was there to comfort him, I wonder how long it would take before the old passion sparked up and they succumbed, and what an incredible relief/thrill it'd be for them to finally get together.
Anyway that's not what the story is about, it's just where my imagination took me afterwards.
If I ignore my unhappy musings, the story was charming, cute, and very romantic. I actually really like Lindsay Armstrong's writing; her heroines are generally sweet, innocent, and charming. If only she didn't make her Heroes' former loves so convincing...
When I read about an overwhelming desire between two characters who fight tooth and nail against their mutual attraction, yet can't help feeling it even after several years separation and despite their honor and integrity, it makes me think the real romance should be between them. I couldn't help thinking, even if the Hero swears he's cured since meeting the heroine, if the h happened to have an unfortunate accident and the other woman was there to comfort him, I wonder how long it would take before the old passion sparked up and they succumbed, and what an incredible relief/thrill it'd be for them to finally get together.
Anyway that's not what the story is about, it's just where my imagination took me afterwards.
If I ignore my unhappy musings, the story was charming, cute, and very romantic. I actually really like Lindsay Armstrong's writing; her heroines are generally sweet, innocent, and charming. If only she didn't make her Heroes' former loves so convincing...
September 29, 2019
She was truly out of her depth!
Perhaps Serena had rushed into accepting work in a nightclub just shy of respectable. But she'd been desperate. And wasn't her new job as governess at an isolated grazing station more dangerous still?
The fatherless boys were handful enough, but their arrogant guardian uncle, Sean Wentworth, was the kind of challenge her troubled past made her ill-equipped to deal with.
Sean was forceful, probing, mockingly intent on keeping Serena off balance. And when her rash behavior and a violent storm forced them to spend the night together in his Land Rover, Serena was lost
Perhaps Serena had rushed into accepting work in a nightclub just shy of respectable. But she'd been desperate. And wasn't her new job as governess at an isolated grazing station more dangerous still?
The fatherless boys were handful enough, but their arrogant guardian uncle, Sean Wentworth, was the kind of challenge her troubled past made her ill-equipped to deal with.
Sean was forceful, probing, mockingly intent on keeping Serena off balance. And when her rash behavior and a violent storm forced them to spend the night together in his Land Rover, Serena was lost
December 26, 2022
تشبهها رواية انين الساقية
May 25, 2024
There is an awkward sequence near the end where we apparently fast forwarded a few weeks but otherwise this is written well with unusual characters, detailed setting and a good plot. I especially like how she and he are unlike the usual HP leads in similar tropes.
There were no heated accusations of tramp behavior, nor gold-digging nor forced seduction nor any of the all-too-common emotional scenes and misunderstandings. He spotted her innocence immediately and he insisted she decided whether to trust him.
Reread 3 years later and not while packing to move. Like it but there is a LOT of introspection and final conflict doesn’t make much sense.
There were no heated accusations of tramp behavior, nor gold-digging nor forced seduction nor any of the all-too-common emotional scenes and misunderstandings. He spotted her innocence immediately and he insisted she decided whether to trust him.
Reread 3 years later and not while packing to move. Like it but there is a LOT of introspection and final conflict doesn’t make much sense.
February 4, 2016
Extremely immature 18 year old heroine with older (31) year old hero. She was still very immature at the end of the book.
September 19, 2024
the love triangle was a little "de trop". didn't like it.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews