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The Challenge
She was frightened but not of Saxon!
Debra desperately needed a job and gratefully accepted one from elderly Eleanor McAllister. She'd never worked on a cattle station before, but she would try anything!
Handsome Saxon McAllister, however, thought she was a conniving adventurer and made her life miserable. Yet tough as the work—and Saxon—were, that wasn't what made Debra quit.
It was because she couldn't risk a repeat of the past: Saxon meant too much to her....
Debra desperately needed a job and gratefully accepted one from elderly Eleanor McAllister. She'd never worked on a cattle station before, but she would try anything!
Handsome Saxon McAllister, however, thought she was a conniving adventurer and made her life miserable. Yet tough as the work—and Saxon—were, that wasn't what made Debra quit.
It was because she couldn't risk a repeat of the past: Saxon meant too much to her....
189 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1980
4 people are currently reading
57 people want to read
About the author
Kerry Allyne
69 books48 followersKerry Allyne was born in England, UK. Her early childhood was uneventful, she remembered, until her father came home one day and began talking about emigrating to Australia. When they eventually arrived in Australia, Kerry took to her new land with a passion. During the family's first years "down under," she explored as much of the country as she could, journeying northward into Queensland and out onto the Great Barrier Reef, and sometimes south through New South Wales into Victoria. As a adult she returned to England for a short time. A long working holiday enabled her to travel the world before returning to Australia where she met her engineer husband-to-be, and they had a couple of children. The family eventually moved to a rural area and she started to write. She used the people and countryside as inspiration for her romances. She was published by Mills & Boon from 1976 to 1994.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 19, 2020
Down-on-her-luck heroine saves hero’s niece from drowning and is rewarded with a job offer from the girl’s grandmother. Hero is not keen since heroine will be working for him at their remote Outback cattle station.
He thinks she’s a golddigger and will disrupt life on the station or she’ll be a poor secretary, etc . . . He’s got a million reasons – all insulting – of why he’s going to make life so miserable for her that she will resign.
Heroine is determined to prove him wrong.
The first test is the computer she has to learn to operate. Then the ute she has to drive.
Heroine proves herself competent, much to the hero’s surprise. Also to his surprise, heroine is good at cricket, earning the hero’s team victory at a community event. (There was a chapter devoted to the intricacies of the game that I didn’t understand at all. Lol.)
The hero eventually softens, but he keeps her away from any wannabe OMs. H kisses her after she wakes from a screaming nightmare. Seems storms trigger her because
So later in the story when she resigns and tells the hero she is afraid she’ll jinx him, hero realizes she loves him. He loves her back for an HEA.
A nice vintage story in the Outback, if you don’t mind a lot of bickering.
He thinks she’s a golddigger and will disrupt life on the station or she’ll be a poor secretary, etc . . . He’s got a million reasons – all insulting – of why he’s going to make life so miserable for her that she will resign.
Heroine is determined to prove him wrong.
The first test is the computer she has to learn to operate. Then the ute she has to drive.
Heroine proves herself competent, much to the hero’s surprise. Also to his surprise, heroine is good at cricket, earning the hero’s team victory at a community event. (There was a chapter devoted to the intricacies of the game that I didn’t understand at all. Lol.)
The hero eventually softens, but he keeps her away from any wannabe OMs. H kisses her after she wakes from a screaming nightmare. Seems storms trigger her because
So later in the story when she resigns and tells the hero she is afraid she’ll jinx him, hero realizes she loves him. He loves her back for an HEA.
A nice vintage story in the Outback, if you don’t mind a lot of bickering.
February 14, 2021
This one is surprisingly good. The H is a complete jerk and thinks the h has an eye to the main chance, but inevitably he falls for the h and it's fun to watch his maneuvers and jealousy As St. M points out, it is a bickerfest, but I enjoyed it and could see it becoming an occasional comfort re-read.
August 29, 2012
Oh, how romance has changed. This book, published in 1980 had a asshole hero and a heroine with purple eyes (that change with her moods.) There are lots of exclamation points!
Still, I liked the story and only wish the transition from dick to lover would have come before the second to last page of the book.
