Never a Stranger

by Patricia Wilson

Return of the stranger . . .

Once Adam had been Kirsty's whole world. He was her hero. Then, in a few short moments, the magic had gone and Kirsty had fled.... Now Adam was back in Kirsty's life, blaming her for their breakup! Kirsty was determined to treat him like a stranger--with cool indifference. But then she discovered, to her cost, that this man she had loved so deeply could never be banished from her heart . . . .

Genres: Harlequin, Romance, Enemies To Lovers, Harlequin Presents, Harlequin Romance, Hqn

286 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Patricia Wilson (1929 – 2010) was a best-selling writer of 53 romance novels for the Mills & Boon publisher from 1986 to 2004. She placed her novels primarily in England, Spain or France.

Reviews

[StMargarets · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Heroine has been in love with hero since she was 17. Hero has been in love with her even longer. He’s a business partner of the h’s father and lavished time and attention on her when her evil stepmother banished her to boarding school and made her life hell.

Heroine misinterpreted an overheard conversation between the hero and the stepmother and came to the conclusion that they were having an affair. She told the hero she didn’t like him anymore and he backed out of her life.

When heroine opened her gallery of animal paintings four years later, she finally told hero her suspicions. Hero was so angry for being doubted that he didn’t defend himself and went out of his way to be nasty to the heroine.

*happy sigh*

The story opens six years later when she’s been called home to be hostess for her father since her stepmother is in Paris. Seems step-mama has dress boutiques her husband has bankrolled for her and she goes on these buying trips. Heroine thinks that’s where the H and stepmother have their affairs. But that theory is quashed when the hero shows up for dinner heroine’s first night.

And now the fun starts. Hero is angry. Heroine is hurt. Heroine’s father can’t figure out why they aren’t good friends anymore. Hero challenges h to find him a “cat” painting to put on his empty wall in his London flat. Heroine triumphantly finds a modern painting of a cougar/panther (can’t remember) and picks out the spot to hang it.

Hero asks her to find more paintings and heroine actually redecorates his “sad” apartment. Hero is touched when he sees all the changes and hard work heroine put into it.

There are a lot more skirmishes with the H/h – sometimes with the hapless OM present. sometime not. H/h eventually have sex after heroine’s car breaks down and she ends up at the hero’s place in the middle of the night. But that doesn’t resolve their differences since heroine is full of remorse that he’s cheating on her stepmother with her. LOL Heroine is beyond ridiculous at this point.

Finally, after the obligatory heart attack all executives in their 50’s have in HP novels, the heroine’s father realizes he doesn’t love his wife and makes plans for a divorce. The H, h, father and stepmother are all gathered for a comeuppance and truth-telling. Step-mama has been having an affair with a married man. Hero was biding his time for his friend to wake up and divorce the woman before telling the heroine the truth.

Heroine is sorry they wasted so much time. Hero is glad she’s a successful woman who wasn’t a confusing a crush for love. Heroine’s father offers them the house for an HEA.

I liked that the heroine was successful. I liked the OW comeuppance on page. I liked how completely besotted the hero was. There was no logical reason this misunderstanding went on so long and that’s the biggest flaw in the story. So if you can not think about it too much and enjoy the angst, this is a fun story.

Heroine was a virgin all of this time. It’s never brought up about the hero – but heroine never sees him with anyone but her stepmother. So maybe he was celibate?

[Leona · Rating 4 out of 5]

For some reason I had read this book before and did not write a review. Not sure how that happened, especially since I loved it.

In typical Patricia Wilson fashion, we have one besotted hero that will do anything to get the girl. The only one fooled by his feelings is the girl. Everyone else can tell how much he loves her. Even evil OW who happens in this case to also be evil, unfaithful, gold digging, step mama. It can't get any better than that.

If you love angst, but don't want to have to deal with an asshat hero, then this is one you will want to read.

My only regret, was the heroine was a little too dense. But I could forgive her because she was really delightful and very strong. I like it when the heroine makes a successful life apart from the hero.

[*CJ* · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Never a Stranger" is the story of Kirsty and Adam.

You've made me wait a long time, Kirsty.' He ran his hands hotly over her body, his breathing uneven and pained. 'I've waited years to own you.'

