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Reluctant Paragon
Since she had been widowed six years ago, Eleanor had been very cautious about her relationships with men; they were only too ready to assume that all widows were merry ones! And James Ramsay was precisely the kind of man most likely to jump to this conclusion. So Eleanor decided it might be best to leave him with his wrong impressions about her...
188 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1982
1 person is currently reading
38 people want to read
About the author
Catherine George
447 books73 followersDeirdre Matthews was born in a village on the Welsh-English border, where the public library featured largely in her life. Her mother, who looked upon literature as a basic necessity of life, fervently encouraged her passion for reading, little knowing it would one day motivate her daughter into writing her first novel.
At 18, she met a future Engineer, who had set in a pendant a gold sovereign, that his grandmother put in his hand when he was born, and she have never taken off since. After their marriage he swept her off to Brazil, where he worked as Chief Engineer of a large gold-mining operation in the mountains of Minas Gerais, a setting which later provided a very popular background for several of her early novels. Nine happy years passed there before the question of their small son's education decided their return to Britain. Not long afterward a daughter was born, and for a time she lived a fulfilled life as a wife and mother who always made time to read, especially in the bath!
Her husband's job took him abroad again, to Portugal, West Africa, and various countries of the Middle East, but this time she stayed home with the family. And spent a lot of lonely evenings in between the reunions when her husband came home on leave. "Instead of reading other people's novels all the time," he suggested one day, "why not have a shot at writing one yourself?" So she did.
But first she took a creative writing course. Encouraged by the other students' enthusiasm for her contributions, she decided to try her hand at romance, and read countless Mills & Boon novels as research before writing one herself. Her first novel was accepted in 1982 as Catherine George, which Romantic Times voted best of its genre for that year, along with more than sixty written since.
These days son and daughter have fled the nest, but they return with loving regularity to where she and her husband back for good from his travels live, with Prince, the most recent Labrador, in a house built at the end of Victoria's reign in four acres of garden on the cliffs between the beautiful Wye Valley and the River Severn.
At 18, she met a future Engineer, who had set in a pendant a gold sovereign, that his grandmother put in his hand when he was born, and she have never taken off since. After their marriage he swept her off to Brazil, where he worked as Chief Engineer of a large gold-mining operation in the mountains of Minas Gerais, a setting which later provided a very popular background for several of her early novels. Nine happy years passed there before the question of their small son's education decided their return to Britain. Not long afterward a daughter was born, and for a time she lived a fulfilled life as a wife and mother who always made time to read, especially in the bath!
Her husband's job took him abroad again, to Portugal, West Africa, and various countries of the Middle East, but this time she stayed home with the family. And spent a lot of lonely evenings in between the reunions when her husband came home on leave. "Instead of reading other people's novels all the time," he suggested one day, "why not have a shot at writing one yourself?" So she did.
But first she took a creative writing course. Encouraged by the other students' enthusiasm for her contributions, she decided to try her hand at romance, and read countless Mills & Boon novels as research before writing one herself. Her first novel was accepted in 1982 as Catherine George, which Romantic Times voted best of its genre for that year, along with more than sixty written since.
These days son and daughter have fled the nest, but they return with loving regularity to where she and her husband back for good from his travels live, with Prince, the most recent Labrador, in a house built at the end of Victoria's reign in four acres of garden on the cliffs between the beautiful Wye Valley and the River Severn.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 17, 2020
Heroine is a classy, small-English-town girl who gets her feathers quite ruffled when her boss abruptly retires, giving place to his arrogant, workaholic, London-ified son. He in turn has the outlandish impression he has just inherited his father’s mistress and acts accordingly towards her, giving her a pretty bad time at the office when he is not chasing her around the desk. The Great Big Terrible Misunderstanding doesn’t last long. Fed up with his sleazy innuendoes, the heroine sets him down icily, explaining she is an inconsolable and very celibate widow ever since her childhood sweetheart died tragically six years before and that far from being his father’s floozie, she is a protégée of both his father and mother. After that, the hero is in unabashed pursuit while she blows hot then cold, weary from involving herself with an avowed bachelor who is looking for a short-term girlfriend. A business trip to Brazil gives us not only the opportunity for a travelogue so heavy on the food that I felt like a stuffed turkey just reading about all the heavy meals and copious drinking these two got up to, but a bizarre episode where hero tries a forced seduction... leading to the hotel bed collapsing! I think I would have liked this more had the hero not been such a disrespectful chauvinist “playfully” spanking his efficient professional secretary on the butt to demonstrate his superiority but then again this is I guess what you get from an 80s workplace romance in Harlequinlandia:~{
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 16, 2016
Virgin widow at first dislikes her new boss and then falls in love with him. Oh no, how will they ever get together? (she asks sarcastically).
Yet another story that starts out promising and then deteriorates into adult characters acting reasonable and adult-like so that the food descriptions are the most interesting part of the chapter.
If you're in the mood for a low-tension, nice story about nice people with nice friends and relatives you'll love this. Bonus points for all the clothes descriptions and food porn - although Betty Neels is still the reigning food porn queen, because her heroines *love* their food - while this heroine just notes what's on her plate. Maybe that's the whole problem - this heroine, with her tragic backstory - just doesn't come to life and dig into all the experiences being shown. It's a snooze fest.
Yet another story that starts out promising and then deteriorates into adult characters acting reasonable and adult-like so that the food descriptions are the most interesting part of the chapter.
If you're in the mood for a low-tension, nice story about nice people with nice friends and relatives you'll love this. Bonus points for all the clothes descriptions and food porn - although Betty Neels is still the reigning food porn queen, because her heroines *love* their food - while this heroine just notes what's on her plate. Maybe that's the whole problem - this heroine, with her tragic backstory - just doesn't come to life and dig into all the experiences being shown. It's a snooze fest.
April 8, 2019
A lovely light read, which I finished very quickly. A typical romance, but with a nice little storyline.
December 18, 2012
Just couldn't get into it...
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews