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Warrender Saga #7
Unbidden Melody
When Mary Barlow, a dedicated opera lover, takes a job in the office of the reknowned impresario Dermot Deane, little does she expect her work to become so personal. Just weeks into her new job, she finds herself hosting Nicholas Brenner, a tenor she has long since admired. Brenner, recently widowed, takes comfort in the simple but kindly company of Mary and their friendship quickly blossoms into something more. Mary tells herself firmly that she could never really belong in Nicholas’s world and that to fall in love with him could only bring her heartbreak, particularly with the threatening mezzo Suzanne Thomas nearby. They both have their insecurities to contend with, and nobody would ever claim it would be an easy romance, but how could Mary stop herself? Praise for Mary Burchell ‘The equivalent of today’s “chick-lit” page-turners’ – Camden New Journal ‘Extraordinary’ – The Telegraph ‘You’re in for a treat’ – Dream Author Book Blog ‘A unique story’ – Kirkus Reviews ‘…one of Mills and Boon’s most popular authors.’ – The Guardian Mary Burchell was the pen name of Ida Cook (1904-1986). With her eldest sister Mary Louise Cook, she attended the Duchess’ School in Alnwick. Together, the sisters helped 29 Jews to escape from the Nazis, funded mainly by Ida’s writing. In 1965, the Cook sisters were honored as Righteous Gentiles by the Yad Vashem Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority in Israel. Mary Burchell published more than 125 romance novels in total and helped found the Romantic Novelists’ Association, standing as its president from 1966 until her death.
169 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 1, 1973
About the author
Mary Burchell
167 books85 followersIda Cook was born on 1904 at 37 Croft Avenue, Sunderland, England. With her eldest sister Mary Louise Cook (1901), she attending the Duchess' School in Alnwick. Later the sisters took civil service jobs in London, and developed a passionate interest in opera. The sisters helped 29 jews to escape from the Nazis, funded mainly by Ida's writing. In 1965, the Cook sisters were honored as Righteous Gentiles by the Yad Vashem Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority in Israel.
As Mary Burchell, she published more than 125 romance novels by Mills & Boon since 1936. She also wrote some western novels as James Keene in collaboration with the author Will Cook (aka Frank Peace). In 1950, Ida Cook wrote her autobiography: "We followed our stars". She helped to found the Romantic Novelists' Association, and was its president from 1966 to her death on December 22, 1986.
As Mary Burchell, she published more than 125 romance novels by Mills & Boon since 1936. She also wrote some western novels as James Keene in collaboration with the author Will Cook (aka Frank Peace). In 1950, Ida Cook wrote her autobiography: "We followed our stars". She helped to found the Romantic Novelists' Association, and was its president from 1966 to her death on December 22, 1986.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
February 21, 2018
The couple was a complete mismatch, and she will have to tolerate a lot of him walking all over her in the future, and ignoring legitimate reasons for jealousy, and otherwise coaxing him out of bad moods, as part of her HEA. This was surprisingly upsetting to read because it ended so unsatisfactorily with no sign of things ever getting better.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 19, 2016
4 1/2 stars - I had a quibble with the grovel at the end.
This is the seventh volume in the Warrender saga. Secretary and opera fan heroine gets a dream job working for a London agent (impresario) to the stars. One of her first duties is to pick up famous tenor hero at the airport and see him to his first rehearsal. Hero is impressed with heroine because she makes him laugh. Seems he hasn't laughed since his wife died in a car accident that occurred while he was driving. He asks her to stay at the rehearsal of Carmen, so she does, and is enthralled by the hero's voice and the Canadian Soprano who is playing the lead and Anthea Warrender. Hero asks heroine to go out to supper with him, much to the Canadian Soprano's displeasure. At dinner he hears about how heroine's boyfriend jilted her for another girl, but now former boyfriend is back and trying to date her. They share a taxi to her home, but get out in the middle of the drive so they can walk because they have so much to talk about. When hero shares his guilt about not loving his wife because of her incessant jealousy, she tells him to "stop playing the melancholy Slav." It's delightful and that's just their first day together.
Unlike some of the other stories in the saga, this story's main focus was on their love affair. The way they fell for each other was very romantic. Burchell stage-managed some wonderful scenes. It felt real that a romantic like the hero would fall in love so quickly and the heroine would have more doubts - and how those feelings would work against them when communication wasn't possible. (Oh, those mis- directed letters) I wanted more grovel from the hero, which kept this from being a full five star review, but it was delightful, nonetheless. Seeing Diva Soprano from book four again was icing on the cake.
This is the seventh volume in the Warrender saga. Secretary and opera fan heroine gets a dream job working for a London agent (impresario) to the stars. One of her first duties is to pick up famous tenor hero at the airport and see him to his first rehearsal. Hero is impressed with heroine because she makes him laugh. Seems he hasn't laughed since his wife died in a car accident that occurred while he was driving. He asks her to stay at the rehearsal of Carmen, so she does, and is enthralled by the hero's voice and the Canadian Soprano who is playing the lead and Anthea Warrender. Hero asks heroine to go out to supper with him, much to the Canadian Soprano's displeasure. At dinner he hears about how heroine's boyfriend jilted her for another girl, but now former boyfriend is back and trying to date her. They share a taxi to her home, but get out in the middle of the drive so they can walk because they have so much to talk about. When hero shares his guilt about not loving his wife because of her incessant jealousy, she tells him to "stop playing the melancholy Slav." It's delightful and that's just their first day together.
Unlike some of the other stories in the saga, this story's main focus was on their love affair. The way they fell for each other was very romantic. Burchell stage-managed some wonderful scenes. It felt real that a romantic like the hero would fall in love so quickly and the heroine would have more doubts - and how those feelings would work against them when communication wasn't possible. (Oh, those mis- directed letters) I wanted more grovel from the hero, which kept this from being a full five star review, but it was delightful, nonetheless. Seeing Diva Soprano from book four again was icing on the cake.
July 17, 2021
I enjoyed this greatly but it’s not one of my favorites, I think because the hero (a tenor) and the heroine (an opera fan) are so temperamentally different. Burchell’s opera singer heroines are encouraged to be divas; this is part of why their heroes want them, they can stand up for themselves. Mary is a much more typically milquetoast 1970’s romance heroine, whose role is to be kind and sweet and understanding, and while she has some good snarky one-liners and isn’t a complete doormat, Nicholas wants her because she can be the soothing little woman at home - not because she has spectacular talents of her own which he finds impressive. Most of the heroines of the Warrender saga are conducting two romances at once: with the heroes (often the less important romance of the two) and with their own professional ambitions. Mary is not - she's a secretary who will give up her work as soon as she marries. The book does provide a nice look at opera fandom, though - something with which Burchell was very familiar.
The interesting thing, though, is that Burchell knows there’s an issue with Nicholas’s view of Mary, and pretty much from moment one everyone is giving Mary a warning, from Mary’s ex-boyfriend to Mary’s mother: you’re not just marrying the guy, you’re marrying his way of life. Mary realizes that there may have been a reason Nicholas’s late first wife was so miserable. However, unfortunately, this is a romance, so
The interesting thing, though, is that Burchell knows there’s an issue with Nicholas’s view of Mary, and pretty much from moment one everyone is giving Mary a warning, from Mary’s ex-boyfriend to Mary’s mother: you’re not just marrying the guy, you’re marrying his way of life. Mary realizes that there may have been a reason Nicholas’s late first wife was so miserable. However, unfortunately, this is a romance, so
August 5, 2022
I really enjoyed this one, but felt a bit cheated with the ending. I would have liked the hero to work harder to get the heroine back.
May 10, 2023
How can you ever forgive me?” “Very easily. If you can forgive me too.”
(…)
“I want you,” Mary said. “That’s all. It’s quite simple. Like all great truths.”
“I don’t deserve it,” he said humbly. “At least, I don’t think I do,”
You’re wrong girl at the end and he was right about being not to deserve you!
(…)
“I want you,” Mary said. “That’s all. It’s quite simple. Like all great truths.”
“I don’t deserve it,” he said humbly. “At least, I don’t think I do,”
You’re wrong girl at the end and he was right about being not to deserve you!
