What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

I think this was a simple Harlequin, but don't really remember for sure. At the time I was in hospital for about 10 days and a friend brought me a bag full of old romance novels on, as she said, the theory that I didn't have to THINK to read them, and with meds and all, I wasn't really able to concentrate a lot.

In this story, the heroine is a nurse. She gets lost going to stay at a friends cottage and altho she doesn't know it, she's at the wrong house. Its late when she gets there, so she goes in, takes a quick shower and goes to bed. Next morning the hero shows up with his niece and nephew, who he has custody of since the death of his brother and sister-in-law. He has a not so mild panic attack because the sister-in-law's sister is on her way there to check out how the children are being raised, since she wants custody of them. The h/H turn out to have attended the same wedding several years before, one where the girl (who was a teenager at the time) was a junior bridesmaid and I believe that the groom was related to our hero. The woman promptly "dresses down" so that she looks plain, and pretends to be older than she is to the aunt. She also lets her think that she and the hero are cousins, which is why she's there to be nursemaid to the children.

Other things I remember--she calls her parents when the aunt leaves and tells them to hide the pictures of her so that the aunt doesn't know what she "really" looks like. The aunt goes to her parents house to try to cause trouble and get them to make her leave the hero without any help with the kids.

The aunt gives the little girl (there is a girl and boy) a china (or some other hard bodied, "fancy" doll) and tries to take away the ragdoll that the little girl sleeps with.

The aunt is arguing that the uncle isn't "fit" based on the fact that he supposedly had a brief affair with some girl that had been in love with his brother (who, I just remembered was his identical twin).

(view spoiler)[It turns out that the hero was NOT the one with the girl, that there was no affair, that the Aunt had been trying at that point to break up her sister and brother-in-law's marriage and that's why the brother was with the other woman. The dead mother sent a letter to her sister telling her that she KNEW what had happened, and that it wasn't her brother-in-law at all, but her husband. I'm not altogether sure if they were married then or were just engaged. (hide spoiler)]

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Bump and I found a book that has a cover similar to what I remember of this book.

This is totally an Essie Summers. I shall go look...

No Orchids by Request

I like actually recognizing the books! Slight chance it's another Summers, but I really do think it's this one.

ETA: I read it in an omnibus, which has a different cover. The cover isn't in Goodreads.

ETA2: Although there are other covers for the book itself. How 'bout this one?

Not No Orchids by Request. The female character doesn't seem to have had any past love problems. And at first, she's just helping out the main character because she feels guilty that her mistake might cost him the kids.

I'll check out other books by Essie Summer and see if I recognize them or not.

Damn. You're right, I got distracted by the identical brother (it's a cousin in "Orchid") being a womanizer. I'll let you look, if you don't see it I'll give it another go. It's a very Summers plot.

Ok, I've gone through all of her books (yes, I'm obsessive) and there was only ONE book that it could possibly be--and even that doesn't seem like a total match. I found a used copy and have ordered it. Now to see what happens when it arrives.

(Not by Appointment was the only one that came even close, for inquiring minds.)

I can't stop myself. Could it be Not by Appointment? I don't remember the book well enough to be sure. Or The Forbidden Valley? Where No Roads Go?

There were others where I was kind of going "well, maybe...."

I mean, this is *really* very Summers-ish.

I'm waiting on the Not by Appointment book to get here. But the other 2 you suggested aren't even close. And I'm not totally sure about the Appointment book either. But it was the closest in the blurb. But we all know how well those blurbs showcase the contents of the book, right?

So, it's just a waiting game now.

It's been a lot of years, but I've read nearly all of them, and I was only sure I knew which one about half of them are. If only I had more detail... Found a Wiki and everything, but it didn't help.

Plus I reread some but not others.

It doesn't match entirely either, but I keep thinking of South Island Stowaway. The heroine breaks into what she thinks is her brother's car and hides, then discovers a stranger is driving it. She's in the car for hours and pops out when he arrives, after a ferry ride and after a cat jumps in too, at a South Island home. She ends up taking care of his nieces and/or nephews; they need help for when his aunt Lydia (a seller of purple from Tyre is mentioned several times) comes back from the hospital after a broken leg. Or maybe until she comes back.

The junior bridesmaid thing makes me think of Sweet Are the Ways. Elspeth moves into a cottage next to the manse, where she plans to write for a living. She ends up caring for the Reverend Dougal MacNab and his kids, and she has a scandal in her past (sort of). Anyway, I *think* she's the one with a cousin in common at whose wedding she was a junior bridesmaid. A prudish church lady is determined to find scandal.

I really wish I'd not gotten rid of a lot of my old Harlequins back when.

I keep seeing bits that remind me of different books, but Summers did kind of mix and match different elements sometimes.


ETA: Or the omnibus has two books I wondered about - No Legacy For Lindsay / No Orchids By Request / Sweet Are The Ways. Wrong kind of cover though when I googled.

AAANNNNDDDDD---we have a winner ladies and gentlemen. Not by Appointment is my long missing book. :o)

Thanks all.

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!