Sister to Meryl is the first novel I read from author Nerina Hilliard. She wrote science fiction short stories and plays but we know her best for lovely vintage romance novels with strong-willed heroines and heroes who fall in love the hard way. Sister to Meryl is my hands-down favorite of the seven novels I’ve read from her.

I like this because the heroine, Christine, will do almost anything to save her sister from a lifetime of regret and that “anything” includes marrying the man her sister is infatuated with, then tricking her brand new husband by fleeing down the fire escape after the coerced wedding. Wow. Sister to Meryl has all the elements: strong-willed heroine with strong moral principles, a hard, strong hero who melts into goo around the heroine, wonderful side characters, fun plot – blackmail, forced marriage, spiffy escape, near death, Rio, amnesia, realizing love at the hospital bedside, yacht cruise around the Mediterranean, Paris nighties.

Let’s start with the plot which is a doozy.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

Christine is worried about her sister traveling on an extended Caribbean holiday when Meryl’s letters start talking more about Julian Galveston than about her husband. Christine checks the back files at the newspaper where she works and discovers Julian has a very bad reputation, his name linked to many women as a debauched playboy.

When Meryl gets home she shocks Christine by admitting she intends to leave her husband and go away with Julian, that they are in love. The distraught husband talks to Christine who agrees to try to stop the affair. (The story implies Julian and Meryl are not sleeping together but Meryl is unfaithful emotionally.)

Christine cannot talk Meryl out of believing she loves Julian, in fact Meryl gets more obstinate, finally Christine goes to see Julian, accuses him of trying to steal Meryl from her husband. Julian laughs, says he is not in love with Meryl, that he’s not responsible for the foolish ways women respond to him, refuses to end things with Meryl. He offers to let Christine take Meryl’s place and asks her out.

Christine refuses, leaves. Julian says she will be back, and indeed after commiserating with Meryl’s ineffectual husband, Christine reluctantly returns to Julian, agrees to go to dinner with him. She does not trust Julian, doesn’t like him but she is unwillingly attracted to him. They date several times and Christine attacks him for his poor morals, the fact he doesn’t respect marriage vows, the way he seduces and leads women on, all based on his reputation. With her Julian displays none of these characteristics and treats Christine with great respect.

Christine has a good friend, Tom, and a very good friend and coworker Jane. Christine has no romantic interest in Tom but he offers to date her, even to pretend to be engaged if it will push Julian off. Jane tells Christine that it seems to her that Julian is in love with her and that Christine is in love right back. Christine doesn’t want to even think about this. How can a womanizer actually love someone? “His type of man” doesn’t do love!

Finally Christine gets her chance to show Meryl that Julian is a cad. Meryl’s husband takes her to The Retreat, a fancy nightclub/restaurant the same evening Meryl is dancing there with Julian. Christine agrees she belongs to Julian but dodges when he tries to propose to her. Then Meryl sees them together.

Christine knows Julian will be there the next night and goes with Tom to give Julian the brush off. Tom claims that he and Christine are engaged. By now Christine is conflicted. She is attracted to Julian, feels a strong bond to him, but keeps pushing him and her feelings away based on her prejudice from reading about his reputation. Julian treats her with immense respect and care but Christine cannot let go of her predetermined viewpoint.

Julian picks her up after work the next day and she insults him even more, refuses to say Tom made up their engagement, will not admit to liking Julian or his kisses, finally says “”there’s something in all of us – something horrible – and your type of man always knows how to reach it!” Julian is furious and tells Christine that he will live up to the black character she gave him.

The next day Meryl’s husband tell Christine that she’s leaving to go with Julian to Rio on Julian’s yacht. Christine cannot dissuade Meryl, in fact Meryl is vicious, claims Christine threw herself at Julian and is after Julian’s money.

Christine is heartsick and knows she must offer herself to Julian to keep Meryl safe. She goes to him and agrees to marriage, wondering whether she can duck out after the ceremony and lose herself to avoid living with him. Julian states he wants her, he intends to have her and he needs a mistress for his family home and a wife to give him children.

They get married in a civil ceremony and a have a small reception in Julian’s apartment. Julian’s aunt Helen introduces herself and mentions how glad she is that Julian found Christine, that he was glowing with joy when he came to tell her – the night before The Retreat date. Christine wonders whether Julian possibly could truly love her since he intended marriage all along, but she shoves those ideas down out of her mind, gets Helen to leave her alone to change in Julian’s bedroom, then locks the door and goes out the window to the fire escape.

Jane and her sister’s husband are waiting for Christine down below and they go to the sister’s home for a few months where she works in the husband’s office. Christine worries about Julian finding her and feels vaguely ashamed of herself for tricking him, but she convinces herself that Julian could not possibly feel anything sincere for her and that she is only attracted physically.

Jane’s family throws Christine a surprise birthday party and she finds a leftover card and on impulse sends it to Julian signed “from your loving wife” and sent it without a return address. A few days later Julian finds her and forces her to his home, Galveston Chase. He asks whether she can get by the fact he forced her to marry him and start over, but she is intransigent. They have dinner then he comes to her bedroom and seduces Christine. The entire time she says she hates him but she kisses and holds onto him as if to stay forever.

Julian is gone the next morning. Christine is mortified that she responded to him sexually, remembers that she was gloriously happy, that he held her gently and lovingly after while she sobbed how she hated him. Christine sees a news story that Julian is joining an expedition to Brazil and she is hurt that he didn’t bother to tell her. (Julian wrote her a note but she didn’t see it.) She goes back to Jane’s family.

Four months after the delayed wedding night Helen comes to take Christine with her to Brazil where Julian is near death after getting shot with a poisoned arrow and a bad head wound and concussion. The minute Christine sees him she realizes she does love Julian, that she has loved him all along. Julian has amnesia but he semi recognizes Christine, knows she is important to him, and regains his will to live. Helen gives her Julian’s delayed note where he says he loves her and will somehow find a way to free her from the marriage without divorce. Reading this Christine realizes that Julian had hoped to die from his wounds.

Once Julian heals they return to Galveston Chase, happy together, but Julian cannot remember anything. Christine knows they have a chance now to start over the right way, with love. Julian can’t remember their wedding and wants to remarry her before they sleep together, which tells Christine how much he respects her.

They go on a several month honeymoon cruise and are very happy together, Christine knows now that Julian loves her and that she loves him. She buys an enticing nightie in Paris that both she and Julian enjoy and it becomes a bit of a private joke.

Christine runs into Tom at a port and has coffee with him; when Julian sees them together he remembers everything and thinks that Christine has been pretending all along, that she still wants Tom, that she does not want him. Christine gets angry and tells Julian he is stupid, blind as a bat and won’t listen to her! Finally Julian believes her and HEA.

There is a nice epilogue a few months later when Christine is pregnant. Meryl writes to apologize and to admit that her romance with Julian was mostly wishful thinking. Christine tells Julian that she is so glad she came to “rescue” Meryl since it brought her so much happiness, living with him is like living in a rose colored dream.

Characters

The main characters, Christine and Julian, are vivid, feel real, act real, talk real. There are several side characters who play strong roles – Aunt Helen, Friend Jane, Friend OM Tom – and others with cameo appearances who have personalities despite their small roles. Let’s cover the smaller roles first.

Meryl We see very little of Meryl, Christine’s wayward sister. She kicks off the story by writing to Christine about meeting Julian and spending time with him while she and her husband vacation. In those letters Meryl seems like a star-struck kid, someone living in a fantasy world where she’s got her nose pressed against the glass watching Julian dazzle.

She appears once to tell off Christine for trying to steal Julian when she acts like a spoilt brat with a nasty mouth. Christine could have washed her hands of Meryl and Julian at this point; Meryl clearly intends to go her own selfish way despite how she hurts her husband or ruins her own reputation. The fact that Christine does not simply walk away at this point gives us evidence that she’s not going back to Julian purely for Meryl’s sake. Even a loving, dedicated sister would be hard pressed to give in to a man she detests solely to save her sister’s marriage after the sister attacks her viciously.

The mea culpa letter at the end that exonerates Julian completely is a nice touch. It gives Christine the opportunity to tell Julian she knew he was innocent of trying to inveigle Meryl even without Meryl’s evidence. The author uses little touches like this throughout the story to build the case that the love is real.

Meryl’s Husband This guy is a wimp! He doesn’t seem to have any idea how to keep his wife and relies on his sister in law to keep Meryl away from Julian. Meryl’s Husband (MH) is a cipher about whom we know little except that he’s rich, can take months off on vacation (in other words, he’s not running his own business full time like contemporary alpha HP heroes do), and loves his wife.

It looks as though MH tries to stop her incipient adultery by talking to her, trying to convince her that she love him, not Julian. Not sure what the right approach would have been but talking clearly was not it!

Doctor in Rio The small, portly doctor in Rio is on page in only two scenes, but both helped Christine realize how important she is to Julian. First he tells Christine that Julian doesn’t seem to want to live, then that he’s improved and will live since she arrived. Both are important because Christine has just realized she loves Julian but has not fully accepted that he loves her.

The Supporting Characters are Tom, Aunt Helen and Jane. All three do their best to help Christine realize that she and Julian are in love and are meant to be together.

Tom Christine and Tom are friends, good friends and neighbors, with no romance although Tom could easily fall for her. Tom cares enough for Christine to offer himself as a buffer to Julian, a fake date, a fake fiancé and finally an outside viewpoint.

As Christine’s romance with Julian intensifies her relationship with Tom becomes weaker, solely friendship. Julian takes Christine to The Retreat for dinner and dancing and Tom takes her the next night. Christine watches Julian the whole time she and Tom dance. Julian comes over and Tom claims he just got Christine to accept his proposal; Julian isn’t completely convinced until he talks to Christine privately the next day.

Tom makes it clear to Christine that he gladly will marry her and suggests she is in love with Julian and that Julian loves her. He leaves for Canada almost immediately after his date with Christine. Later when Julian takes Christine to his home he tells her he knew she had gone with Tom. I inferred that Julian truly viewed Tom as his rival and wasn’t certain that Christine didn’t love him.

Christine should have listened to Tom but she did not. Later, when she runs into him while she and Julian are on their honeymoon cruise, Tom tells her that he thought Meryl was spoilt, had pretty much chased Julian and imagined that he had loved her. This time Christine agrees with Tom although she still finds it hard to criticize Meryl even in her mind.

Aunt Helen In some romances the author has to rely on a 3rd party to shed light, explain, push the hero and heroine together, the “Well, John, it’s like this…” method. That is most unsatisfying, far better when authors use a third party to hint or show, not tell, which is how author Hilliard uses Aunt Helen.

Helen challenges Christine with her feelings for Julian and helps her to understand his horrible upbringing. His father did everything he could to kill any warm feelings or sense of loyalty or high moral standards that Julian had.

I liked Helen as a character and author Hilliard embedded her “Well, John” explanations into the story enough that they were not annoying although I do not care for this expository technique. (It’s fast and effective though.)

Jane is great! She listens to Christine, supports and helps her to run from Julian even though she does not believe that Christine is wise. She emphatically states several times that she believes Julian loves Christine, and even that Christine is nowhere near indifferent to nor dislikes him. Jane believes there is a lot of gray in Julian and in Julian’s relationship to Meryl and to Christine and she says so.

Jane forces Christine to confront herself, tells her bluntly that she is being unfair to Julian. After Christine returns home from their delayed wedding night Jane backs off some but is still there as the good angel on Christine’s shoulder urging her to honesty and to challenge her feelings and attitudes. Even though Jane never meets Meryl she clearly doesn’t buy Christine’s blindness towards her sister’s faults; likely Christine doesn’t recognize her own ambiguous thoughts when talking to her best friend.

Jane enlists her brother to help Christine escape, gets her family to make her welcome and to find a job, she gives practical and emotional support. Jane does not let Christine run down Julian nor is she a one of those friends who agrees with everything; Jane challenges Christine over and over about her misconceptions about Julian.

Most of us would love to have a friend like Jane: fair, honest, willing to listen, to give practical help and advice, but not slavishly devoted as to never challenge one to be better, to be honest, to give someone (and ourselves) a chance.

Julian Julian is the most interesting person in this story. He explains himself: “When a man thinks he has lost all his ideals and then one day he finds everything he thought he had lost done up in one attractive parcel, he knows he has to get them back somehow…” Christine refuses to believe that he is serious, that he loves her, regards these comments as those of a practiced philanderer, but we readers can see that just maybe Julian is serious.

Julian has moral standards that aren’t obvious from his past behavior. He did not entice Meryl, Meryl tried to entice him. He did not force Christine to be his mistress but married her. He was willing to die from his injuries to free her when he realized (wrongly as it turned out) that she hated him. He insists he remarries Christine before sleeping with her when he could not remember their wedding. He was willing to let her go to marry Tom when he thought she had been pretending to love him.

Julian shows one flaw initially, then later a second. First he is ruthless when he wants Christine. Second he can’t accept that she loves him. Julian is incredibly hurt when Christine lies in his arms crying how she hates him after they sleep together. He cannot stop loving her but he cannot face further rejection. He leaves for Brazil and later when he regains his memory Julian is determined to free her to go to Tom. He remembers how she cried and hated him, and he is confused about the honeymoon months. It’s easier to believe Christine still hates him and has been pretending than to take a chance.

Christine Christine has two main flaws that prevent her from immediately finding happiness with Julian.

• Christine is foolish and blind about her sister Meryl.
• She sees people in black and white. Meryl is all good, therefore Julian must be all bad. Even when she realizes Meryl is wrong she refuses to believe that Julian had not inveigled her away from her husband. When she sees Julian has good qualities she pushes those out of her mind and grimly, doggedly holds on to her prejudice about his past. A man like him could never love someone!

We see these flaws immediately. She worries when Meryl writes her about Julian, digs out news articles about his past, immediately assumes that Julian had pursued Meryl. Even when MH suggests that it was accidental that Julian traveled home on the same ship as Meryl, Christine refused to consider that, surely it was no accident. Julian must have targeted Meryl!

Later when Christine knows Julian better, even when she agrees that she belongs to him, she cannot stop seeing him as a super villain, almost a caricature. She clings to this belief, hugs it to herself, uses it to justify her behavior.

After the traumatic wedding night Christine goes back to Jane’s family and for a week or so is partly in shock at the emotional storm Julian raised in her and partly shocked and horribly hurt that he left the next day. She at first tosses it off as he was bored after sleeping with her once, later, especially after Helen told her men don’t get bored after one night, starts to wonder what really happened. She slowly softens towards Julian. She enjoyed intercourse with Julian, responded with ardor and emotion to him and that colors her attitude.

The trigger for Christine to realize her flaws are preventing happiness, and even in effect are killing Julian, is seeing him so weak and near death in Rio. She realizes she loves him and it doesn’t matter what he’s done and that he loves her. I don’t think she could have had such a revelation had she not spent four months away, had time to think and to understand her own feelings.

Why Sister to Meryl Is So Good

Sister to Meryl is one of the best romances I have read. Here’s why:

• Author Hilliard creates complex characters who feel real and who act the way real people act.
• Hilliard uses dialogue and actions – plot – to drive the story, which is Christine’s and Julian’s emotional journey.
• Christine’s flaws are real. They are far more subtle than flaws in more contemporary Harlequin Presents and they are flaws in character.
• The sex scene is fade to black yet intense.
• Author uses a familiar framework:
  • Act 1 starts with a bang and shows Christine’s flaws on page 3. She meets Julian and refuses to believe he is anything other than a heartless womanizer.
  • Act 2 ratchets the action and dialogue. Christine is increasingly desperate to free first Meryl, then herself, from Julian. She frees herself physically but now is caught emotionally.
  • Act 3 begins in the hospital when Meryl realizes she loves Julian.
  • There is a second revelation when Julian regains his memory and finally believes Christine loves him.

Usually in Harlequins the hero redeems himself, converts from his selfish/immoral/bullying/belittling behavior to become decent, to love the heroine. In Sister to Meryl Julian is never completely bad and in moral terms he turns himself around from past the minute he meets Christine. It is in fact Julian, with Jane’s help, who redeems Christine. And later, it is Christine who redeems Julian.

Overall

5 stars.

I got my copy from Thriftbooks and you can usually find copies of Sister to Meryl on eBay and other used book sites.