January 20, 2018
My goodness, Miss Bates loves Burchell. Is there a better writer? A more nuanced, interesting one? Unbidden Melody contained elements that Miss Bates and other romance readers scorn: an ingenue heroine; dense, uncaring hero; nasty Other Woman; a capitulation of the heroine’s will to the hero’s “genius”. And yet. By the end, Miss Bates had that heart-clenching-hold-your-breath response the best romance novels elicit.
Here are the plotty particulars. Introduced by one of those older, machinating, wise, charismatic characters, like the mercurial, adorably-arrogant prima donna, Gina Torelli (who makes a compelling, delightful appearance here), impresario Dermot Deane, the romance focuses on his secretary, Mary Barlow, and tenor, Nicholas Brenner. Like most of Burchell’s heroines, Mary is modest, efficient, competent, and a music-lover. She has barely started working for Deane, but loves every moment of it. Indeed, she’s the one who suggests Deane coax Nicholas Brenner to London for a production of Carmen. Deane is delighted with Mary’s idea and soon thereafter, Brenner is rehearsing Don José. Brenner hasn’t performed since his wife died in an automobile accident and a wistful sadness clings to him. He and Mary are immediately attracted, however, and she brings him out of his shell. As he confesses to her, his wife Monica had driven him mad with her jealousy and mistrust and her death brought grief, but mainly guilt-ridden relief. With Mary, he can finally embrace love and life again. At the novel’s half-point, Nicholas proposes; Mary accepts. What follows could be construed as a Big Mis; except in Burchell’s capable hands, it turns into the story of two people, obviously in love, without the acquaintance and comfort that make for commitment and stolidity. Love, says Burchell, must come with trust, understanding, and communication to build a life together.
One of the romance’s greatest strengths, indeed across all of Burchell’s books, and now sadly missing from so much romance, is her ability to build the heroine and hero unit on courtship. Romance doesn’t do the grace of the shared meal, the coat held, the door opened, and the seeing to the door like it used to. And maybe that’s for the better, cue feminism, and maybe it’s because Miss Bates is quaint and old that she really enjoys this aspect of vintage romance writers like Burchell and Neels. Here is a stunning sampling from Unbidden Melody. What has Burchell wrought? What has she developped and gained?
Over the choice of the meal he consulted her meticulously, but over the wines hardly at all, for which she was glad since her knowledge of wines was sketchy in the extreme. When this was done, he sat back with an air of genuine relaxation and asked, as though it really interested him to know her opinion, “How did you enjoy the rehearsal?”
… “Tell me something about yourself.”
“About me? There’s really nothing much to tell” …
… “And in your out-of-office hours?” he wanted to know.
“I’m primarily an opera and concert fan” …
“But you don’t go to these performances all on your own, surely?”
“Oh, no! There are quite a crowd of us. Friends, acquaintances, even a few enemies when it comes to fighting about rival favourites,” she conceded with a laugh.
“But no one special person?” he pursued, apparently with genuine curiosity.
“You mean — am I engaged or anything?”
“I suppose I did. But perhaps that’s inexcusably inquisitive?”
“No.”
“Tell me, all the same.”
After the initial introductions, obvious attraction, Nicholas, as evident above, takes Mary to dinner. What is there not to love here, thought Miss Bates? Who needs a love scene, when you have a hero who is “meticulous” about the heroine’s likes and dislikes, but takes the wine-selection in hand. And what about the conversation that follows: his interest, curiosity, and boyfriend-sussing? “Tell me,” Nicholas says and begins the cementing of their relationship. In turn, he confides in Mary, about his marriage, his dead wife, his love of music. The dance of courtship has to stand in for what today are one too many love scenes. The shorthand of meal and conversation are layered over the subtle interplay of desire and curiosity that are the bases of any nascent romance.
The meal’s culmination is in vintage, kisses-only romance, The Kiss. Nicholas and Mary’s is magnificent:
And he tipped her chin up and kissed her firmly on her lips.
“How about that?”
“A splendid stage exit,” she retorted.
The gentle humour on Mary’s part is an indication of her growing confidence in being with Nicholas. Though the previous scene could be misconstrued as an unequal relationship, worldly man to ingenue young woman, Mary’s clever riposte elevates her in wit and knowingness and makes her Nicholas’s equal.
What the romance writer has wrought, it must come to follow, the betrayal scene puts asunder. Burchell brings Nicholas and Mary so lovingly and beautifully together: the kiss, the ring, the exchange of “I-love-you’s”, the sheer rightness of these two. It is obvious to Deane and Torelli, and with some help from Anthea Warrender, these two belong together. They complete each other and truly make each other happy, BUT they also make assumptions and fail to communicate. Burchell’s acute understanding of these ruptures is beautifully expressed in this passage:
They were like people talking different languages. Or like people walking along parallel paths which could never meet. “It doesn’t matter,” she said hopelessly at last. “There’s nothing either of us could say that would reach the other, in this mood. I’m so tired — and stupid. And you look all in too. We’d be talking in circles.”
It is as perfect a phrase to describe the emotional betrayal and chasm that results as any Miss Bates has read. The source, you will inquire, dear reader? The usual: a writer at the height of her craft, with a deep understanding of her characters’ flaws, using her knowledge to show where understanding, commitment, communication, and self-examination are as important to a couple’s harmony as desire and affection. Nicholas and Mary’s HEA is, at the last, having been to hell and back, so much more convincing. Which is why, your romance will only be as good as is your courtship, betrayal, and reconciliation, not in the number of your love scenes, unless they too are endemic to these truths.
With her reading companion, Miss Austen, Miss Bates says of Mary Burchell’s Unbidden Melody, “a mind lively and at ease,” Emma.
Mary Burchell’s Unbidden Melody was originally published in 1973 by Mills and Boon. It was reissued by Endeavour Press on May 5th, 2017. Miss Bates received an e-ARC from Endeavour Press, via Netgalley.
Here are the plotty particulars. Introduced by one of those older, machinating, wise, charismatic characters, like the mercurial, adorably-arrogant prima donna, Gina Torelli (who makes a compelling, delightful appearance here), impresario Dermot Deane, the romance focuses on his secretary, Mary Barlow, and tenor, Nicholas Brenner. Like most of Burchell’s heroines, Mary is modest, efficient, competent, and a music-lover. She has barely started working for Deane, but loves every moment of it. Indeed, she’s the one who suggests Deane coax Nicholas Brenner to London for a production of Carmen. Deane is delighted with Mary’s idea and soon thereafter, Brenner is rehearsing Don José. Brenner hasn’t performed since his wife died in an automobile accident and a wistful sadness clings to him. He and Mary are immediately attracted, however, and she brings him out of his shell. As he confesses to her, his wife Monica had driven him mad with her jealousy and mistrust and her death brought grief, but mainly guilt-ridden relief. With Mary, he can finally embrace love and life again. At the novel’s half-point, Nicholas proposes; Mary accepts. What follows could be construed as a Big Mis; except in Burchell’s capable hands, it turns into the story of two people, obviously in love, without the acquaintance and comfort that make for commitment and stolidity. Love, says Burchell, must come with trust, understanding, and communication to build a life together.
One of the romance’s greatest strengths, indeed across all of Burchell’s books, and now sadly missing from so much romance, is her ability to build the heroine and hero unit on courtship. Romance doesn’t do the grace of the shared meal, the coat held, the door opened, and the seeing to the door like it used to. And maybe that’s for the better, cue feminism, and maybe it’s because Miss Bates is quaint and old that she really enjoys this aspect of vintage romance writers like Burchell and Neels. Here is a stunning sampling from Unbidden Melody. What has Burchell wrought? What has she developped and gained?
Over the choice of the meal he consulted her meticulously, but over the wines hardly at all, for which she was glad since her knowledge of wines was sketchy in the extreme. When this was done, he sat back with an air of genuine relaxation and asked, as though it really interested him to know her opinion, “How did you enjoy the rehearsal?”
… “Tell me something about yourself.”
“About me? There’s really nothing much to tell” …
… “And in your out-of-office hours?” he wanted to know.
“I’m primarily an opera and concert fan” …
“But you don’t go to these performances all on your own, surely?”
“Oh, no! There are quite a crowd of us. Friends, acquaintances, even a few enemies when it comes to fighting about rival favourites,” she conceded with a laugh.
“But no one special person?” he pursued, apparently with genuine curiosity.
“You mean — am I engaged or anything?”
“I suppose I did. But perhaps that’s inexcusably inquisitive?”
“No.”
“Tell me, all the same.”
After the initial introductions, obvious attraction, Nicholas, as evident above, takes Mary to dinner. What is there not to love here, thought Miss Bates? Who needs a love scene, when you have a hero who is “meticulous” about the heroine’s likes and dislikes, but takes the wine-selection in hand. And what about the conversation that follows: his interest, curiosity, and boyfriend-sussing? “Tell me,” Nicholas says and begins the cementing of their relationship. In turn, he confides in Mary, about his marriage, his dead wife, his love of music. The dance of courtship has to stand in for what today are one too many love scenes. The shorthand of meal and conversation are layered over the subtle interplay of desire and curiosity that are the bases of any nascent romance.
The meal’s culmination is in vintage, kisses-only romance, The Kiss. Nicholas and Mary’s is magnificent:
And he tipped her chin up and kissed her firmly on her lips.
“How about that?”
“A splendid stage exit,” she retorted.
The gentle humour on Mary’s part is an indication of her growing confidence in being with Nicholas. Though the previous scene could be misconstrued as an unequal relationship, worldly man to ingenue young woman, Mary’s clever riposte elevates her in wit and knowingness and makes her Nicholas’s equal.
What the romance writer has wrought, it must come to follow, the betrayal scene puts asunder. Burchell brings Nicholas and Mary so lovingly and beautifully together: the kiss, the ring, the exchange of “I-love-you’s”, the sheer rightness of these two. It is obvious to Deane and Torelli, and with some help from Anthea Warrender, these two belong together. They complete each other and truly make each other happy, BUT they also make assumptions and fail to communicate. Burchell’s acute understanding of these ruptures is beautifully expressed in this passage:
They were like people talking different languages. Or like people walking along parallel paths which could never meet. “It doesn’t matter,” she said hopelessly at last. “There’s nothing either of us could say that would reach the other, in this mood. I’m so tired — and stupid. And you look all in too. We’d be talking in circles.”
It is as perfect a phrase to describe the emotional betrayal and chasm that results as any Miss Bates has read. The source, you will inquire, dear reader? The usual: a writer at the height of her craft, with a deep understanding of her characters’ flaws, using her knowledge to show where understanding, commitment, communication, and self-examination are as important to a couple’s harmony as desire and affection. Nicholas and Mary’s HEA is, at the last, having been to hell and back, so much more convincing. Which is why, your romance will only be as good as is your courtship, betrayal, and reconciliation, not in the number of your love scenes, unless they too are endemic to these truths.
With her reading companion, Miss Austen, Miss Bates says of Mary Burchell’s Unbidden Melody, “a mind lively and at ease,” Emma.
Mary Burchell’s Unbidden Melody was originally published in 1973 by Mills and Boon. It was reissued by Endeavour Press on May 5th, 2017. Miss Bates received an e-ARC from Endeavour Press, via Netgalley.
March 26, 2023
The weakest of the lot for me, the misunderstandings in this one did not lend themselves to a credulous resolution. Both the leads issues totally made sense, but it was a thin papering over and just didn't work for me.
May 28, 2017
The whole story is structured around a classic big misunderstanding: Nicholas's deceased wife was controlling and jealous, and so Mary can only be with him if she agrees to be the 'cool' wife, no insecurities or boundaries around jealously allowed. Of course, people cannot logic away their feelings, even if they can control what they do about them. Mary is rather decent about the whole thing, but suppressing her concerns naturally leads to a feelings-explosion, which then allows Nicholas to be an entitled holier-than-thou ass. They are both a bit immature, but the ending left me with hope they would communicate better in the future. B for effort.
May 27, 2017
Unusually, heroine was a bit too much of a doormat to the alpha dude. Burchell usually allowed her girls to set the hero straight on what an arrogant, impossible individual he was, but here girl is a bit too meek and pliable.
January 6, 2024
we love a good argument
February 1, 2015
Warrender #7 really enjoyed this but ending was a bit unsatisfying.