It's set on an Australian cattle station and we get lots of interaction between the hero and heroine. Mostly bickering and fighting. I'm not really sure why she falls in love with him, but can see how he falls for her. She is not the typical simpering heroine. She's got some backbone and I found myself rooting for her.
Still, I liked the story and only wish the transition from dick to lover would have come before the second to last page of the book.
It's set on an Australian cattle station and we get lots of interaction between the hero and heroine. Mostly bickering and fighting. I'm not really sure why she falls in love with him, but can see how he falls for her. She is not the typical simpering heroine. She's got some backbone and I found myself rooting for her.
August 22, 2023
In order to cheer herself up after losing her job, Debra Armitage went to The Brisbane Royal Show. It was there that she rescued an eight-year-old girl called Prue from drowning. As a means of thanks, the girl's rich grandmother, Eleanor McAllister, took Debra to their hotel and offered her a job as a secretary. When Debra accepted, little did she know that Eleanor had hired her mostly for her infuriating stepson, Saxon McAllister, who saw her as a calculating opportunist once he found out about the circumstances in which she was employed. It was an unfair assumption and Debra tried to make him understand she was desperate for a job in her current situation, but he just shut her up! Therefore, instead of trying to make him understand, she challenged him that no matter what he did, she would never quit her job. And lived to regret her challenge when she was flown to his house and she knew nothing about computers!
Debra is a delicious character who sometimes tends to be silly due to inexperience or fear of some things in her past. Sexon, on the other hand, was cruel and his redicling of Debra was too much at times as a main character in a romance story. However, it is still a very enjoyable story.
Debra is a delicious character who sometimes tends to be silly due to inexperience or fear of some things in her past. Sexon, on the other hand, was cruel and his redicling of Debra was too much at times as a main character in a romance story. However, it is still a very enjoyable story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 26, 2022
Very old school with forced kisses that were uncomfortable to read in this day and age. Maybe I could have bought it if they didn't obviously hate each other... until all of a sudden they didn't. It went from hate to madly in love in a split second. Nope, definitely don't buy it.
May 6, 2023
3,5 stars.
This is an oldie from 1980. A cruel H and an innocent h.
It feels warm and fuzzy that they didn’t bang each other the first night they met, like in so many modern Harlequins, and that he just fell in love with her.
He always wanted her there with him, he was always looking at her, he always wanted to be wherever she was.
This is an oldie from 1980. A cruel H and an innocent h.
It feels warm and fuzzy that they didn’t bang each other the first night they met, like in so many modern Harlequins, and that he just fell in love with her.
He always wanted her there with him, he was always looking at her, he always wanted to be wherever she was.
April 16, 2021
She was frightened but not of Saxon!
Debra desperately needed a job and gratefully accepted one from elderly Eleanor McAllister. She'd never worked on a cattle station before, but she would try anything!
Handsome Saxon McAllister, however, thought she was a conniving adventurer and made her life miserable. Yet tough as the work--and Saxon--were, that wasn't what made Debra quit.
It was because she couldn't risk a repeat of the past: Saxon meant too much to her....
Debra desperately needed a job and gratefully accepted one from elderly Eleanor McAllister. She'd never worked on a cattle station before, but she would try anything!
Handsome Saxon McAllister, however, thought she was a conniving adventurer and made her life miserable. Yet tough as the work--and Saxon--were, that wasn't what made Debra quit.
It was because she couldn't risk a repeat of the past: Saxon meant too much to her....
October 13, 2013
3.5 stars
February 9, 2020
3.5! I enjoyed this!
August 5, 2022
Honestly it’s not ENTIRELY bad? It’s a bit unrealistic, slow in parts, mostly flat characters, and I don’t quite buy the instant unprovoked hatred Saxon has for Debra. But it’s fine. I wouldn’t re-read it, but I made it through all right.
I know it’s unfair to judge writing from the 1980s based on todays standards, but JFC there is so much disgusting misogyny, gaslighting, Madonna/whore imagery and casual interpersonal abuse in this. At some point Prince Charming says, “thank god I didn’t rape you that one time,” like he wants a cookie for it, to which our heroine responds, “it wouldn’t have been rape, cause I wouldn’t have struggled much.” Hashtag romance.