Another of Ms Wilson's tropes, in which a super obsessed and in love older hero falls for the very naive and young heroine- they get estranged due to misunderstandings and years pass until circumstances force them to be together, and feelings reignite. In this case, we have the h suspecting the H of having an affair with her vile stepmother, and pushing him away. However, when she returns back to help her ailing father, these old nemesis come face to face and realize things between them are far from resolved, and truth is not at all what it seems.

I adore a devoted, yearning hero, and Adam was definitely that. The heroine was spunky yet impulsive. Their love and longing for each other was evident, and once the misunderstandings were ironed out, we knew they'd be happy together.

Really enjoyed it!

Safe h goes out with OM and kisses him
4.5/5

[Dianna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kirsty’s dad married nasty piece of work Selina. Selina drove poor Kirsty from her home, and separated her from the love of her life, Adam. See, when Kirsty was 17, her dad made Adam, 28, a partner in his business. Adam had been around for years, and Kirsty had gotten used to adorably crushing on him while he indulgently waits for her to reach the age of consent.

Now that she’s 17 he’s starting to drop hints that maybe some sexy times will occur in the not too distant future? Sure, Kirsty’s up for it. Until she overhears a conversation between Adam and Selina that leads her to think these two are having an affair.

Devastated, Kirsty decides she won’t tell her dad about their betrayal, but she’ll have nothing to do with Adam or Selina again, if she can help it.

By the time she gets to 24, she’s doing pretty ok. She owns a small art gallery and specialises in paintings of animals. She has lots of clients and is being ‘Storage Wars’ level of awesome at auctions. She last saw Adam 4 years ago when she finally threw at him her knowledge of his and Selina’s affair.

Adam didn’t deny it. He just got really cranky, gave her a ‘you want this as much as I do’ snog, and stormed off.

When the story opens, Selina has popped off to Paris to buy clothes for her fashion boutiques (gold digger with a business!), and Kirsty must come home to act as hostess for daddy. And she must once again be in the same room as Adam.

There’s no way around it: Kirsty is dumb as a box of hair. Sure, she’s got that successful business and has paid off the loan her daddy made her so she could establish it, but: she’s ridiculous. She’s ridiculous in a fun way, she has a habit of making a complete mess of something and then wondering over to Adam and saying, hi, is broken, you fix it? She and Adam are going to have a marriage you could base a sitcom on.

She’s also ridiculously combative with the housekeeper. The housekeeper is a creepy woman, but Kirsty’s habit of giving instructions to an employee as though she is destroying her with assertive self-confidence is overkill. Sure, Mrs Drew is developed as a Mrs Danvers to Selina’s Rebecca, but she seems to be doing her actual job of making meals and putting towels in the bathroom, so why can’t she just be sat down and told to pull her head in?

What makes her stand out from a long line of ridiculous heroines who would prefer to believe the man they love is involved with someone else, is that, in the middle of all the moping and crankiness, she does something incredibly sweet for him.

So …we all know that Adam isn’t sleeping with Selina, and has maintained a long outraged sulk that the love of his life would think so badly of him. That’s fine, obviously his biggest flaw was falling in love with a child in the first place, and he knew it. I liked him quite a lot. He seemed such a nice person, and he clearly suffered having the love of his life tell him she thought he was a miserable worm.

The question of what’s actually going on with Selina is not handled very well. She’s not around much in the book to be a satisfying evil other woman, which meant I never really bought into Kirsty’s continued trauma about her. When Selina finally does turn up, her story didn’t make a lot of sense.

This book had a good hero and some very nice moments, but I never felt that Kirsty had faced any real hardship. She’d just really mismanaged the chances Adam gave her to act like an adult.

[Vintage]

DNF and another skimmer.

Nobody likes me, everybody hates me
I think I'll go eat worms!

If the hero is dumb enough to love the equally dumb heroine who buys anything from her evil step-mother, then he deserves her.

[Wendy Darling · Rating 2 out of 5]

Please don’t yell at women who are ill and force them to kiss you.

[Kace | The Booknerd · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Don't tell me I'm not in your life, Kirsty,' he begged softly. 'It's the only life I've ever had. It's the only place I want to be. If I'm not with you, where am I?'

Oh my, this was such a treat for me! I know it wasn't original. I mean, the trope the author used here has been used before. The "heroine-is-in-love-with-the-older-hero-and-thinks-that-hero-was-having-an-affair-with-her-stepmother" kind of plot. There's plenty of books, especially older HP, with this same plot. But what makes Never a Stranger different? It's the characters and the connection between them. No one writes stalkerific heroes in HPLandia better than Patricia Wilson. I don’t know how she does it, but she manages to find the balance between swoony and jerky hero, and the combination works so well! Aside from the hero, she also writes lovable, annoying, but very relatable heroines. I loved how the author was able to make her characters seem humans. Plus, the chemistry between them radiated off the pages!

[MissKitty · Rating 1 out of 5]

Was not the best. Why? A besotted Hero, which usually I like, but this one acted like an idiot, for a supposedly intelligent, successful man. Ok, he falls in love with a child (she is 17) and when she is just coming to realise her feelings for him, she overhears, what she assumes is a romantic exchange between the H and her step-mother. In her disillusioned mind, she cuts him off. At this point the Hero has no idea what has happened and just finds himself dropped from her life. At this point it was still understandable and I felt for him.

However, this for me is where it went wrong. He meets her again a few years later (she is 20-21) and it’s only then that he finds out that she had been harbouring this misconception about him. And what does this 30+ year old successful, intelligent man do? He goes off in a huff because the object of his love believes him to be capable of such despicable behaviour. The bad thing is he sulks for 4 years!!! The heroine at this point is still only 21years old, why didn’t he come back after a month and try to at least explain to her what she overheard. He makes no allowance for her youth, and expects her to trust him implicitly.

This is just the premise, and the story continues on from this point, but by this time, my impression of the Hero had already been coloured and it influenced my reading of the book. He had been kind to her as a child, but as an adult he made no effort to woo her. He was mocking, cruel and condescending, and he still didn’t make any effort to dispel her misconceptions. I felt bad for the heroine, since she really was in love with him and it hurt for her to be living with this misunderstanding for all the years. He even made love to her before setting the record straight. Obviously, the next morning, all she felt was shame and disgust to realise she had sex with her step-mother’s lover. And he still allows her to believe in her misunderstanding! Sorry, I can’t forgive him for this.

This was not one of the better ones for me.

[Booked · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved rediscovering this treasure again. I love PW. She's one of my favorite HP author. I love every book she's ever written. This one is just awesome. Adam is one of the ultimate besotted/ tortured hero ever penned. PW has a flair with this kind of character. It's pure art.

[Megzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the angst but I had some trouble accepting the lead male's reasoning... This book is a bit more emotional. Wilson did a good job conveying Kristy's feeling.

[JillyB · Rating 3 out of 5]

Adam, the hero is 24ish when he first enters the life of Kirsty, 13, the heroine. He is her fathers protege, and becomes Kirsty’s mentor and friend of sorts. When Kirsty’s father decides to marry Selina(29) to his 44, Kirsty’s happy family life is turned upside down. Selina brings with her a nasty housekeeper to support her and she quickly drives a wedge between father and daughter and sends Kirsty to boarding school. Through it all is steadfast Adam. He makes Kirsty’s life bearable and is the only one to add some joy. When she is 17, it is obvious to both her and Adam that there are newer more adult feelings between them. BUT before anything can happen, Kirsty misinterprets a look between Adam and Selina at the dinner table when he is made partner. Then later she overhears snippets of a conversation that makes her think the 2 are having an affair, this is later reinforced by her friend Kathy who believes that the 2 looked chummy as well. So thats it! Kirsty doesn’t want to hurt her dad so she says nothing about her beliefs and avoids the H. The H is stymied by the h’s aversion to him. When she is 19, the h and H meet again, and the h still doesn’t tell him what’s wrong, she just basically tells him she doesn’t like him. Since she is young, the H just assumes she had a childhood infatuation with him and has outgrown it. Unfortunately he was not a child and his love for her was still there. A year later, the h and H are at Selina’s boutique opening with her father. Upon seeing the H, our h develops a “Migraine” the H brings her home. Kissing and passion ignite, and the h is disgusted by the H as he is having an affair with her stepmom. The H becomes extremely angry with the h for her assumptions, but doesn’t clear it up. He leaves her feeling disappointed that she could think this way about him, yet like I said, he doesn’t correct her.

So, now the h is 24 and a successful gallery owner who specializes in the purchasing of animal prints. The step mom needs the h to come home and play hostess while she is away in France. She hasn’t been back in the family home for 5 years. Her dad wants her there as well. Although, it doesn’t sound like it is a terrible commute for the h to make so this was my first issue with the story.

First the stepmom doesn’t care a hoot for the dad and it sounds like she rarely spends time with him, so why should she care if the h goes there. Plus, except for 1 dinner over a couple of weeks there doesn’t sound like she needs to do much hostessing. Ms. Drew, the sour housekeeper is there to handle food prep etc… My take on all this is that the dad wanted his daughter there because he missed her AND wanted to put her in the path of the Hero who is temporarily living in the lodge house on the estate.

So while at the house the H and h carefully circle each other. They make comments. Then for a little bit they get along. The h purchases a huge panther for the H, and he wants her to come to his stark cold penthouse to find a place for it. She goes. Passions are awoken and she is primed to lose her v-card status and the phone rings….she can tell its dear old stepmom which is all she needs to get dressed and get out of there.

When the business dinner comes along, the h invites the om (Guy) to the dinner so she has reinforcements. (🤔 maybe all Harley om’s should be called Guy, because that’s all they will ever be, you know that guy or he’s just some guy, etc…, ) Of course, the H is super jealous. Then the h actually gets one of her real migraines and the H sends the “guy” on his way. He takes care of the h chastising her for not getting him sooner. (The migraine was described well, I unfortunately was able to relate to it)

Things get more convoluted from here. H takes off to Portugal for business. (Kirsty’s interpretation is France to see the stepmom) He left his penthouse keys for the h to add more art as she sees fit. Money is no object. The h fights the urge at first, but eventually succumbs to her decorating instincts and transforms his penthouse so it is no longer cold and unwelcoming. Meanwhile her dad has been under the weather. The H is temporarily back from Portugal and calls her to come to the hospital where her dad is unexplainably sick, heart attack maybe?. (OK, so here I am thinking PW is trying to make this a story of intrigue. My thoughts were that someone, maybe the dubious MS. Drew in cahoots with evil step mom was poisoning the dad. There is no medical explanation for the 54 year old dad to be in the hospital for several days except for elevated blood pressure(there are meds for that!) The h lets the H know that she is not fooled by FrancePortugal. This is it for the H. He now avoids her because she needs to grow up already.

Moving forward….they eventually have their night of passion, and this scene is well developed. However, it doesn’t change any misconceptions etc. So we have some more drama along the way. The stepmom ends up finally showing her face. The misconception is cleared up, the H is exonerated of wrong doing, and both the stepmom and the housekeeper are having to find new digs.

Great let the loving commence…….Seriously, NO???? But the page count is getting low(but not low enough). We should be doing the whole avowal of love thing at this point. I mean Jessica Steele is famous for 30 page Hero groveling, you can do that too PW.

The evil stepmom shows up at the h’s gallery to twist the knife. She heard it from a “friend” of hers that the hero’s apartment is quite the place. This friend (the H’s LOVAH) approves of all of the h’ s hard work to transform the love nest.

Our h is destroyed, Her one true love has a woman, and why not? She has done nothing but accuse, accuse and accuse some more.

The h sees the H’s car outside the gallery. She decides to escape by doing her version of The Fast and Furious(full disclosure here, I have never watched these movies but I am assuming from the trailers that it entails fast cars in dangerous stunts) The H catches up with her at the family home and is fit to be tied. His heart is beating a mile a minute at her recklessness. NOW…we have our great avowals of love and clear up the supposed lovah…he has never had a woman at his apartment and never will except for the h. They go into the house and he informs the father and the h, that he will be marrying her and he doesn’t care what either one of them say. The father is relieved to see that these 2 will finally be together(hmm, me thinks he did some machinations of his own to get h here, because he kept feeding the H stories about the om, Guy. She was like, I barely saw or talked about him to her dad). Although, he would like it if they would make his home their home. He will keep to his side as he knows newlyweds will need space. Both the h and H would like this as well, as this is where the magic happened for them. The H and h have another love in under the same roof as her father, and the thick walls seem to shield dear old dad(54 🙄) from any embarrassing breakfast glances.

Ok, so overall it was enjoyable, but I feel like PW lost some things along the way, and then in order to fill the page count, she started tossing things here and there. This could have been a much more angsty read. Sometimes I felt she picked up something, only to go in a different direction(think red herring). The om in the story was pretty vanilla, and really was more of a bff. I liked the h’s dad but was disappointed that he allowed his close relationship with his daughter to be tossed to the wayside upon the stepmom’s entrance. He does admit in the end that the H was there for his daughter much more than he was during those trying years. I am not sure, but I believe the H was celibate. He did say he tried to forget her but he doesn’t indicate that it was through use of women. Plus, he never had the reputation of a playboy. I really think he was so besotted with the h, that he was most likely celibate. But really, it was a non-issue.

On another note, I apologize to whoever else was reading this on open library. Either open library was having issues, or you and I were snatching this up an hour at time interrupting each other’s ability to read straight through. I hate when that happens!!!

Stmargarets has a great review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Debby · Rating 4 out of 5]

He’s in love with her since she was 14. He is 11 years older than she is. He has waited for her to come of age.

He is a friend of her father. Her father is a widower who decides to marry another woman. The h is still a teenager and she can’t get along with her stepmother.

There’s a special bond between the H and the h because he’s always there for her in the school holidays when she goes home.

When she’s 17 years old, the h thinks the H is having an affair with her stepmother. So she tries to get away from him.

This H is a besotted H. I love how he has waited for her for years. There’s no other woman for him.

She is the usual stupid h who overhears one conversation and then thinks she knows all there is to know.

[RomLibrary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Return of the stranger . . .

Once Adam had been Kirsty's whole world. He was her hero. Then, in a few short moments, the magic had gone and Kirsty had fled.... Now Adam was back in Kirsty's life, blaming her for their breakup! Kirsty was determined to treat him like a stranger--with cool indifference. But then she discovered, to her cost, that this man she had loved so deeply could never be banished from her heart .

[Melinda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ridiculous. Why would the hero, a grown man in his early thirty's, allow the misunderstanding to go on so long without even trying to explain. He had known for four years that heroine thought he and her step-mother were lovers. If he loved as much as he claimed why wait so long?

[Ezzo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did we read the same book?
This is a perfect example of adding words to reach the word requirement. WTF was this boring story about?! I’ll tell you, it was about a misunderstanding that those involved knew it happened and no one cared to correct it and continue fighting about it till the end .
And it was BORING.

[Andrea .... e suas cafonices. · Rating 3 out of 5]

10 anos para desmascarar uma vigarista é muito, né?! H muito lento pra resolver essa bagunça. Se o pai não chamasse a h pra ajudar com um jantar, isso nunca teria sido resolvido. Affff... Ainda assim, da pra ler.

[Tapa in lovezone]

Too much separations even though both H and h love each other. I think it’s unnecessary drama. Not in mood for such high angst caused by stupid misunderstanding.

[DamsonDreamer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Big PW fan and I did actually quite like both Adam and Kirsty but boy was the misunderstanding a looooong drawn out silliness. Ok.

[Annarose · Rating 2 out of 5]

Adam entered Kirsty's life at the age of thirteen when she was grieving her lost mother and in desperate need for someone to protect her against her stepmother's attacks. He was her father's genius business partner and friend and Kirsty got very much close to him in her adolesant years in great admiration and love. BUT, at the age of seventeen, she discovered he was having an affair with her stepmother. Shock and fear of hurting her father made her leave university and start her own business away from home. Five years after that, her father asked her to come back home to be his hostess since his wife was travelling to Paris for a while. Kirsty accepted in an attempt to be close to her father. Unbeknown to her that Adam was now living in the lodge next to her father's house and was determined to keep her close this time!

I would have given this book more stars if it weren't for the hero! Yes, it's obvious to the reader he adored her. Yet, he kept his knowlege of her stepmother's affair a secret even though the heroine told him she hated him for having an affair with her stepmother under her father's nose! I didn't much got his logic for not telling her the true if he loved her as much! She loved her father dearly and would have kept the secret with him no doubt. At least, by telling her everything, he and the heroine would not have suffered much for years! Her lack of trust kept him away for four years even though he claimed he knew her more than herself! His pride was hurt, yes, but not to see her for four years and extract a better explanation from her is too much to chew!

[More Books Than Time · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok, the H should have cleared up h’s misconceptions as soon as he realized the problem. He was hurt, gobsmacked, but I think the main reason he didn’t explain to the h is that he wasn’t sure she could have kept quiet and not told Dad. Except she didn’t tell Dad about H, so his common sense was AWOL.

Despite the misunderstanding lasting much too long this is a great read. Loved the h and the H was pretty good too. Author tells story via dialogue and people, not exposition or internal musing.

Reread: didn’t like quite as much, plot is ridiculous even for a HP.

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

it was ok nothing special.

[Monique · Rating 2 out of 5]

Star Rating: ★★½☆☆