January 19, 2023
Another immensely frustrating ending, and it caps another decent setup. Here’s cool, logical Mary suddenly in a difficult public place, in competition, almost, with a difficult dead woman… And she becomes someone emotional and unrecognizable whose conflicts are solved by I-love-yous and “I’ll never be jealous again”. For someone with legitimate complaints - for someone pretty clear-eyed who is given excellent advice by her mother (a conversation which leaps off the page in its stark common sense) - the lack of communication and real resolution is unforgivable.
There are smaller points about artists in relationships which are raised and unresolved: how much is acting; to what degree the job overrides all; temperament as an excuse. These are major questions! And yet they’re dwarfed by the infuriating Mary-as-satellite positioning. It even infects Mary’s mother: “I’ll probably like her,” two famous people say. Is that supposed to be validating?
And the story is so rushed, and they don’t talk about anything constructive after their first bracing conversation, and Mary needs more friends. Anthea had friends. Where’s Mary’s Vicki?
There are smaller points about artists in relationships which are raised and unresolved: how much is acting; to what degree the job overrides all; temperament as an excuse. These are major questions! And yet they’re dwarfed by the infuriating Mary-as-satellite positioning. It even infects Mary’s mother: “I’ll probably like her,” two famous people say. Is that supposed to be validating?
And the story is so rushed, and they don’t talk about anything constructive after their first bracing conversation, and Mary needs more friends. Anthea had friends. Where’s Mary’s Vicki?
July 10, 2017
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley.
Mary Barlow is delighted to land a job with a famous impresario dealing with the leading lights of the world of opera and music. When she is asked to meet the famous tenor Nicholas Brenner off a plane and escort him to his hotel she is delighted. Mary loves opera and Nicholas is one of her favourite performers so when she finds they get on well together she is totally delighted.
I remember reading books by this author, including this one, more than forty years ago and it has lost none of its charm in the intervening period. I enjoyed the musical background and the way the relationship between the main characters is developed. If you enjoy reading gentle romances with interesting backgrounds then you will enjoy books by this author.
It is good to see these older authors back in 'print' as e-books. Sometimes all you want is a romance which doesn't take the reader beyond the bedroom door.
Mary Barlow is delighted to land a job with a famous impresario dealing with the leading lights of the world of opera and music. When she is asked to meet the famous tenor Nicholas Brenner off a plane and escort him to his hotel she is delighted. Mary loves opera and Nicholas is one of her favourite performers so when she finds they get on well together she is totally delighted.
I remember reading books by this author, including this one, more than forty years ago and it has lost none of its charm in the intervening period. I enjoyed the musical background and the way the relationship between the main characters is developed. If you enjoy reading gentle romances with interesting backgrounds then you will enjoy books by this author.
It is good to see these older authors back in 'print' as e-books. Sometimes all you want is a romance which doesn't take the reader beyond the bedroom door.
April 17, 2023
Ugh!
I started out liking this book. Mary and Nicholas were both sympathetic and likeable characters.
Finally, I thought I'd found one of this author's books where the h is not presented as the problematic one.
Unfortunately not only was wrong but this was worse than usual because Mary turns into a doormat h, gaslighted by the H into believing that she was wrong to feel insecure about another famous, beautiful singer chasing him and that him kissing the OW is totally acceptable because, and I quote "It didn't mean anything".
A sentiment that is echoed by Torelli as well, which encourages the h to forgive the H, who is her fiancé at the time.
On top of this, the H doesn't even go to her after their fight because he believes that she's a jealous, stalking shrew like his first wife.
The only reason they get back together is because Anthea Warrender arranges it without their knowledge.
I started out liking this book. Mary and Nicholas were both sympathetic and likeable characters.
Finally, I thought I'd found one of this author's books where the h is not presented as the problematic one.
Unfortunately not only was wrong but this was worse than usual because Mary turns into a doormat h, gaslighted by the H into believing that she was wrong to feel insecure about another famous, beautiful singer chasing him and that him kissing the OW is totally acceptable because, and I quote "It didn't mean anything".
A sentiment that is echoed by Torelli as well, which encourages the h to forgive the H, who is her fiancé at the time.
On top of this, the H doesn't even go to her after their fight because he believes that she's a jealous, stalking shrew like his first wife.
The only reason they get back together is because Anthea Warrender arranges it without their knowledge.
January 20, 2021
Not one of her best. The hero is charming and finds the heroine a welcome change from his jealous dead wife, but his anger and unwillingness to listen to her or give her the benefit of the doubt at the end of the book was very offputting. I predict a tumultuous relationship for these two unless she alters her personality to suit him. Bleh. I did like that her heroine had normal parents and a normal relationship with them.
As always with the Warrender Saga books, if you love music this book may speak to you more.
As always with the Warrender Saga books, if you love music this book may speak to you more.
March 31, 2024
A gentle, polite love story
A fan of the opera, Mary starts a new job as the assistant to an impresario and is tasked with collecting a famous, recently widowed tenor, Nicholas Brenner, from the airport.
So begins their relationship, her naive attraction to him hindered by jealous divas and her own old flame.
The etiquette and attitudes of the time offer scope for misunderstandings and the dramatic.
A pleasant read that tugged me along.
A fan of the opera, Mary starts a new job as the assistant to an impresario and is tasked with collecting a famous, recently widowed tenor, Nicholas Brenner, from the airport.
So begins their relationship, her naive attraction to him hindered by jealous divas and her own old flame.
The etiquette and attitudes of the time offer scope for misunderstandings and the dramatic.
A pleasant read that tugged me along.
May 10, 2019
My View
I love these books of Mary Burchell - I can't wait to read number 8. My favourite will always be 'A Song Begins' but I enjoy them all . I read a lot of them many years ago but I had never read Unbidden Melody so it has been a real treat. I'm so glad they are all on Kindle as my books are so old they're nearly falling to bits!
I love these books of Mary Burchell - I can't wait to read number 8. My favourite will always be 'A Song Begins' but I enjoy them all . I read a lot of them many years ago but I had never read Unbidden Melody so it has been a real treat. I'm so glad they are all on Kindle as my books are so old they're nearly falling to bits!
March 23, 2023
Lovely first half with a very sweet romance blossoming between our two - but then the *big misunderstandings* begin, along with a heavy dose of OM/OW (which I haaaate) so I spent the second half of the book feeling irritated and impatient to wrap things up.
September 9, 2023
I liked the first half but the second half didn't quite cohere. I wanted that sick bed reunion and, especially, more groveling from Nicholas. I love all the recurring characters though; Gina Torelli's high-handedness is especially fun.
March 26, 2024
Old fashioned romantic love story
Delightful, light romance set in the late fifties early sixties in the London of Covent garden and the Opera . The novel is joyful . it is a light fluffy women's magazine piece so p!essentially comforting .
Delightful, light romance set in the late fifties early sixties in the London of Covent garden and the Opera . The novel is joyful . it is a light fluffy women's magazine piece so p!essentially comforting .
May 27, 2024
Nice, short, and sweet. FUN!
A story of a young woman's dream job in the music business. She meets the man she loves. After some angst and worry all is well. With help from some delightful characters.
A story of a young woman's dream job in the music business. She meets the man she loves. After some angst and worry all is well. With help from some delightful characters.
March 6, 2022
3.5 ⭐
December 11, 2022
Oh, another ones of the good ones! The relationship in this one progresses more quickly than the rest of the series, which was a fun change!
March 26, 2023
Meh. Annoying hero who jumps to conclusions too quickly.
April 11, 2023
The end was disappointing; he could or should have done more to gain her back!
March 27, 2024
An enchanting romance.
I enjoyed the book immensely. Realistic characters, beautiful musical environment and a pleasure to read. Recommended reading for lovers of romance stories.
I enjoyed the book immensely. Realistic characters, beautiful musical environment and a pleasure to read. Recommended reading for lovers of romance stories.
March 28, 2024
A real page turner
I read this book in less than 24 hours because I couldn’t put it down. I love the characters, the story, the romance. It is all so well written.
I read this book in less than 24 hours because I couldn’t put it down. I love the characters, the story, the romance. It is all so well written.
April 20, 2024
First written in 1973, this shows what a different time it was for women. Mills and Boon at its worst.
May 7, 2024
Good romance novel
This a pretty good romance that is clean and very sweet. I enjoyed reading it. It is set in London and Paris.
This a pretty good romance that is clean and very sweet. I enjoyed reading it. It is set in London and Paris.
October 18, 2025
The story was simple and nice with likeable characters
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