100% Pure Betty

Betty Michele sent us an email about Dearest Eulalia--why wasn't it on the list of Betty Books? Well, we'd overlooked it as it was hidden away in a compilation. Betty Debbie was sure she'd read it and was doubly sure that she owned it. But since she is here with me in Portland and away from her book stash in Seattle we'd have to have help remembering which one it was. Enter Doctor van der Stevejinck. Betty Debbie's husband wasn't too proud to read off the back of the book blurb over the phone and then, when that failed to sufficiently jog our memories, to read the opening paragraph.
But that got us thinking about those fabulous sentences that come before the main blurb. If the novel is a field of barley and the blurb is a Jägermeister then the sentence is 100 percent Pure Grain Alcohol--a Betty Book distilled to its most potent and elemental point.

To that end I offer a few (in a continuing series) of back cover distillations:


What was the truth about Penny?--Cobweb Morning (Boy, I don't know, but do I ever want to find out!)

Love and then hate. It was a seesaw.--Grasp a Nettle (But it isn't called Grasp a Seesaw. I must read further...)

So near...yet so far...--Only By Chance (It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, it was the best of times it was the worst of times...)

I don't want my life disturbed.--Caroline's Waterloo (What could be so disturbing about a mousy staff nurse? I'm sure she'll sit there quietly and you won't notice a thing.)

Were Dutch doctors always so arrogant?--The Course of True Love (Yes they are, dear heart.)