Dear Tyrant

by Henrietta Reid

When Mike Kendall let her down, Helen felt she had to get away from everything and try to recover-and the job as secretary to Max
Renton looked like filling the bill. "lt might be interesting", she said to herself, "to show Mr. Renton that there's at least one female in the world who's not ready to jump to his bidding!"

Indeed the combination of Max's stimulating attitude, and the peace and beauty of the Kent countryside, did their work well, and Helen began to feel her old self again.

Genres: Harlequin Romance

192 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1977

Reviews

[Margo · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book reminds me of a Bible quote: "Since you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am going to spit you out of my mouth."

This H really appears to lack any fire. He seems to like the h and kisses her, but then spends months doing nothing to move the relationship forward. His proposal is lackluster and includes praise of the OW. If I wanted a tepid romance, I'd...wait, I NEVER want a tepid romance.

The h should have consigned this relationship to the spittoon.

[Margo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not enough romance, no love declaration, mediocre proposal, still a little too praiseworthy of the OW, etc. Just no.

[Nightwitch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slow-paced but sweet. The heroine is vaguely convinced that the hero has a thing for the local Spoiled Little Rich Girl, while the hero, I guess, is interested in the heroine? but also not really interested in pursuing a relationship? Like, he enjoys hanging out with the heroine, but for the most part the book is about everything but the romance - Helen coming into her own, living in a quaint small town, an assortment of entertaining side characters (including realistically-disobedient small children and a petulant teenager... who gets married at the end of the book, so let's just pretend she was in her early twenties), some mild adventures. When the hero proposes it's kind of an afterthought. On the other hand, everyone's pretty pleasant and it's a nice easy read. If you're reading this for some vintage simmering drama you're not going to find it, but as vintage romances go this was pretty nice.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think that, with regards to the theme of the story, it very strongly deals with "letting go of the past" subject. The heroine meets the Hero when she thinks it's impossible for her to fall in love again because …She has just seen the love of her life in the arms of her best friend, so she has suffered a double betrayal. Meanwhile, the H is already a prospective son-in-law of ow' s rich father when both meet. I guess this is why majority of the story revolves around om/ow episodes and we are supposed to follow trail of the changing feelings and chemistry between the leads. I mean it is a slow developing romance, but I personally liked the Hero and the heroine and the episodes of the familial interactions with side characters (hero's family , his aunt and her niece, the twins etc). The book is light despite being a bit tedious and and gave me 1950s vibe but it was nice and I was in a mood of a clean Romance.

[Toni-Lea Chin · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. The characters were pretty lukewarm and not that memorable.

[More Books Than Time · Rating 1 out of 5]

New author, vintage, sounds good! But this isn’t good. The h is a nitwit, constantly doing silly things for teenage drama type reasons and H is the slowest H ever. OW is a bad stereotype. I DNF and checked ending, same stuff. I didn’t see anything terribly wrong with writing,other than I don’t give a toss for the characters.

[Andi]

Immature heroine annoyed me from the first with her tendency to overreact and lack of sense. OW behaved like a spoiled b****, and blatantly so, you really have to question the H’s judgement.
DNF

[Rongbu]

Did not finish the book!