Pineapple Girl is a Type 2 Betty Neels romance, a courtship/love story complicated by The Other Woman. There are some really neat moments, especially towards the end when heroine Eloise Bennett saves a young boy, but overall it is one of Betty’s less memorable novels.
Eloise’s mom’s old friend Deborah Pringle lives in (guess) Holland and is dying. She asks Eloise to come to their home to give her care and company during her final illness. Naturally Timon van Zeilst is Mevrouw Pringle’s physician and he is just as interested in Eloise as she is in him.
A patient gives nurse Eloise a pineapple, which she promptly drops on consultant Timon van Zeilst, visiting from (of course) Holland. Eloise thinks Timon looks like someone she’d like to know, but he is in Holland and she is in England, it isn’t likely so she tries to put him out of her mind.
The complication is Liske, a young, very beautiful, very expensive socialite and Timon’s girlfriend. Liske isn’t giving up Timon without a fight! She dates Timon several times while Eloise is around, she drops into Timon’s home and acts as though marriage is a foregone conclusion.
Timon is quite silly. He dates Liske long after he knows that he doesn’t want to marry her. He isn’t completely sure he wants Eloise so he dates her too, albeit usually with Mr. Pringle and other friends or family. He finally calls it quits with Liske; as near as I can tell it’s about 5 dates past the point where he should have done the just-friends/had-fun-but-not-serious routine.
Timon feels terrible when he finally dumps Liske, says he was cruel to her, so Liske runs over to his house when Eloise is there and dumps all over Eloise, maneuvering to make it look like Eloise was extraordinarily nasty. Timon, being a RDD and thus not tuned into how low a girl like Liske would go to ensnare his plump pocket, rips into Eloise for being cruel. Eloise runs into the driving rainstorm where Timon finds her, again berates her for being mean, then she packs up and leaves for England as soon as possible.
Eventually Timon rescues Eloise when she is busy rescuing a small boy and takes her off to be married in the church down the street. This is the part that lost me. Last we saw Timon he was beating up himself and Eloise for “being cruel to poor Liske”, and next time we see him he’s got a special license and a date with the parson and a room at the closest inn.
I understand he wants to marry Eloise and she wants to marry him, but really, wouldn’t you expect just a bit more something between accusations of cruelty and marrying out of hand? Also, what gives with Eloise? She wants to marry Timon and it’s romantic as heck to sweep down and dash off to the nearest church, but I bet she’d later regret not having her Mom or anyone else around.
Not sure why I didn’t like Pineapple Girl more. The plot is decent, we see a bit of Holland, Eloise and Liske have pretty clothes and Timon is pretty classy. But it just doesn’t hang together. Harlequin republished Pineapple Girl in a collector’s edition with a red cover and new picture, so it’s obviously popular. I think the characters don’t seem like real people to me. Betty Neels was known for her warmth and believable characters and this book just doesn’t quite get there. It feels rushed.
3 Stars
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