Rachel Trevellyan Paperback – 3 May 1974

A but if a change to the usual format. Easy fun read for whiling away some time on a wet winter afternoon.

Its such an outdated story. Rachel was even disapproved for wearing trousers! Its just too much for me.Most of the time storyline was all mystery and full of non-sense. I needed a lot of effort to finish it.

The book was mostly set in Portugal so a winner for me as It is a place I love. You have to first remember the book dates from 1974; when you get that, the manners of the story seem less old fashioned. Just loved the story and was well constructed. Even though heroine was a married woman it was still very romantic and she did nothing wrong! Hero was dark and good looking. My only disappointment was the last 5 or so pages were not very strong. It seemed to just fade a bit at the end. Often find that happens. Anyway if you like the more vintage mills and boon story please try this. Anne Mather is the best.

Reading this brought to mind some similar writings by Barbara Cartland, except her stories mostly involved British titled or royalty. I’ll start by giving my interpretation of the storyline. Rachel, the heroine, goes with her old scumbag husband to visit someone who was supposedly an old acquaintance of the husband. The son, our hero, of the friend travels with them to their their home. After some drama from the scumbag and other interaction between heroine and hero, they find they are attracted to each other which leads to love after a lot of misunderstanding and drama is cleaned up. The before history has this old scumbag pedophile befriending Rachel’s Dad and loaning him money, with the intent to call in payments when Rachel turns 18. Rachel, so that her Dad will not be embarrassed or jailed, marries this scumbag pedophile. Even more outrageous and disgusting was that she has to have sex with this old pile of scum. Her cowardly Dad goes off and commits suicide and she has a nervous breakdown. My thought was that he should have shot this guy first to save the honor of his daughter, then shot himself. He did not, but Rachel should have committed the act before her breakdown and she probably could have got off by claiming insanity. But, she really was a good woman, unlike me, as I would have found a way to knock him off. Probably would have gotten sympathy from town, as he was nasty to and cheating a lot of them. A totally evil man, but he got his comeuppance when he tried to bully that acquaintance he was blackmailing out of some more money. He dropped dead to my delight and poor Rachel almost has another breakdown. It made me think about stories I have read about victims bonding with their abusive husbands and almost trying to excuse their actions. No, poison the scumbag and bury his body on the property somewhere that no one will discover until after you are dead. Anyway, I did not like novel, but the heroine in the story had all my sympathy and she deserved to have a happily ever after at the end. Also, thought the hero was a good guy and they would make a nice couple. But, she seemed too clumsy and insecure to make be a good Duchess without a lot of instruction from her new mother-in-law.

I liked this romance. Good plot, interesting characters. Good love scenes. But it would have been better if there were two or three more love sceens.