One time he violently grabs her hair so it feels like he’s gonna pull it out altogether. He forces himself on her multiple times when she’s in a vulnerable position, once after a brutal nightmare about her dead parents and another by holding her down after she’s had a scary car accident. He isolates her from other people, constantly makes her feel shit about herself, and is habitually cruel for no discernible reason. No explanation is ever given for word motivates his fuckupedness. Look, it’s garbage, he’s garbage, this looks like a romance but tastes like abuse, and okay I’m dropping this review down to two stars.
I tried to read it as light bdsm-toned flirtation, but honestly it’s just garbage. The utterly nonsensical denouement culminates in him professing his love for her and proposing. Wtf? TLDR: garbage.
I know it’s unfair to judge writing from the 1980s based on todays standards, but JFC there is so much disgusting misogyny, gaslighting, Madonna/whore imagery and casual interpersonal abuse in this. At some point Prince Charming says, “thank god I didn’t rape you that one time,” like he wants a cookie for it, to which our heroine responds, “it wouldn’t have been rape, cause I wouldn’t have struggled much.” Hashtag romance.
One time he violently grabs her hair so it feels like he’s gonna pull it out altogether. He forces himself on her multiple times when she’s in a vulnerable position, once after a brutal nightmare about her dead parents and another by holding her down after she’s had a scary car accident. He isolates her from other people, constantly makes her feel shit about herself, and is habitually cruel for no discernible reason. No explanation is ever given for word motivates his fuckupedness. Look, it’s garbage, he’s garbage, this looks like a romance but tastes like abuse, and okay I’m dropping this review down to two stars.
I tried to read it as light bdsm-toned flirtation, but honestly it’s just garbage. The utterly nonsensical denouement culminates in him professing his love for her and proposing. Wtf? TLDR: garbage.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 21, 2025
Poor, little, orphan waif thinks she is a walking jinx because everyone she has ever loved has died in a freak accident, first her natural parents, then her adoptive parents, then a boy she befriended at an orphanage etc... So when she falls in love with her employer, a hateful, slut-shaming, jumping-to-conclusions, sarcastic asshole, she decides to resign, in order to save his life. Only for her paramour to entice her back with a literal roll in the hay and the the oh-so-romantic proposal: "When are you going to marry me?" Excuse me, sir? After all you put her through, this is what she deserves? A foregone conclusion inside a dirty stable stall? Good grief. And to top it all off, he waxes lyrical about that one night they made out and which he had to exert every ounce of self-control he had not to "rape" her and the heroine cheerfully replies that it wouldn't have been rape. Gotta love these Old Skool Epic Trainwrecks :(
November 27, 2024
Heroine (22) is a double orphan, down on her luck and desperate for a job - and a really nice person. The hero (34ish) decides she is a gold-digger and treats her with scorn when she comes to work at his farm as secretary. There is lots of bickering, lots of attraction, some fun scenarios and a very loving declaration at the end from the hero (who is smitten in a BIG way).
No real OW/OM in this one.
No real OW/OM in this one.
February 6, 2023
An oldie but a goodie!
A typical old style HQN story. From start to finish 8t holds exactly what you expect from an HQN of that ERA.
Very well written and characters you like or love to hate, a good relaxing read when your mind needs a little get-a-way.
A typical old style HQN story. From start to finish 8t holds exactly what you expect from an HQN of that ERA.
Very well written and characters you like or love to hate, a good relaxing read when your mind needs a little get-a-way.
April 5, 2020
DNF half way.
Too much bickering between the Hero and heroine. Despite the fact that I do love an old school outback romance I just could't get into it.
Too much bickering between the Hero and heroine. Despite the fact that I do love an old school outback romance I just could't get into it.
December 31, 2021
Cute with a sassy young h….. but believable!
March 31, 2013
Debra’s trip to the Royal Brisbane Show was to unknowingly provide a new beginning for her; out of work and with little money she thought the position of secretary on a cattle station was the answer to all her problems.
It did seem however that she was merely replacing one set of problems for another until finally resignation from her position became the only logical solution.
http://www.amazon.com/THE-CHALLENGE-e...
It did seem however that she was merely replacing one set of problems for another until finally resignation from her position became the only logical solution.
http://www.amazon.com/THE-CHALLENGE-e...
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews