 |
| Betty Keira, shamelessly attempts to hide her sloth behind a bit of cheesecake. |
Not Once But Twice walked all over The Silver Thaw (who didn't have two good legs to stand on)
An Apple From Eve sauced up Heaven Around the Corner (who liked the liquor, or so we hear)
A Girl to Love clocked Judith
A Dream Came True flummoxed All Else Confusion (who sounds like she has a problem with that sort of thing)
And
Midsummer Star told Roses and Champagne to take a hike...in Greece.
 |
| "I'm Guy. I'm here to audition for the part of the feckless younger brother..." |
And Now for Section Seven--which I think is a stronger field, I think, than the last:
Never Say Goodbye vs. Never Too Late
Once For All Time vs. Year's Happy Ending
Polly vs. Heidelberg Wedding
At the End of the Day vs. A Summer Idyll
Magic in Vienna vs. Never the Time and the Place
You know that moment in presidential nominating conventions (either party, so I'm avoiding the rocky shoals of politics here) when someone says, "Madame Chairperson, the delegation from the Great State of [pick your favorite state], the source of [pick a fruit] and [pick a vegetable], the home of [pick an industry] and [pick an inventor], the state that gave this great nation [pick an innovation], Madame Chairperson, the Great State of [repeat name of your favorite state] yields to the not-nearly so great state of [some other state]"?
ReplyDeleteWell, Madame Chairperson, the delegates representing the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, home of Ben Franklin and Betsy Ross, the birthplace of the American oil industry, and the originator of the cheesesteak, hereby yield to Betty Barbara of the Great State of Maryland...or anyone else who would like to post their votes first.
Unless Betty JoDee is around and would like to cast the votes for The Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in which case she should feel free.
Oh my heck, you had their lines SPOT ON! Thanks for the giggle.
DeletePick me! Pick me! There are some great books here. Oh my.
ReplyDelete*Never Say Goodbye - I always remember this one because of the Poland trip. I like Isobel and how she cares for her (nice!) mother. I like the twinkle in her eye. I like lonely Thomas. A good read.
*****Once for All Time - My favorite Betty book! (well, tied with Fate Is Remarkable) Love Clotilde, love James, love Rosie. I cry every time I read this book at the part where Clotilde gets the bad news about her parents and when she's trying to deal with it. I catch my breath a bit when James is stroking her wrist with his thumb. Love the proposal in the snow. Love love love.
*Polly - This book is a treat. Love Polly and Sam. One of my favorite scenes is when Polly overhears Deirdre saying that Polly is dull and badly dressed and Sam comes back and is so gentle with Polly. The line at the end about the train station being paradise is perfect.
*At the End of the Day - Even after reading all of Betty's books, the thought of "at the end of the day all we need is to love and be loved" has stayed with me. Another good one.
*Magic in Vienna - I like Cordelia and Eileen and Austria. The ending is memorable for me. Poor Cordelia was so sad and hungry, and then here came white-faced Charles to the rescue.
Yes, I used the word love too many times. But I do love these books!
Betty AnoninTX
Never Say Goodbye
ReplyDeleteYear's Happy Ending Adore it!!! Love all the proposals!
Polly
At the End of the Day Love it!!! To quote Lauris, "Haec olim meminisse iuvabit".
Never the Time and the Place
Betty Anonymous
Betty Barbara here-
ReplyDeleteI regret I was unavailable to take up Betty Magdalen's passing of the baton/torch/whatever--our internet connection was down for most of the day (and,besides, there were basketball games to watch!)
Aside--Betty Keira, thank you for more gratuitous Richard Armitage. Sigh.
*ahem*
Now to the voting--I am ashamed to admit that I had to refresh my memory on most of these,as the titles of some were quite alike. But now that the memory has been prodded:
Never Say Goodbye--Yay! Rescue Nanny from Poland.
Once For All Time
Heidelberg Wedding--tough pick because I liked Polly, too (just not as much)
At the End of the Day
Never the Time and the Place
LEHIGH!!!! (I didn't watch the game, but it's relatively close to me, so you know, cool.)
DeleteI thought when it was male flesh being objectified it was referred to as "beefcake" not "cheesecake"....
ReplyDeleteand I apologize to Betty Ross whom I have never met for always reading his name as Betsy Ross and visualizing him in a mob cap with wire rim glasses perched on his nose...so sorry, I know you are really a manly dude :)
Betty von Susie
That's okay, Betty von Susie.
DeleteIf anyone's wondering what Betty Ross looks like, here's his bio.
Betty Magdalen, I'm so sorry you are not married to that Hunk Betty Ross! Instead, we will use his pic for one of our RDDs!!! Yay!
DeleteI like the house too. So adorable, and perhaps a bit of work?
Betty Francesca!
I forgot to add...
DeleteAnd we can use the house as a perfect BN house too! BN loved old cottages in the country!!!!!
BF
And speaking of marriage, does anyone remember the title/characters to the MOC where he has to babysit a teenager for one year?
DeleteAnyway, there is a line in there that the heroine said to RDD--(in response to his wanting to present a stable home example of what a good marriage is like to this teen)--And the heroine responds by saying she basically that she knows what that is and how to show it.
I always wondered and questioned BN on that point. How did a young BN heroine KNOW what a good wife was?????!!!????
Thousands of single gals in US of A are searching for the answer to that question, yet BN KNEW!!!!!
And, bless her heart, BN never came out and actually said it, she SHOWED it in the way her heroines behaved after the fell in love with their RDD's.
So, Betty M and other Europeans, is it in their genes? Because all the single gals of US of A would like to know the answer to that one.
mwah
Betty Francesca
The Convenient Wife. Venetia marries Duert, and his ward is Anneta.
DeleteBetty AnoninTX
Betty Francesca, I think Betty Magdalen IS married to Betty Ross. So we can't use his pic for our RDD. Do we have a pic of Betty Henry?
DeleteI'm not sure if this will work, but here's a photo of Betty Henry (tall one with a beard), me, and Betty Ross on our (Betty Ross's and my) wedding day in North Yorkshire, 2008.
DeleteYou know you could photoshop out the tourist taking snaps in the background, right? Haha! All those beautiful stone buildings, sigh......
DeleteBetty von Susie
Fab photo, Betty M.
DeleteYou are very much loved!
:)
B. Francesca
Betty von Susie -- The "tourist" is actually my cousin Lucy's husband, Jason. Lucy was my crone of honour (she didn't like the term "matron" and one can see her point), and their daughter Nina was the middle bridesmaid. Betty Ross's nieces Lucy & Amelia were the largest and smallest bridesmaids. If you want to look at more wedding pictures, go here and scroll down (it's a jumble of blog posts from 4 years ago, so not all the photos are relevant and no one has to read any of the posts themselves!).
DeleteBetty Francesca -- Yes, I am. And it's a good thing. ;-)
Betty Magdalen, lovely pictures - gorgeous children. And everybody looking so happy and content. And the setting...
DeleteIt just takes my breath away.
Just looking at your wedding pictures made me happy too.
Betty Anonymous
Lovely wedding photos, Betty Magdalen. Thanks for sharing. By the way, I can see Betty Henry as an RDD!
DeleteBeautiful pics, and I LOVE the name Bryony, if I had daughters I would name them all after flowers like the sisters on "Keeping Up Appearances". I would have a Bryony, a Capucine, a Poppy, NO CAMELLIA, a Daisy, and a Lily. They would all want to strangle me, no doubt. Maybe a Posey, too.....sigh.
DeleteSpeaking of British comedies, what would Betty think of State Registered Nurse Gladys Emmanuel from "Open All Hours"?
Betty von Susie
But Betty von Susie...I don't like beefcake. I like cheesecake. And I like Richard Armitage...so there you have it. Winning!
ReplyDelete"Winning"? That reminds me. Not only was this like March Madness. It was a bit like the TV show, "The Bachelor." I rarely watch it and "The Bachelorette", but I did this time. I was sorry I did.
DeleteI'll see your Richard Armitage, and raise you a Mads Mikkelsen. Het winnen van, kindje!
DeleteBetty von Susie
Het winnen van wat?
DeleteYou make me feel like such a dunce today.
Betty Anonymous
Don't feel bad, Betty Anonymous, this Dunce Betty had to Google Image Betty von Susie's Mads Mikkelsen. I recognize him now as "that evil, odd-looking guy"--he is much, much cuter than I realized.
DeleteThanks, Betty von Susie, for a new addition to my RDD collection.
If the on line Dutch-English translator is right that means "Winning, baby!"
DeleteMy beautiful Mads is not evil or odd, he is exotic and dangerous, but it is the sleepy eyes that get me, I am a sucker for "bedroom eyes", which Robert Mitchum perfected but forgot to patent.
Come wiz me to zee Casbah..You betcha toots!
Betty von sucker, I mean Susie
Never trust an on line translator.
DeleteBetty Anonymous
(Can't vote for the first set)
ReplyDeleteOnce for All Time
Polly
(Can't vote)
Never the Time (this was a CLOSE one)
This round was tough...not just to pick one, but to remember which book was which - lots of forgettable titles! Here's my picks:
ReplyDeleteNever Say Goodbye (with a shout-out to Betty Keira for her awesome pictures that go with the review!)
Once for All Time...very, very close - I like Year's Happy Ending almost as much.
Polly barely squeaks by H W
At the End of the Day by a hair
Never the Time and the Place
Never Say Goodbye
ReplyDeleteYear's Happy Ending
Polly
A Summer Idyll
Magic in Vienna
Never Say Goodbye/Once for All Time/Polly/At the End of the Day/Never the Time and Place.
ReplyDeleteA side note to Betty Debbie-How could you give boeuf en croute to "An Apple from Eve? It should have been puddin' for Tane, ask me again, and I'll tell you the same...
Betty von "get thee to a punnery" Susie
punnery? I don't get it? Did I mispronounce something?
DeleteBetty Anonymous
Betty Anonymous-
DeleteI was saying I need to be locked away for telling bad jokes and puns, most of mine are what is know as "groaners", people don't laugh they just put their hands on their foreheads and groan (and tell me I'm corny).
I was misquoting "get thee to a nunnery".
Betty von Susie
Betty von Susie, I knew about the nunnery part, but I thought you had actually made a pun in your comment and that I had missed it.
DeleteBetty Anonymous
Did you make a pun?
DeleteI thought I did but apparently it was so bad as to be unrecognizable.
DeleteTane was the hero. Queen of puddings. Puddin' for Tane? Puddin' Tane? Not funny?
Betty von "C'mon these are the jokes, folks" Susie
I thought it was funny. :)
DeleteBetty AnoninTX
Thank you Betty AnoninTX - We Texas girls have to stick together. Remember the Alamo!
DeleteBetty von Susie
Texas Forever!
DeleteBetty AnoninTX
Well, I thought that puddin' for Tane sounded cute. And I thought puddin' for Tane, aber bitte mit Sahne. The title of a famous song by a famous Austrian singer/songwriter. AH-bah BITT-uh mit ZAH-nuh 'cause it rhymes Tane. And it makes sense too: but please with cream - meaning whipped cream.
DeleteBetty Anonymous
Voting for the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, home to shoo-fly pie and the Liberty Bell, Betty JoDee casts her and Betty Magdalen’s vote for:
ReplyDeleteA Proviso—In the spirit of the 1948 Senate election in my native Texas in which a mysterious ballot Box 13, with cadaverous fingers voting in alphabetical order, showed up at the last minute from Duval County to put Lyndon Baines Johnson barely over the top for the win, I haven’t read a couple of the contenders but voted for the others anyway if I liked them (needless to say, The Hasty Marriage would not have qualified).
Box 13 vs. Prudence and Benedict (he peeled the little bridesmaid’s fingers off his leg and handed her to a red-headed goddess—what’s not to love?)
Wrist-stroking, been-in-love-with-her-forevah James vs. Box 13
Box 13 vs. Diet sheet-ripping Gerard (despite the horrific cover art) and Brighton-suggesting Eugenia
Uh oh, this one is harder, but I love Julia and Lauris (the air crackles with ahem tension) so they edge out rescue from leather-clad biker (but, again, a protest vote on the awful cover art—I should Photoshop a better one—this aside would be funnier if I could link to my Photoshopped artwork, but, alas, I failed Betty Magdalen’s linking class)
Charles the Bookworm vs. Julius the Darling—I prefer Julius to Charles, but the story is probably better in Vienna. Vienna it is! Some really nice prose in both though.
via email:
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting again,
Once for All Time
Never Too Late
Heidelberg Wedding
At the End of the Day
Never the Time and the Place
Betty Adrianne
I think maybe Betty JoDee had best stick to casting the votes for The Great State of Texas, home of the chupacabra, Enron, and Waco, if only because I have no idea what Box 13 is, and I couldn't tell what she was voting for.
ReplyDeleteOn behalf of the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Madame Chairperson, I am proud to announce that the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania casts all 157 delegate votes for:
Never Too Late (I love the wedding where they meet)
Year's Happy Ending (one of the better MOC stories)
Polly (I'm a sucker for the typist-heroines)
At the End of the Day (although it's more a vote AGAINST the hateful Corina than for anyone in ATEOTD, all of whom I've already forgotten)
Never the Time and the Place (if for no other reason than that there's a proper wedding and not because some dying waiflette requested it)
Sorry, Betty Magdalen, for inadvertently seeming to cast the entire delegate count for the Commonwealth.
DeleteAnd I was just using "Box 13," aka the cemetery roll vote from Duval County that handed the Senate seat to LBJ, as a euphemism for my shady voting practice of casting votes for books anyway although I hadn't read the opposition since it seemed that most other Bettys abstained in those cases.
See, this is what I have to keep telling Betty Ross. He's now a naturalized citizen, but he's not "American" (or, in LBJ's honor, Amurrican) yet. He still has to ask about sitcoms from the 1980s--Bronson Pinchot is our neighbor, but Betty Ross never saw Perfect Strangers--and odd expressions we have here they don't have in the UK.
DeleteI'm thinking, Betty JoDee, that you can take the girl out of The Great State of Texas, but you can't take The Great State of Texas out of the girl.
I have read all of The Canon (I think), but I still need to read the TUJD review to have any recollection of some of them. The Great Betty did not pick very interesting titles, although I suspect many of them were thrust on her by Messrs Mills & Boon. "Tempestuous April" is memorable. "Never Too Far To See A Star"* is not.
*Not a real title.
Okay, now I've got the mental image of Betty Magdalen teaching Betty Ross the Dance of Joy. Catch!
DeleteI know this violates any number of Golden Rules, Commandments, and Stuff My Mother Told Me Not to Do (not to mention The Bambi Rule), but Bronson Pinchot is uh, how do I say this politely? Crazy as a loon.
DeleteYeah, that'll do...in polite company.
So first he buys a massive house in our tiny town. He told someone that our town was like a snow globe: picture perfect and unreal. I'm pretty sure he thought it was a movie set--dormant until the director calls "Action!" and that's only after the STAR (Bronson Pinchot, of course) shows up.
Second thing he did was buy like eight other properties. At first, every one thought this was nice because some of them needed stabilizing.
Third thing he did was cozy up to an 80-something named (no lie) Betty. He'd take her out to dinner and call her his girlfriend. Only then he built an 8-foot high fence to keep her from stopping by whenever she wanted to.
Fourth thing: he sued the local historical society. This is where I join the story.
See, our town dates back to the original settlers in this corner of Pennsylvania. Nine men, some related to each other, came here from Attleboro, Massachusetts. They got Daniel Cooper (James Fennimore's dad) to bring them down the Susquehanna River to find fertile farmland. They settled here. (I live in the house of the "tenth partner" -- the house has its own website,, thanks to Betty Ross.)
So, back in 1942 when the town was preparing to celebrate the Sesquicentennial (150 years), they formed a Historical Society and got the use of a teensy little triangle of land and they put a hunk of stone there with a plaque commemorating the settling of the town. Then, in 1984, a local woman who'd lived here all her life spearheaded a campaign to have a gazebo built on the triangle. The guy who owned the adjacent general store was all in favor...but no one checked the deeds.
So, when Bronson bought the general store (and tore it down because it was ugly), he bought the right to sue the Historical Society, claiming that they lost the right to use the triangle of land when they put a gazebo on it.
I was one of two lawyers representing the Historical Society. We lost. The gazebo was moved. The fact that Bronson subsequently appeared in TV ads for the bank owned by the judge's family is, I'm sure, coincidental.
Well, now there's a TV program on the DIY channel all about what he's doing to his myriad properties in our town. We watch it, but we're laughing at him, not with him.
My, my. What an interloper. You never can tell about people.
DeleteIt isn't the interloping that bothers me, it's the colossal narcissism. He really believes not only that he's single-handedly saved a town that really didn't need saving, but that we should all be grateful to him for his largess, design acumen, dedication to period detail. In point of fact, the little Greet Revival houses--which he bought, painted white and then left alone, are charming.
DeleteThe huge house looks like a bank. Nuff said.
But now he's dolling out a relatively newer structure and it's fugly. He insists on using reclaimed timber from old buildings that got torn down, so no lie, the place looks worse now because it desperately needs painting!
*sigh*
That's our local celebrity. Watch the show some time. It's a hoot.
Is there a word for it (other than misquoting) when you take a quote and replace the words to make the same point for a different situation, 'cause thats what I'm about to do to Samuel Clemens:
DeleteNow suppose you were a narcissist, now suppose you were an actor, but I repeat myself.....
Oh, and I have a request for a Betty By The Numbers post. I notice that this bracket of ten titles had 3 "NEVER"s and 6 titles with some clock/calendar reference.
ReplyDeleteCould Betty Anonymous give us the breakdown of titles: how many personal names, how many seasons, how many months, etc.? Please??
What I really need is a flow chart, or would it be a venn diagram, of the cross-over characters from book-to-book so that you could read the volumes in order of the connecting characters. Do any Bettys out there have the information for constructing such a chart?
