Victoria Parsons, 23, copper hair, tawny eyes, is about to remove her drenched top in a disused powder magazine located in a cliff on the island of Guernsey. Oops. There happens to be a strange man in this not so abandoned shelter. Whatever shall she do? Great shades of Gilbert and Sullivan!Victory for Victoria has a fun beginning, and an awesome ending, too bad the creamy center is only so-so. I'm not going to go through the whole book, play by play...so here's the Cliff Notes:
Strange man turns out to be Dr. Alexander van Schuylen. He stalks/tracks her 
back to St. Judd's - where she works as a Staff Nurse. He just so happens to be a visiting consultant there too...so he takes advantage of that to ask her out on a date. Yes, a date. After making darn sure that Alexander is not married, this turns into the datingest book in Neeldom...a virtual date-o-rama, date-a-palooza. The dates are many and varied. Picnic tea, dinner at the Ritz, weekend with the folks, etc...and with every date comes kissage....Love is busting out all over.
back to St. Judd's - where she works as a Staff Nurse. He just so happens to be a visiting consultant there too...so he takes advantage of that to ask her out on a date. Yes, a date. After making darn sure that Alexander is not married, this turns into the datingest book in Neeldom...a virtual date-o-rama, date-a-palooza. The dates are many and varied. Picnic tea, dinner at the Ritz, weekend with the folks, etc...and with every date comes kissage....Love is busting out all over. Not everything is all sunshine, rainbows and puppy dogs. There is a sinister character who goes by the name of Dr. Jeremy Blake, but we'll just call him Evil Plot Device #1. He tries a spot of sexual harassment in the hospital corridors and is roundly kicked in the shins by Victoria and then clocked by Alexander. Best. Scene. Ever. He continues to be a re-occurring thorn...but mostly in a small way.
More dates, more kissing, quit your job, let's talk about weddings (without being actually quite engaged)...His pare
nts love her, she loves them, Holland is awesome...UNTIL....Evil Plot Device #2 - Nina de Ruiter. Nina pretends to be Alexander's old flame and spreads lies and deceit - like peanut butter on whole wheat, the little vixen. She drives a wedge and Victoria does a bolt back to London...
nts love her, she loves them, Holland is awesome...UNTIL....Evil Plot Device #2 - Nina de Ruiter. Nina pretends to be Alexander's old flame and spreads lies and deceit - like peanut butter on whole wheat, the little vixen. She drives a wedge and Victoria does a bolt back to London...While working at St. Judds, Evil Plot Device #2 (Nina) drops by on her way to Brighton (yes, Brighton!). #2 then uncharacteristically admits her part in breaking up the happy couple- and gives Vicky some advice on how to get her man back. Editor's note: I have a big problemo with Nina - I get the mischief, I can't make myself believe that she would go out of her way to help Victoria and Alexander make up.
Victoria writes an impassioned letter to Alexander and then proceeds to give it to Evil Plot Device #1 to drop in the mailbox. Umm. Does anyone else see a problem here? Handing a letter that is vital to her future happiness to Evil Incarnate? #1 burns the letter (this would be a Federal Offense in the USA - not sure what the Brit equivalent is...Crimes Against the Crown???), steals letters from Alexander from the cubbyholes and burns them also (more crime)...burns another letter from Victoria (yet more...). Things seem hopeless for our couple until Victoria gathers up the shreds of her dignity and chucks it in the waste bin. Off to Holland to confront Alexander! Cue a British marching song. She goes to his office and camps out in his waiting room. Victoria spends an entire day waiting for him so that she can have a chat - but he won't see her. He bundles her off to a hotel that she can't afford (she finds cheaper accommodations)...but Victori
a will not be put off. She heads back to his office to wait him out. Alexander seems to finally realize she's not leaving, so he agrees to talk...which turns into true confessions, which turns into kissing and making up. The end.
a will not be put off. She heads back to his office to wait him out. Alexander seems to finally realize she's not leaving, so he agrees to talk...which turns into true confessions, which turns into kissing and making up. The end.Rating: This truly was only so-so. There was more dating, more kissing and more applying of perfume than any three Neels books put together, but that wasn't enough to pull it out of the hum-drums. Evil Plot Device #1 is okay, he makes evil sense, but Evil Plot Device #2 is less than believable - there's no reason for her to go out of her way to fess up...I loved the ending - after the impetuous bolting. Victoria's siege on Fort Alexander is epic. Enough to bring the rating up to a treacle tart.
Fashion: Pink silk jersey with coffee coloured sandals, peacock blue silk with leg o' mutton sleeves, lime green organza with gold slippers (for the ball), cinnamon-coloured wool with matching coat and brown patent shoes.
Food: Crab patties, cheese board, ice pudding, cream puffs, Chicken Savoyarde, chocolate roulade, Pesche Ripiene, steak and kidney pie AND steak and kidney pudding (what's the difference?), grilled lobster tails, spring chicken.
Betty Barbara here--
ReplyDeleteSteak and kidney pie--Small bites of steak, kidney, onions and seasonings cooked before placing in pastry crust and baking as a conventional pie.
Steak and kidney pudding--those same small bites of steak, kidneys, onions are placed uncooked into a bowl lined with suet pudding crust. Crust is sealed with pudding topping, then all is steamed for several hours--as a standard English pudding.
paraphrased from Wikipedia.
I don't care--neither recipe sounds overwhelmingly tasty to me. But then--neither is a dish I grew up eating.
But Chicken Savoyarde sounds quite tasty!
Sorry I was delayed on this review, but I have been with many, many first grade girls camping overnight in the reptile house at the zoo. And yes, my skin in still crawling and my ears are still ringing.
ReplyDeleteThis book was odd for several reasons: (it was like La Neels was still working the kinks out)
>>Kissing. Lots of kissing. Lots and lots of kissing. (See above Dating.)
>>A Veronica with an unlikely and uncharacteristic change of heart.
>>RDD goes after her with a vengeance, utters few oblique comments, and nary utilizes a heavy drooped gleam in the eye.
>>Implied specific-get-the-smelling-salts-conversations regarding the scenery and tourist attractions in Brighton.
>>RDD pledges love and marriage half-way through the book with no convenience in mind.
>>Odd slips that shouldn’t have made it past the editor, e.g., he knew how old she was because she had already told him several pages before.
>>He claims he wants no secrets between them then at a crucial moment during a misunderstanding for which he was mostly responsible becomes a sphinx. (This could be chocked up to the Men Are Idiots Factor, of course.)
Nonetheless, this still showed glimpses of the Genius Who Is Neels:
>>Scene in cave should be stolen by Hollywood (heaven knows they can’t write any of their own these days).
>>Kick in shin with subsequent RDD quick jab was both sweet and funny.
>>Attempted strangulation and rescue better than the usual fall in canal.
>>RDD’s relentless yet gentle pursuit of her is utterly charming.
>>Their easy, time-consuming, humor-filled, bonding, constantly-running-back-to-her-every-chance-no-matter-how-brief -he-gets courtship is perhaps the most believable in Neelsdom.
Although I liked it I found it uneven and not as classic as I expected.
>>Scene in cave should be stolen by Hollywood (heaven knows they can’t write any of their own these days).
ReplyDeleteI heart you, Betty JoDee.
Great points Betty JoDee!
ReplyDeleteI liked a lot of this book - but you're right, it was a bit too uneven.
And, ewww, reptile house? Yikes.
As this is one of the Early Books (all of which I've reread several times, albeit not much in the 20 years or so leading up to this blog, aka Life Before TUJD or BTUJD), I rather thought I must not have liked it.
ReplyDeleteWell, I liked it better this time, although it's viscerally a bit hard because there is no more foreboding foreboding than a Betty Neels courtship that seems to be going well. And really, Dr. Blake's mischief is the cherry on top of the sundae that is Nina's poisoned ice cream concoction.
Incidentally, Alexander had proposed marriage just not given the ring. He proposed in The National Gallery. He'd even said that he loved her.
Anyway, Nina's rather spur-of-the-moment decision to exploit Victoria's naïveté seemed plausible. She's ticked that Alexander a) rejected her, b) got lucky that the first pretty girl he saw on Guernsey was Victoria, c) that relationship worked out to the point of betrothal, and d) Victoria is NICE and Nina, at her core, knows that she's not.
It's her self-knowledge that's key here. She doesn't explain herself to Victoria because she (Nina) is suddenly a nice person. She explains herself because her bad acts have far outstripped her intended level of harm. She probably only meant to make Victoria mildly unhappy; instead, she caused the end of the engagement. A lot of Veronicas wouldn't care, but Nina strikes me as not quite so thoroughly evil as all that.
Actually, it's the ending that bothers me. I understand the following:
- Victoria's decision to leave
- Alexander's decision not to follow her
- A couple weeks go by before Nina shows up to Explain All
But if Alexander can trouble himself to write (how uncharacteristic of him) and phone, why doesn't he seem happier to see Victoria when she arrives? He looks completely indifferent to her when he sees her in the taxi, he won't talk to her in his rooms, and actually seems peeved that she's there. What would he have done if she'd left? Yes, I know he has a flight to England booked (despite a lecture on how he likes to have his car with him...) but that also doesn't make any sense. When did he book that flight -- before she arrives, in which case I'm back to the Why Don't You Seem Pleased to See The Love of Your Life, Buddy? question -- or after, on the assumption that he'd torture her in retaliation for her (seemingly) torturing him, then, after she's left like a whipped puppy dog, he'll fly to England to make it up to her? That's cold, dude. Real cold.
So I would say it's a lovely courtship pleasantly scary because you know something bad's gonna happen ("don't look at those brooding clouds, my darling, I promise it won't rain on us...") and a not-nearly-as-implausible complication as I had feared, but when she arrives back in Holland, he's a rat for not wrapping her in his arms and never letting her go. Mince pies.