White Jasmine

by Janet Louise Roberts, Janette Radcliffe (Pseudonym)

Melissa Brown, betrayed in love, saw nothing to lose in accepting the proposal of the Marques of Villafranca, a Spanish nobleman. The marriage was to be in name only, but soon Melissa began to believe her marriage, begun as a lie, had turned into a truth not to be denied. Could she draw her husband away from the spell of a ravishing Spanish noblewoman and win the man whose name she bore and whose love she desperately wanted?

Genres: Historical Romance, Regency Romance

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

See pseudonyms Louisa Bronte, Rebecca Danton & Janette Radcliffe. Some of the listed titles are more straight romance than romantic suspense.

Janet Louise Roberts was born on January 20, 1925, in New Britain Connecticut, the daughter of a missionary in a conservative church. She wrote contemporary, historical, and gothic romances, as well as occult horror romances such as The Devil’s Own, Isle of the Dolphins, Lord Satan, and Her Demon Lover. She used pseudonyms for several of her works.

Roberts died on June 11, 1982 in Dayton, Ohio.

Reviews

[Naksed · Rating 1 out of 5]

A ridiculous, implausible, paint-by-the-numbers marriage of convenience story where a haughty Spanish Duke contrives to marry an English governess and both are pursued across the seas by their former paramours, a vengeful, Spanish widow and a pompous, foolish English rector. This author should get lessons from Violet Winspear on how a true, Alpha Marques would act and it would not include meekly tolerating another man trying to steal his wife under his nose!

[Lynn Spencer · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars This Regency trad from the 70s had an old-fashioned feel to the writing that enhanced the story, but it's still a sometimes wacky read. The heroine, Melissa Brown, is the 19 year old governess of a local gentry family. She herself was gently born, and was taken in by the family at 14 after being orphaned. While required to work hard, Melissa's life essentially feels secure as she gets along well enough with her employers, and she is engaged to marry to local vicar. Said vicar happens to be a rather pompous young man (and a plump one - there's definitely some subtle fat shaming pointed in his direction), but given Melissa's situation, her prospects aren't so terrible.

And then the Spaniards come to town. It's a little unclear exactly how Melissa's employers originally hooked up with this party of Spanish artistocrats, but it throws the lead characters together, so let's just go with it. The Napoleonic wars appear only recently ended, and there are references made in the text to the privations suffered by the Spanish.

Melissa's employers somehow ended up taking in the daughter of a Spanish marques to care for her while she received healing treatments at the nearby baths. Melissa, of course, ends up with this child in her charge and the two become quite attached. We also learn that the child's widowed father, Raimundo de Portola, the Marques de Villafranca, has been getting letters detailing his daughter's progress. When he arrives in England on unspecified business as well as to collect his daughter, he originally asks Melissa to accompany the family back to Spain to continue as his daughter's governess. When Melissa's fiance breaks off their engagement, he then asks Melissa to marry him. Melissa doesn't have a lot of options at this point, so she says yes and off to Spain they go.

What ensues is completely crazy, but I somehow couldn't stop reading it anyway. On the positive side, Melissa does grow a fair amount during the story and Raimundo helps that in some ways. For instance, Melissa had seen herself as a part of her employer's family. However, Raimundo quickly sees that Melissa is being made to work for no wages and is frankly somewhat taken advantage of - a situation he points out to Melissa and one which causes her to rethink how she had viewed her life.

On the other hand, there is the crazy stuff. Raimundo is older and more experienced than Melissa, and sometimes he comes across more like a father/authority figure than a husband and partner. The two do grow and get better in this area as the story progresses, though. However, the idea of swarthy, exotic and passionate Spaniards never really changes much. The hero and his fellow Spaniards are stereotyped a bit. It's not as bad as what I've seen in some other books, but it's still noticeable. Oh, and the plotting in this book is just insane. There are exes popping up out of the woodwork and all kinds of wacky behavior related to them. Given the circumstances of the leads' marriage, there should have been tension enough, but I guess fending off undesirable ex-love interests gives them some good stories to bond over.

Overall, this book is an interesting foray into vintage romance, but nowhere near the best I've read.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like some of this author's other books, I feel this one is also quite dreamy and has an enchanting fairytale shade to it. For example, this very naive young girl is whisked away to Spain by a strong and handsome Spanish Nobel where she must live in a castle surrounded by beauty not to mention the jasmine flowers. I liked how JR paints everyday as peaceful and and yet the difficulties faced by the poor are also mentioned under the tutelage of the heroine's husband. The story is basically about how she falls in love with her husband and in love with her new home and even though there is nothing sexual between the leads the whole romance is really dreamy and sweet in my opinion.