DeleteSuch an selfless undertaking would be a service to mankind along the lines of lifting out spastics from an overturned bus or midwifing baby deliveries in a tent.
You can bet that Betty Keira would come up with some cool graphics for it. *prod, prod* *beg, beg*
Betty Magdalen, you mean Betty van den Betsy. By the way, Betty van den Betsy, where are you??? Are you catching planes, trains and automobiles - workwise?
DeleteBetty Anonymous
I would love a list of cross-over characters/books like that. Someone used to have a website that had book summaries (and other Betty info), and she always named the cross-overs/books. That website has been down for months now.
DeleteBetty AnoninTX
Yes, yes! Betty JoDee, my first ever post on this site had to do with crossover characters and how I have arrows going every which way on my list of Neels books. I believe the current term is a "spaghetti diagram."
DeleteHere's my spreadsheet, edited since I first posted it to Google docs for use by this group. I've added a few columns, like 'her nickname' and 'DR.' Those are still very incomplete. Of course it's riddled with mistakes, too, so feel free to send me notice of any you see.
DeleteI'm still working on BbtN pieces, but holding off publishing them during the torrent of March Madness Betty Keira has unleashed.
There are two columns for crossover characters -- when Gerard and Eugenia show up in Magic in Vienna, I note that in the 'follow up' column for Heidelberg Wedding and in the 'other h/h referenced' column for Magic.
I welcome your ideas, thoughts, suggestions.
Betty Lulu, can you link a reply to your cross-over character post? I couldn't find it using the website search. (Of course, I couldn't link it if I found it because I flunked Betty Magdalen's linking class; I do great italics and bold, however.
DeleteBetty van den Betsy's spreadsheet is Hil-a-ri-ous. I bow at the feet of greatness.
Betty JoDee, I can't find it either. Anyway, it wasn't my post that was important but the link that I got from Betty Debbie in reply. I can't find that either, but Betty AnoninTX said that site has been down.
ReplyDeleteHere's a spreadsheet created by a gal from Lou's Yahoo Betty Neels site.
ReplyDeleteThose who didn't have Word wanted access so I made a Betty Neels Google Doc
It's got the crossovers marked in the characters column as 'friends' and then in Notes Column she give the line reference for the crossover character's book.
Looks like Betty Van den Betsy has it covered, but there may be some details here you don't have. Hugs, Betty Mary
Oh brilliant, Betty Mary. I like thinking of us all ten years ago, wandering around lonely, wondering if we were the only ones who loved The Great Betty. And now, thanks to the magic interwebnets, we're holding hands across cyberspace. It's like the web was invented just FOR Betty!
DeleteIf you look carefully at the spreadsheet that Betty Mary posted, Tabitha is pregnant in Tabitha by Moonlight. Betty, we thought we knew you! I'm gonna have to read that again *laugh.
DeleteBetty Barbara here--
DeleteOh Betty JoDee, you tease! That entry is such an obvious typo that even I can figure out how it happened!
But it sure is worth a quick double take!! Thanks for bringing it to our attention. (*snork*)
The spreadsheets are amazing. However, doesn't some ambitious Betty out there want to use the information to make a flow chart for cross-over characters so that I, oops, that other Bettys could read the volumes in order from one set to the next to follow the HEA as it were. Does this make sense, or is it only me?
ReplyDeleteThe site I used to use is actually listed as Betty's Story under the Every Neels Thing link above. I found it before I ever found this site. I used it to check book summaries, plus there was some great Betty info.
ReplyDeleteBetty AnoninTX
Betty Jo Dee I don't do flowcharts and I'm too lazy to put this into a spreadsheet. Anyone who wants to tutor me, please feel free.
ReplyDeleteIn the mean time here is my low tech solution to your request.
Start here: Betty Neels Google Doc and follow the numbers.
If the grouping has more than two books: between the commas, the first # is the book the # in bracket is/are the prequel(s).
1, 3[1], 12, 16[1&12], 19[12]
4, 6, 18[6], 22[23&18], 34[4]
5, 33
8, 17
21, 29
24, 40
35, 39
52, 60[52], 69[52], 74[69], 118[52], 133[52]
53, 68
63, 67
71, 80[71], 84[71]
78, 85
89, 93[89], 101[93]
103, 113
I was surprised to see 3 groups with 5 somewhat connected books.
Feel free to ask if you can't figure my hieroglyphics out!
Edit: the second line should be
ReplyDelete4,6, 18[4&6], 23, 22[18&23],34[4]