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Pennington #10
No More Secrets
Friend—or husband?
It seemed to everyone in Pennington that Ben Fletcher had met his match in Kate Harker and was ready to settle down. But Kate didn't see it that way at all. Though Ben was tall and handsome, she was determined not to fall for him!
Kate couldn't believe that Ben shared her deep, loving feelings—not since she'd learned that secret about him….Was Kate right to be convinced that Ben could be only her friend and never her husband?
PENNINGTON
A place where dreams come true
It seemed to everyone in Pennington that Ben Fletcher had met his match in Kate Harker and was ready to settle down. But Kate didn't see it that way at all. Though Ben was tall and handsome, she was determined not to fall for him!
Kate couldn't believe that Ben shared her deep, loving feelings—not since she'd learned that secret about him….Was Kate right to be convinced that Ben could be only her friend and never her husband?
PENNINGTON
A place where dreams come true
- GenresHarlequin RomanceRomance
192 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1996
8 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Catherine George
443 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
February 7, 2022
Heroine first mistakenly takes the hero for an unscrupulous married man who has multitudes of tawdry affairs while married to his poor, pregnant wife. Then, due to the manipulative insinuations of an OM, she thinks he bats for the other team. When hero does eventually put the moves on her, she is elated that she has the power to make him switch over to the "straight" side. Hmmmm...wasn't this a Seinfeld plot? This book was published in the 1990s so I think our dear author was inspired. And the whole gay conversion joke is just as hilarious in print as it was on the screen...NOT!!!!!!!
The rotten cherry on top of this sour sundae is when the protagonists and their friends are all standing around discussing various costume ideas for the upcoming "fancy dress" ball, and someone merrily suggests a bottle of shoe polish to turn into Othello. *face palm* Seriously?????!!!!!! Maybe this was written in the 1890s, not the 1990s.
Nauseating.
The rotten cherry on top of this sour sundae is when the protagonists and their friends are all standing around discussing various costume ideas for the upcoming "fancy dress" ball, and someone merrily suggests a bottle of shoe polish to turn into Othello. *face palm* Seriously?????!!!!!! Maybe this was written in the 1890s, not the 1990s.
Nauseating.
September 2, 2016
3.5*
Characters:
Heroine: 27 year old independent, curvy & petite bookshop manager (and book lover). She's not those silly, clumsy bimbo types who usually feature these books. Nor is she the Sad/Poor-Me pathetic type either. Level-headed, girl-next-door, competent type.
Hero: 31 year old very tall, funny, Software Engineer who's manly without being aggressive. He's very attached to his family, particularly his older sister and her kids.
He's nothing like those overly-dramatic creepy $exist swarthy lothario, super rich but weird types who usually feature as hero's in these books (with a title like The Italian/Greek/Spanish/Delete-Where-Appropriate Millionaire's Virgin Captive or something equally silly).
Positives:
1. Solid characters
2. No insta-lu$t (she finds him attractive BUT she's swooning and drooling over him at the get-go). It's a gradual attraction
3. Hate-turns-to-Love type of romance
4. They build a friendship first before they become lovers
5. Lots of chemistry
-------------------------------------
Negatives:
1. Some of the themesmay not be Politically Correct today (the heroine assumes the hero is a gay and there's some references to that that isn't PC in today's world). Not exactly homophobic either
2. Certain misunderstandings were pretty obvious to deal with and loads of opportunities were missed in clearing up the air
3. The "Other Love Interest" guy was such a creepy that he was obviously there to be used as a foil against the Hero to make him look perfect. Really dislike it when author's do that as it's so obvious. Although towards the end chapter, "Other Love Interest" guy makes a good plot device.
4. There's could have been a bit more oomph to the story
Overall an enjoyable book without dramatics and fluff.
Characters:
Heroine: 27 year old independent, curvy & petite bookshop manager (and book lover). She's not those silly, clumsy bimbo types who usually feature these books. Nor is she the Sad/Poor-Me pathetic type either. Level-headed, girl-next-door, competent type.
Hero: 31 year old very tall, funny, Software Engineer who's manly without being aggressive. He's very attached to his family, particularly his older sister and her kids.
He's nothing like those overly-dramatic creepy $exist swarthy lothario, super rich but weird types who usually feature as hero's in these books (with a title like The Italian/Greek/Spanish/Delete-Where-Appropriate Millionaire's Virgin Captive or something equally silly).
Positives:
1. Solid characters
2. No insta-lu$t (she finds him attractive BUT she's swooning and drooling over him at the get-go). It's a gradual attraction
3. Hate-turns-to-Love type of romance
4. They build a friendship first before they become lovers
5. Lots of chemistry
-------------------------------------
Negatives:
1. Some of the themes
2. Certain misunderstandings were pretty obvious to deal with and loads of opportunities were missed in clearing up the air
3. The "Other Love Interest" guy was such a creepy that he was obviously there to be used as a foil against the Hero to make him look perfect. Really dislike it when author's do that as it's so obvious. Although towards the end chapter, "Other Love Interest" guy makes a good plot device.
4. There's could have been a bit more oomph to the story
Overall an enjoyable book without dramatics and fluff.
March 10, 2023
Geen geheimen meer
April 13, 2024
It was a bit slow at times, but it wasn't a bad book. The main characters were likable, and the story was plausible. I had the overwhelming feeling as I read that this book was so 90s.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews