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Το Τίμημα μιας Νύχτας
Η Κριστίν χάρηκε πολύ όταν η μητέρα της ξαναπαντρεύτηκε και πήγε να ζήσει στην Αυστραλία. Η καλή τύχη της μητέρας της άνοιξε το δρόμο και στη δική της, καθώς της δόθηκε η ευκαιρία να γνωρίσει τον Πολ, το γιο του πατριού της.
Ανάμεσά τους αναπτύχθηκε αμέσως ένας τρυφερός έρωτας και τίποτα δεν φαινόταν να σκιάζει την ευτυχία τους. Ώσπου η Κριστίν ανακαλύπτει πως είναι έγκυος!
Και με φρίκη συνειδητοποιεί το ακριβό τίμημα που πρέπει να πληρώσει για την απερισκεψία μιας νύχτας, μια και πατέρας του παιδιού δεν είναι ο Πολ ...
Ανάμεσά τους αναπτύχθηκε αμέσως ένας τρυφερός έρωτας και τίποτα δεν φαινόταν να σκιάζει την ευτυχία τους. Ώσπου η Κριστίν ανακαλύπτει πως είναι έγκυος!
Και με φρίκη συνειδητοποιεί το ακριβό τίμημα που πρέπει να πληρώσει για την απερισκεψία μιας νύχτας, μια και πατέρας του παιδιού δεν είναι ο Πολ ...
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
33 people want to read
About the author
Karen van der Zee
94 books41 followersI always wanted to write, ever since I was a child growing up in Holland. I was a dreamer, reading books and making up my own stories. I had notebooks full of stories which I illustrated with crayon drawings. My brothers burned the notebooks in the attic one day, fortunately not burning down the house. They don’t remember this now, but I do!
I also always wanted to travel. Holland is very flat and I wanted to see mountains and coconut palms and tropical beaches and deserts. I wanted to meet interesting people and learn about different cultures and see how people lived their daily lives. And then I wanted to write adventurous stories set in these exotic places
I got lucky and fell in love with a globetrotting American. I met him in Amsterdam, he asked me to marry him in Rome, and we tied the knot in a ten-minute ceremony in Kenya, East Africa, where he was a Peace Corps Volunteer. Some wedding that was! Not the stuff of romantic dreams, but really good for a laugh.
After Kenya we lived in the States for a while, then four years in Ghana, West Africa where not only our first daughter was born, but my first Mills & Boon romance as well. It took me a year to write, which is three months longer than it takes to have a baby. It was set in Ghana, and I called it SWEET NOT ALWAYS, a slogan found on a big colorfully decorated truck that transported people, goods, and live chickens.
I continued writing romances and loved the creativity of it, although it was, and is, never easy. Later we also lived in Indonesia, Ramallah (Palestine), then another three years in Ghana, and most recently six years in Armenia, which lies east of Turkey and north of Iran. Along the way we acquired a couple more kids, so now we have three.
I’ve written over thirty books now, many set in exotic locations such as Bali, Thailand, Malaysia, Java, Kenya and Ghana, as well as Holland and the US. Writing as Mona van Wieren, I received a RITA for a Silhouette Romance entitled RHAPSODY IN BLOOM.
I love the challenge of living in a foreign country where the food is different, the people interesting and life gives me endless inspiration for my writing. So, I’ll just keep going for a while.
I also always wanted to travel. Holland is very flat and I wanted to see mountains and coconut palms and tropical beaches and deserts. I wanted to meet interesting people and learn about different cultures and see how people lived their daily lives. And then I wanted to write adventurous stories set in these exotic places
I got lucky and fell in love with a globetrotting American. I met him in Amsterdam, he asked me to marry him in Rome, and we tied the knot in a ten-minute ceremony in Kenya, East Africa, where he was a Peace Corps Volunteer. Some wedding that was! Not the stuff of romantic dreams, but really good for a laugh.
After Kenya we lived in the States for a while, then four years in Ghana, West Africa where not only our first daughter was born, but my first Mills & Boon romance as well. It took me a year to write, which is three months longer than it takes to have a baby. It was set in Ghana, and I called it SWEET NOT ALWAYS, a slogan found on a big colorfully decorated truck that transported people, goods, and live chickens.
I continued writing romances and loved the creativity of it, although it was, and is, never easy. Later we also lived in Indonesia, Ramallah (Palestine), then another three years in Ghana, and most recently six years in Armenia, which lies east of Turkey and north of Iran. Along the way we acquired a couple more kids, so now we have three.
I’ve written over thirty books now, many set in exotic locations such as Bali, Thailand, Malaysia, Java, Kenya and Ghana, as well as Holland and the US. Writing as Mona van Wieren, I received a RITA for a Silhouette Romance entitled RHAPSODY IN BLOOM.
I love the challenge of living in a foreign country where the food is different, the people interesting and life gives me endless inspiration for my writing. So, I’ll just keep going for a while.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 2, 2016
RE Staying Close - I have to admit that I am probably not the best person to be synopsisizing KvdZ - I find most of her work to be too introvertedly reflective on the h's part and the repressed internal dithering seems to always go on FOREVER, and it drives me nuts.
(And to drink, but you really can't do a lot of that with KvdZ 'cause her prose is rather dense and the plot points are well hidden in paragraphs of minutiae. So if blurriness occurs you will totally miss the whole purpose of the book and maybe even the HEA.)
She also always has little political agendas hidden in the density too, and while I may or may not agree with the ideology - I am not cruising HPLandia lookin' for a party caucus.
What she does do extremely well is convey the very essence of the country she has set the book in. It is obvious she is well traveled and in a lot of her stories the host country is practically another character. That is a good thing, cause many times her actual H and h are pretty mundane people, - they would be really boring in real life, very nice people I am sure, but boring.
This story is no different, there is a lot of wash, rinse, repeat h repressed internal drama, (or maybe just pregnancy hormones,) that in the end turns out to be much ado about nothing. (In fact I am wondering if Jerry Seinfeld read some KvdZ in his younger days and then immortalized the trope in a tv show)
The book starts with the h finding out her bf in college, a nice guy named Rick, died five days after starting his new job in archaeology in Tunisia. The h herself is on a plane to Australia and we get a lot of little details about the landing (like guys in white shorts and knee socks with boat shoes come on the landed plane and spray insecticide in the air above the passengers to kill any bugs they might be carrying- I have no idear if this is true, but it was one of those tucked in KvdZism's that you might miss if you're toasted).
The 22 yr old college student h is in Au to visit her newly married, formerly widowed for 19 years mum and her new stepdad who fondly insists the h call him "Uncle John". ( I don't know, I didn't ask, and I badly wanted a drink at this point) Former 8 year widower Uncle John has two sons, one is a campground owner and escorts the h all over Sydney.
We get local attraction descriptions, interspersed with vague h inner disquiet, US English vs Au English translations and then the h meets the other son, the H who is a world famous artistic photographer. We get more Sydney attractions (the Australian Square building is actually round), more vague h inner rumblings contrasting with sharp h inner love feelings, and lots of descriptions of the H and h sharing the tales of their lives thus far. ( a bit more actual tales instead of saying there were tales might have been better.) The h and H argue and moon over each other and the story slogs on.
Then we all go to Arrawarra Au (to the non H son's campground,) for more of the same. The h only has a few days holiday left and close to the end the vague h inner disturbance becomes ominously loud after her second bout of morning sickness. The h is preggers from her dead friend that she only slept with once and did not love. The H hints that he will be seeing the h in the US as he has gallery's showing his art.
The h returns to the US and now there are the details of college work/study, descriptions of coastal Oregon, and the h's internal fretting over the pregnancy, interspersed with secondary character's verbal feminist rants of all men being male chauvinists and the h's inner refuting of such a broad statement. The pregnancy is advancing and the h is trying to mentally juggle a Master's program, single parenthood and a job.
Then the H shows up, she is obviously preggers and he looks stunned and leaves again. He returns a few days later to ask if she is preggers by his brother. The h denies this vehemently and then we go back to daily life descriptions, prenatal visits, inner h tumult and the H wants to be the baby daddy and marry the h, who incidentally loves the H back, they have some physical lovin' and a few more every day descriptions and some Lamaze classes.
But the h needs some more inner vacillation time, (or KvdZ needed some page filler,) plus a few more arguments with herself and the H, before the H determines that she feels guilt for going to bed with a guy she wasn't in love with even though he was her BFF. So she needs to stop punishing herself and marry him and she gets a baby daddy bonus too, which he is very excited about.
So she does, and they do and they marry and have a baby, the H lists himself as the dad on birth certificate, and they decide to move back to Australia and be happy.
Now I need a drink, and a cookie and probably a brownie and then maybe another drink. Fortunately tomorrow is another day in HPlandia but the sun has set on this one, which is an enormous relief cause my vague inner disquiet was starting to grow a bit unwieldy during all of this.
(And to drink, but you really can't do a lot of that with KvdZ 'cause her prose is rather dense and the plot points are well hidden in paragraphs of minutiae. So if blurriness occurs you will totally miss the whole purpose of the book and maybe even the HEA.)
She also always has little political agendas hidden in the density too, and while I may or may not agree with the ideology - I am not cruising HPLandia lookin' for a party caucus.
What she does do extremely well is convey the very essence of the country she has set the book in. It is obvious she is well traveled and in a lot of her stories the host country is practically another character. That is a good thing, cause many times her actual H and h are pretty mundane people, - they would be really boring in real life, very nice people I am sure, but boring.
This story is no different, there is a lot of wash, rinse, repeat h repressed internal drama, (or maybe just pregnancy hormones,) that in the end turns out to be much ado about nothing. (In fact I am wondering if Jerry Seinfeld read some KvdZ in his younger days and then immortalized the trope in a tv show)
The book starts with the h finding out her bf in college, a nice guy named Rick, died five days after starting his new job in archaeology in Tunisia. The h herself is on a plane to Australia and we get a lot of little details about the landing (like guys in white shorts and knee socks with boat shoes come on the landed plane and spray insecticide in the air above the passengers to kill any bugs they might be carrying- I have no idear if this is true, but it was one of those tucked in KvdZism's that you might miss if you're toasted).
The 22 yr old college student h is in Au to visit her newly married, formerly widowed for 19 years mum and her new stepdad who fondly insists the h call him "Uncle John". ( I don't know, I didn't ask, and I badly wanted a drink at this point) Former 8 year widower Uncle John has two sons, one is a campground owner and escorts the h all over Sydney.
We get local attraction descriptions, interspersed with vague h inner disquiet, US English vs Au English translations and then the h meets the other son, the H who is a world famous artistic photographer. We get more Sydney attractions (the Australian Square building is actually round), more vague h inner rumblings contrasting with sharp h inner love feelings, and lots of descriptions of the H and h sharing the tales of their lives thus far. ( a bit more actual tales instead of saying there were tales might have been better.) The h and H argue and moon over each other and the story slogs on.
Then we all go to Arrawarra Au (to the non H son's campground,) for more of the same. The h only has a few days holiday left and close to the end the vague h inner disturbance becomes ominously loud after her second bout of morning sickness. The h is preggers from her dead friend that she only slept with once and did not love. The H hints that he will be seeing the h in the US as he has gallery's showing his art.
The h returns to the US and now there are the details of college work/study, descriptions of coastal Oregon, and the h's internal fretting over the pregnancy, interspersed with secondary character's verbal feminist rants of all men being male chauvinists and the h's inner refuting of such a broad statement. The pregnancy is advancing and the h is trying to mentally juggle a Master's program, single parenthood and a job.
Then the H shows up, she is obviously preggers and he looks stunned and leaves again. He returns a few days later to ask if she is preggers by his brother. The h denies this vehemently and then we go back to daily life descriptions, prenatal visits, inner h tumult and the H wants to be the baby daddy and marry the h, who incidentally loves the H back, they have some physical lovin' and a few more every day descriptions and some Lamaze classes.
But the h needs some more inner vacillation time, (or KvdZ needed some page filler,) plus a few more arguments with herself and the H, before the H determines that she feels guilt for going to bed with a guy she wasn't in love with even though he was her BFF. So she needs to stop punishing herself and marry him and she gets a baby daddy bonus too, which he is very excited about.
So she does, and they do and they marry and have a baby, the H lists himself as the dad on birth certificate, and they decide to move back to Australia and be happy.
Now I need a drink, and a cookie and probably a brownie and then maybe another drink. Fortunately tomorrow is another day in HPlandia but the sun has set on this one, which is an enormous relief cause my vague inner disquiet was starting to grow a bit unwieldy during all of this.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 26, 2011
This book was very different for a HP. I totally fell in love with the hero, which I never do with HP heroes. She is two weeks pregnant from a one time hookup with her best friend when she meets and falls in love with Paul. She tries to give him up because this is not his responsibility and she needs to deal with the baby and all on her own. (The baby's father is dead.) Once Paul finds out she is pregnant, he insists on staying with her. He tells her he loves her and just keeps telling her that and staying with her and helping her. It was refreshing to read a story where people admitted their love instead of hiding it and then being all pissed because the other person didn't love them back. Paul really manned up. He admitted his feelings and just wouldn't quit on Kristen. I will admit that I got a little tired of Kristen putting him off put I was so in love with him I was happy to just go with it.
Really recommended if you like something different sometimes with your HPs.
Really recommended if you like something different sometimes with your HPs.
April 20, 2009
Weepy story of heroine having sex one time in her life and ending up preggers. Then she meets a great beta hero who falls in love with her almost immediately. But pushes him away because of the pregnancy.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 4, 2020
Was pretty good! Good story line!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews