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Devon Interlude Vintage Romance by Kay Thorpe

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Kay Thorpe’s Harlequin Romances have bossy men and ladies who stand up for themselves most of the time. Devon Interlude is one of the earliest novels she wrote for Harlequin, published in 1968, and it is a pleasant, easy to read story which, yes, does have her usual bossy guy and non-doormat girl.

After her play folds actress Gail goes to her brother’s home, an inn he is trying to make a go of, in rural Devon. Her brother and his wife had helped her to get started as an actress and Gail is aware she owes them big time and feels guilty because she let the odd letter substitute for visits. In fact her brother has been very ill but didn’t want to worry Gail so she does not know.

In typical Harlequin fashion the first person Gail meets on her way home is her bother’s best friend Mark, who makes no bones about his contempt for her. He accuses her of coming only to get more money from brother Steve, tries to shame her for being uncaring and distant and offers a check, presumably so she won’t bother Steve and wife Carol. Gail is furious with Mark but is honest enough to admit she has been at fault not coming to visit or even to do much to keep in touch with Steve and Carol.

Steve and Carol’s inn is not doing well. They are “foreigners”, outsiders to the closed neighborhood and the locals don’t patronize the inn nor are they able to get tourist traffic. Gail takes responsibility to find them much increased custom when she makes a deal with a tour bus operator in a nearby town. He will bring people to see a local attraction, then stop at the inn for dinner or drinks. This works great and Steve and Carol are pleased and happy their financial situation might improve.

Gail works evenings at the inn and meets a couple younger men who suggest she get involved with the local drama club which they claim is significantly better than the average amateur group. She is a little reluctant but agrees to step in when the lady playing the lead in the play they are rehearsing has to quit. She is impressed with the script and quality of the acting but nearly quits when she realizes that Mark is directing the play.

Mark apologizes for offering her the check and Gail agrees to start fresh with him. They go to the beach and spend time together and Gail realizes she is nearly over the infatuation she had with Paul, an actor she worked with several years. She’s not quite ready to fall for Mark though.

Right about this time Sandra, a neighbor makes it clear she’s targeting Mark and Paul shows up to try and convince Gail to go with him and an acting company to tour Australia. Gail realizes she’s quite happy away from the theater but doesn’t want to stick around and see Sandra and Mark get married. The next thing that happens is that the man who plays the lead opposite Gail in the play gets ill and Mark steps in. Gail delivers a passionate and truthful love avowal in the opening night performance and Mark and she both admit their love and agree to marry.

The conflicts in Devon Interlude are understated. Gail isn’t terribly emotional nor does she brood about Mark or Paul or Sandra. She is slow to realize she is falling in love with Mark – she’s a little afraid since she has just realized she never really loved Paul and doesn’t want to make another mistake. As she’s facing up to her heart she sees Sandra and thinks she cannot compete. Sandra isn’t obviously nasty, unlike some Other Women in later romances, but she is clear that Mark is hers and that Gail is no competition. Neither girl seems to realize that Mark is going to decide Mark’s future!

The family relationships between Steve, Carol and Gail are well done with a light touch that shows how much each values the others without having Gail wallow in guilt. Mark too has some family issues (don’t we all?) and Gail is surprised to see the animosity between Mark and his father.

Overall Devon Interlude is a happy story without a lot of the usual nastiness we see in some Harlequins. Mark is a reasonable person who willingly admits he was too fast to judge Gail and Gail is willing to admit she neglected her family and that Mark, although he was rude and made vile comments, is willing to find a way to get along with Gail since her brother is his very good friend.

Kay Thorpe is a good writer and this is a good story with people who feel like they could be real.

3 Stars

I got my copy from Thriftbooks and other used book sites and eBay likely will have copies as does Amazon.

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Bitter Alliance Kay Thorpe Harlequin Presents

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What to say about this? How to rate it?

  • Writing: Good to very good. 3-4 Stars.
  • Characters who act consistent with themselves, character development: Good to very good. 3-4 Stars
  • Setting: Good. 3 Stars
  • Plot: Fair. 2 Stars
  • Drama, tension: Fair to Good. 2-3 Stars
  • Emotional connection between characters and with readers: Bad. 1 Star
  • Believable romance. Bad. 1 Star
  • Likable characters: Horrible. Negative 10.

The hero, Liam, is unlikable with few redeeming qualities and the heroine, Jaime, is foolish, lets Liam manipulate her yet believes she loves him. Liam has all the least endearing qualities in the Nasty Alpha branch of Harlequin Presents land:

  • Double standard in spades. He makes no secret of his past affairs yet holds Jaime in contempt for her past supposed transgressions.
  • He’s terribly jealous of any man she smiles at, much less hugs.
  • He instantly assumes she is on the make, a gold digger when he encounters her 2 years prior with an older, suave married lady killer at a conference hotel. I have personally seen younger ladies swept up in romantic imaginings, believing they are in love with older men with the guy acting as a combination experienced, tender wooer, mentor, safe crush. Girls allow older men’s admiration and pursuit to charm and flatter, perhaps seduce. But I have never seen a young girl, late teens, early 20s, fall for an older man solely for his money. (And if you think of it, a married man with kids, a wife, a mortgage, bills and college isn’t going to have a ton of extra cash to splash about on a young girlfriend.)
  • Yet Liam is convinced that Jaime is with older man Gerald solely for his money. He is beyond cynical. Instead of pointing out that Liam is hurting himself and betraying his nasty mind Jaime tries over and over to prove she is innocent.
  • He talks her into accompanying him to Kentucky as a shield against his former fiancée, now the wife of his Kentucky host. Yet he claims that the only reason he asked her to come and she agreed was to sleep together. He plans to tell his brother, to whom Jaime had been engaged when she met Liam, that she pretended to be his fiancée to get into his bed.
  • The worst thing? Liam does not, can not trust Jaime or anyone. Jaime herself points out that even if he believes her on one point, he’ll instantly suspect the worst the next time anything happens. He even suspects her of chasing another man, their host in Kentucky, when she and the host celebrate his horse’s race victory.

Jaime knows he’s not going to love her, that he’ll always suspect her, that he’ll never cut her slack, but she believes she “loves” him two weeks after meeting. Kay Thorpe tries to show a happy ever after ending with Liam pledging to start again from scratch on their wedding night. Since he staged their wedding night at the same hotel where he saw her with her older supposed lover, this doesn’t ring true. He may have regretted being so vicious, but that won’t last.

I do not find the romance credible. I think Jaime is in for a miserable time with a nasty, suspicious husband to whom she will constantly have to justify herself until she finally decides that even great physical compatibility does not compensate for living with a hateful man.

Overall rating: 2 Stars

I got my copy from eBay in a book lot and you can probably find copies on many used book sites, including Thriftbooks. I didn’t see a copy on Amazon when I wrote this review.

The Spanish Connection – Stereotyped Romance by Kay Thorpe

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I enjoy most Kay Thorpe romances but this one! The Spanish Connection combines all my most-disliked Harlequin Presents attributes.

  • Stereotyped characters. He’s Spanish, rich. He’s arrogant, thinks he’s God’s gift to women, bossy, obnoxious, uncaring. He files suit to take custody of his dead brother’s sons from their mother! That’s pretty low.
  • Our jerky hero is so colossally full of himself that he tells our heroine that men are always superior to women. Oh my, where to start with this one? Can we just take it as read that superiority depends on the individual and the particular area?
  • He declares he intends to “take” her and that it wouldn’t be rape because he is so gorgeous and sexy and and and. By this point, page 50 or so, I was gagging.
  • He expected all women to be docile doormats. (I worked with a lovely lady from Spain who was the furthest thing possible from doormat-hood.)
  • It’s nauseating to stereotype Spanish men the way this novel does.
  • She falls for him sexually right away and they sleep together the second night she’s in his home. Hey lady, get a grip!! He’s manipulative and obnoxious and out for his own agenda. And if you sleep with him you’ll be so confused he can lead you by the nose.

Plus the story itself is unconvincing. I just don’t buy the romance here. Nina is reflexively jealous of Rafael’s wanna-be girlfriend despite events; she simply sees Rafael with her and assumes they are sleeping together. That’s not love, that’s stupidity.

The plot is nuts, the characters don’t feel real. Even Kay Thorpe’s normal good writing can’t salvage this mess.

Feeling generous today.

2 Stars (I’d give it 1 Star except I did finish it and it is Kay Thorpe!)

I read this initially on Hoopla, which you may be able to access via your library. It’s also available in E format on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Harlequin.com. Look for paperback copies on these sites plus Thriftbooks.com and eBay. I got a paperback copy in a lot with several other books on eBay so it now clutters up my shelves.

The Iron Man by Kay Thorpe, Trip to Africa Gone Bad

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The Iron Man was a good news/bad news sort of book. On the good side we have Kay Thorpe’s writing, meaning the book flows well, the dialogue and interactions move the story, she includes setting and she does not rely on inner musings to tell us what is happening to Kim and Dave. The characters are well done, although I couldn’t identify with either, and there are several conflicts that must be solved and sticky situations to wade through to achieve the trademark happy ending.

On the bad side Dave is a hard guy to appreciate and Kim is a bit of a goof. Dave is iron on the outside with a spine of steel and is opportunistic, decisive, dominant but not nasty. Kim is silly enough to come to Sierra Leone in the early 1970s without a return ticket on the off chance that her fiancé had an accident/amnesia/complete loss of contact. She is convinced fiancé Chris would never ever in a zillion years simply drop her without writing to tell her the romance was off.

Kim has all of 20 pounds (somewhere under $1000 in today’s money) to her name, not enough to get back home and not enough to keep her while she looks for Chris. She gets up to the mine in the mountainside to find him, expecting a joyous reunion. (Yes, she’s that naïve!)

Dave fired Chris some time before when Chris got into a fight over a married lady and took off with said lady. Kim can’t believe that Chris would do this and goes willingly with Dave back to the capital, Freetown, to find Chris. Chris tells Kim it’s over and he won’t come home or drop Mai. Now she’s stuck with no way to get home.

Dave says he’s returning to England in 5 weeks and suggests they marry until then so she can travel with him at company expense, then they will separate and he will help her get on her feet. Kim infers he means a platonic marriage and accepts. Dave of course means nothing of the sort, thus the first conflict.

Dave is hard and unemotional – of course he has emotions but he doesn’t yield to them – and Kim is impetuous and often lets her feelings drive her, thus a second conflict and one that will endure.

Kim and Dave forge a tenuous relationship as she makes a home for him, insists the servant man clean the cupboards and improves the cuisine and he manages to relax with her. They are beginning to get along almost as friends when they go to Freetown for a weekend and meet Dave’s friends on the beach. Friends include Karen, an obvious former girlfriend, who makes it clear she’s interested in Dave and intends to get him. (It isn’t clear why she wants him, she doesn’t love him and she doesn’t need his money and she’s not interested in following him around the world to mining camps. But this is a Harlequin Presents so take it as given that all the girls want Dave.)

Old fiancé Chris shows up wanting money. Kim and Dave make a sordid bargain where Kim will stop pretending she doesn’t want him in exchange for Dave helping Chris escape the country and Mai’s relatives. This isn’t exactly a conflict but sand in the wheels of their friendship.

Dave runs the mining camp and is hands on. When a landslide blocks the road, incidentally blocking Karen in at the camp, Dave gets in the bulldozer to clear it out and the dozer turns over and crushes his arm. He lies to Kim that his arm is merely broken, tells her to go home, that he wants Karen, not her.

This third conflict means that Kim must confront Dave and tell him she loves him and she is convinced he loves her too. She’s on some shaky ground here! Dave rejects love to stay strong and invulnerable and now, with his arm in bad shape, he’s even less willing to admit emotion or accept Kim.

Kim pushes him, finally loses her temper and calls him a coward and not worth her bother and he finally admits he wants to believe she loves him. The story ends here but it’s obvious Kim and Dave have a long, hard road, albeit a happy one, because Dave now has a bad arm and a wife to consider when the next job looms. He’s a skilled engineer and leader but staying in a softly civilized country is a big change after traipsing around the world. Plus he’s not used to having another person love him or to admit to any emotional weakness. Kim’s a strong person despite being emotional and impetuous – witness how she took the rough camp and terrible weather and scorpions and lousy food in her stride – and she’s determined to drag Dave out of his heart’s hidey hole and I think she will succeed.

Please note the story is set in Africa in the early 1970s. Dave and Kim respect the natives and treat them as people but the book refers to Africans as “boys”, part of the baggage in any novel set in this time frame.

Kim Thorpe writes detailed and believable settings. Here we are in the hot mountains in a tropical climate, just before the rainy season lets loose. There are bugs, spartan living conditions, a gravity-fed shower and it’s hot. The rain makes mud everywhere and landslides and potholes and the road is full of deep ravines filled with gooey mud. The author doesn’t belabor these things but we can see them and think that we’d not be nearly as cheerful as Kim.

My favorite romances make me feel like I’m right there, they have a sense of immediacy and movement. The Iron Man doesn’t quite manage that. I felt more like I was watching the story than living it.

I got my paperback copy on eBay in a Kay Thorpe lot (so far my only eBay book purchase that had damaged books) and you can probably find this on Thriftbooks. Archive.org has a pdf copy you can borrow but there is no version for an E reader.

Rating this is a bit of a six of one, half a dozen of another. The plot was nothing outstanding, the setting was excellent. Characters were a mix with the minor characters being 2-dimensional and the main characters reasonably well developed although not terribly sympathetic.

At first I thought Kim was a dope but her better qualities grew on me in retrospect; I realized that it takes a fine character to cheerfully accept mud, heat, bad food and primitive living conditions! Dave has many great qualities but he hides his compassion and I wonder about fidelity.

Because I couldn’t identify with any of the characters or feel like I knew them, or that they are real people, I’m rating this

3 Stars

The Billion-Dollar Bride – Real Stinker by Kay Thorpe

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I read this stinker of a Harlequin Presents last fall through Hoopla and now got the paperback version in a book lot on eBay. Ugh. Much as I enjoy Kay Thorpe’s writing The Billion-Dollar Bride is boring, pretentious, stupid, with an on-again/off-again “heroine” who dumps her loving adoptive family to embrace the mega-rich lifestyle that her grandfather-by-blood has left her.

See, her nasty old grandfather forced his unwed daughter, heroine’s birth mother, to give her up for adoption but now has second thoughts and wants forgiveness. In the meantime birth mom and birth grandma died and good old grandpa remarried and adopted his stepchildren, making his adopted son the heir to his fortune and boss of his companies. (He gave stepdaughter – whom he also adopted – money but no affection.) He decides to leave his “real daughter” (our heroine) an enormous fortune provided she marries her step/adopted/no-real-relation brother, the aforementioned company boss and stays married for a year.

At first our heroine is all set to renounce any inheritance and fly back home to England, but when she discovers the number of zeros before the decimal point she dumps that for a bad idea, stays in California, marries the hero and embraces the life of the idle rich.

So we have the step/adopted daughter, the step/adopted son, the blood/but dumped daughter and 2nd wife all in a happy circle. The most interesting character is the step/adopted daughter who is furious at getting a tiny pittance (OK, to you or to me it would be a lot of money!) compared to the heroine. Does the heroine give any of her new riches to this lady who is now her sister in law? No. Does our heroine act responsible for the company positions she inherited in any way? No.

Do we like the heroine? No.

Is the writing style up to Kay Thorpe’s usual standard? No.

Is the hero a delightful hunk we can drool over? No.

Is there tension or any romantic suspense. No.

The setting and minor characters get a lick and a promise, definitely not up to Kay Thorpe standards. The Billion-Dollar Bride is part of Harlequin’s Welocked! series, which includes some excellent reads so I was doubly disappointed.

1 Star

Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Harlequin all have E and paper versions of this stinker and you can look for used copies on Thriftbooks and eBay. Personally I advise you to skip it!

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Caribbean Encounter Kay Thorpe Harlequin Presents

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Kay Thorpe writes with plenty of verve and imagination, she combines setting and plot and character with good pacing and writing to create novels I almost always love to read. Caribbean Encounter is very good but I had a hard time liking the people and the revenge element.

Alex had almost been in love with Ian when he told her he was married; she, shocked and only wanting to get away, joined the ship Andromeda as a singer to escape. Clay is the cruise director and is Ian’s brother in law and he knows all about Alex. Except he doesn’t know, not the truth. He thinks Alex is one step up from a tramp and out to catch a rich husband. He warns her off the crew and warns her off the kind, older man who spends time with her. Clay sets himself up as the all-in-one arbiter, determined to punish Alex for chasing his brother-in-law.

The weakest part of the story is that Alex falls hard for Clay almost immediately, realizing how she feels when Clay’s attitude badly hurts her. Anyone would want to clear their name in this situation, especially with a nominal boss, but Alex doesn’t tell Clay anything, wanting him to realize based on her actions that she’s not a man chaser.

I have a very hard time with the whole you’re-a-bad-person-so-I’m-going-to-punish-you schtick. Sure Clay can judge Alex, although it’s a weakness to judge based solely on second hand accusations, but to be so self-righteous to think it’s his job to hold her accountable? I don’t get it. It’s normal to want someone will reap what they sow but it’s wrong to take delight in it or to be the instrument of vengeance oneself.

The romance is a bit weak. It just happened. Both characters are attracted to each other even though neither wants to be, and most of their interactions are each trying to get by the other. I didn’t feel love building as much as physical attraction compounded with being frustrated with themselves for caring about someone they distrust.

Minor characters range from barely there to also well-developed, with the exception of Clay’s sister, a self-entitled, vindictive brat stock character. Glenn, the older man who spends time with Alex (leading Clay to assume Alex is after a rich husband. Sigh.) gets short shrift. Alex sees him as delightful but someone who truly wants their dead wife or facsimile, and not someone that she would want to marry. Pretty insightful and a good plot device to use a foil to Clay to show Alex’s judgement and integrity.

It’s a tribute to Kay Thorpe’s skill building characters, setting and plot that we can read right through events we don’t like and still enjoy the story.

Thorpe set the cruise in the Caribbean, hopping from one port to another, islands and Venezuela’s capital Caracas, and Alex goes on several shore jaunts telling us about the magnificent beaches and hills and scenery. I enjoyed reading about places I’m not likely to visit. Thorpe shows us these through Alex’s eyes and we experience the sunny beaches and the Caracas hills through her vivid observations.

Overall Caribbean Encounter is a good book, I enjoyed reading it although the romance itself is somewhat lacking. The setting and good character development compensate, making this a strong

3 Stars.

I purchase my paperback copy in a lot on eBay and you might look there or on Thriftbooks as well as Amazon for used copies. There isn’t an E version other than the pdf available on Archive.org.

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The Shifting Sands – Kay Thorpe Romance in Algeria

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The Shifting Sands is set in Algiers, written in 1975, after the Algerian war for independence; hero Andre and other characters are French, and heroine Ruth and the other man Paul Brent are English. I continue to enjoy this book, even on a third read, partly for the great setting and partly for Kay Thorpe’s writing, but mostly for the convincing emotional development.

New to Algiers, young Ruth convinces Andre to take her along on his flight to a distant, tiny desert village where her father lives, but they crash in the Sahara miles off course and with insufficient supplies to allow them to walk the 60 miles to the village. This part of the novel is riveting as they must head to a tiny, almost dried up oasis to replenish their water before hiking further. Andre knows how to keep them alive through sandstorms, desiccating heat and bitter nighttime cold. Eventually they reach the village mission, but Ruth’s father is dead and she is very ill with a fever. Andre tells her Ruth father is dead and they will marry; she’s too ill and desolate to refuse.

The reason I like The Shifting Sands is that Ruth’s feelings follow a trajectory that make perfect sense. When Ruth first meets Andre she is overwhelmed and and she feels inadequate and gauche. After the crash she’s still overwhelmed – he saved their lives – and ready to fall in love, but he’s a bit aloof and she’s still terribly unsure of herself, especially compared to beautiful Simone.

Ruth hears some obvious gossip that exacerbates her lack of confidence to believe that Andre is really not interested in her. Andre gets bossy and possessive and forbids her to talk with a young Englishman Simone brings to a party, annoying Ruth who gets her back up and pushes Andre away. Simone makes a lot of trouble between Andre and Ruth, but goes so far that Ruth must confront her own growing feeling for Andre.

Kay Thorpe writes The Shifting Sands from Ruth’s point of view, making it hard to see exactly what Andre thinks. He’s extraordinarily possessive and jealous, angry at Ruth for talking to Paul or dancing with him – despite his own dances with Simone – yet he talks down to her, calls her child, tells her he wants a wife and not a ward but he doesn’t share much about his business or personal life with her. When he proposed he told her he would wait for her, they could live as brother and sister for a while. However he gets impatient quickly.

Andre takes her for a drive along the coast one day, which Ruth enjoys and begins to feel loving towards him, but then ruins it by taking her to the casino, then to dinner where Simone poisons first Ruth and then Andre with her lies. Andre tops the evening off by telling her to go ahead and despise him, before coming “purposely towards her” in her bedroom so that they have no grounds for annulment.

Nonetheless we can infer something about his feelings. Either he’s uncommonly possessive and untrusting or he’s hurt by Ruth continually backing off from him. One evening just a couple days after they returned to Algiers from the desert he comes to her room and puts his hands on her shoulders, tells her how lovely she is, little gestures like that that could mean he feels something for Ruth beyond duty. Yet it’s so easy for Simone to twist how Ruth sees Andre’s behavior; she tells Ruth Andre married her only for duty, that Ruth should do the right thing, leave Andre to set him free since his sense of honor will not allow him to initiate a separation.

Had Ruth been less unsure of herself or Simone less believable Ruth could have dispelled the nastiness. Simone started her little taunt by claiming that Ruth obviously had set out to entrap Andre, which Ruth most certainly had not done, and had Ruth talked to Andre about this, or been able to consider it dispassionately she could have realized that if Simone was so wrong about Ruth she may have been wrong about Andre as well. Andre too is caught in Simone’s net of cruel lies and doesn’t take time to talk to Ruth before deciding he needs to consummate their marriage to make an annulment impossible.

Eventually Ruth and Andre manage to realize how Simone has twisted and manipulated events, that they truly do care about each other, and they have the requisite happy ending.

Kay Thorpe writes well – as you can imagine when you realize she took a basic romance plot, a short 154 page novel, and made it into a compelling, enjoyable story about two people who find each other. The desert of the Sahara is a metaphor for the arid waste both Ruth and Andre have in their hearts before they come together. They escape the Sahara by dint of Andre’s leadership and Ruth’s determined slog and they conquer their heartaches by trusting each other enough to tell the truth in a moment.

It’s also a tribute to her skill that the short scene where Andre comes “purposely towards her” has more emotional punch than a lot of authors manage to get with paragraphs of lurid encounter. That simple phrase makes us think about what must come next.

4 Stars

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Amazon has several copies of the paperback edition in stock but unfortunately this is not available on Kindle or via Harlequin on Glose. I got my copy of The Shifting Sands from Thriftbooks and you can read a pdf version from Archive.org or check eBay for paperbacks.

A Man of Means Romance by Kay Thorpe

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Ugh. The story is reasonably good – Kay Thorpe knows how to engage us with her characters – but this is another novel of a 35 year old man and a 17 year old girl. That’s just icky.

True, Dana truly loves Mark is determined to grow up and be the best wife she can be, but… The story runs about 4 months, a month before marriage and 3 months after, and it’s clear that the two have serious issues together. Their biggest problem is that Mark doesn’t think he should be in love with Dana, that he knows she is too young and he’s a bit ashamed of desiring her.

The problems escalate because Mark’s younger brother Brendon falls for Dana too, and bewildered by Mark’s attitude and lonely, Dana enjoys Brendon’s company. Brendon tries hard to steal Dana from Mark, at which point Mark virtually rapes Dana, then somehow seduces her immediately after. (Double yuck!)

Brendon brings in another complication with Marion, the girl both he and Mark had considered marrying. Marion acts decently – we don’t get any of the scenes with her acting seductive or proprietorial – but Dana now is convinced that Mark doesn’t love her and never will love her. And now she’s pregnant. Pregnant by the man who doesn’t want her for his wife.

Or so she thinks.

Most of the pair’s problems would have gone away if Dana had something to do besides sit around home, she’s even tired of reading. Brendon is no fool and takes solid advantage of her boredom and how useless she feels. And of course if Mark could ever bring himself to tell Dana how he really feels, but this is a Harlequin Presents so no hero ever says what he means.

Kay Thorpe writes well and creates believable characters, even those with a huge age discrepancy, and we can feel desolate and lonely and rejected along with Dana. A Man of Means is not one of Thorpe’s best but it is pretty good, quite enjoyable.

3 Stars

I got my copy from Thriftbooks, and at the moment Amazon has a copy of the paperback and the pdf version is here on Archive.org. I don’t see a Kindle version except of the comic book version.

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