Uncertain Summer

by Betty Neels

A marriage of friends

When her fiancé jilted her, Serena gave up all hope of ever getting married. She was determined to be sensible about the whole thing; that was, until Gijs suggested that she marry him.

She liked Gijs very much, and she knew he was fond of her. Companionship seemed as good a basis as any for a marriage—who needed romance anyway? But it turned out Gijs was in love, and Serena couldn't work out who the lucky woman was.

Genres: Romance, Harlequin Romance, Clean Romance, Fiction, Marriage Of Convenience, Ebooks, Harlequin

197 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Evelyn Jessy "Betty" Neels was born on September 15, 1910 in Devon to a family with firm roots in the civil service. She said she had a blissfully happy childhood and teenage years.(This stood her in good stead later for the tribulations to come with the Second World War). She was sent away to boarding school, and then went on to train as a nurse, gaining her SRN and SCM, that is, State Registered Nurse and State Certificate of Midwifery.

In 1939 she was called up to the Territorial Army Nursing Service, which later became the Queen Alexandra Reserves, and was sent to France with the Casualty Clearing Station. This comprised eight nursing sisters, including Betty, to 100 men! In other circumstances, she thought that might have been quite thrilling! When France was invaded in 1940, all the nursing sisters managed to escape in the charge of an army major, undertaking a lengthy and terrifying journey to Boulogne in an ambulance. They were incredibly fortunate to be put on the last hospital ship to be leaving the port of Boulogne. But Betty's war didn't end there, for she was posted to Scotland, and then on to Northern Ireland, where she met her Dutch husband. He was a seaman aboard a minesweeper, which was bombed. He survived and was sent to the south of Holland to guard the sluices. However, when they had to abandon their post, they were told to escape if they could, and along with a small number of other men, he marched into Belgium. They stole a ship and managed to get it across the Channel to Dover before being transferred to the Atlantic run on the convoys. Sadly he became ill, and that was when he was transferred to hospital in Northern Ireland, where he met Betty. They eventually married, and were blessed with a daughter. They were posted to London, but were bombed out. As with most of the population, they made the best of things.

When the war finally ended, she and her husband were repatriated to Holland. As his family had believed he had died when his ship went down, this was a very emotional homecoming. The small family lived in Holland for 13 years, and Betty resumed her nursing career there. When they decided to return to England, Betty continued her nursing and when she eventually retired she had reached the position of night superintendent.

Betty Neels began writing almost by accident. She had retired from nursing, but her inquiring mind had no intention of vegetating, and her new career was born when she heard a lady in her local library bemoaning the lack of good romance novels. There was little in Betty's background to suggest that she might eventually become a much-loved novelist.

Her first book, Sister Peters in Amsterdam, was published in 1969, and by dint of often writing four books a year, she eventually completed 134 books. She was always quite firm upon the point that the Dutch doctors who frequently appeared in her stories were *not* based upon her husband, but rather upon an amalgam of several of the doctors she met while nursing in Holland.

To her millions of fans around the world, Betty Neels epitomized romance. She was always amazed and touched that her books were so widely appreciated. She never sought plaudits and remained a very private person, but it made her very happy to know that she brought such pleasure to so many readers, while herself gaining a quiet joy from spinning her stories. It is perhaps a reflection of her upbringing in an earlier time that the men and women who peopled her stories have a kindliness and good manners, coupled to honesty and integrity, that is not always present in our modern world. Her myriad of fans found a warmth and a reassurance of a better world in her stories, along with characters who touched the heart, which is all and more than one could ask of a romance writer. She received a great deal of fan mail, and there was always a comment upon the fascinating places she visited in her stories. Quite often those of her fans fortunate enough to visit Ho

Reviews

[Melindam]

2,5 stars

Even with cutting all the necessary slack for the shortness and the vintage-romance genre, the obtuse self-delusion of the female MC was both painful and tedious to read about.

[Grrrrace · Rating 4 out of 5]

A BN “heroine in love with OM” tale that basically flips the premise of one of my absolute faves, The Hasty Marriage: in Uncertain Summer (from 1972), it’s the heroine who’s in love with the hero’s unworthy relative (a cousin) and the hero who proposes an MoC when that ill-advised "relationship" crashes and burns. THM is far more angsty (because we really feel Laura’s unhappiness through the heroine-only PoV) but US provides its own emotional ride with a far nicer hero and a heroine who manages to be likable despite her initial self-delusion and confusion.

Serena Potts is not the first BN heroine to think herself in love with a cad but she’s possibly the most impetuous and foolish about it: quitting her job and heading off to Holland on the basis of some vague hints that marriage may be in the offing. “Be your age, ducky,” her best friend warns her—clearly, Laurens van Amstel is no romantic hero, just a selfish and spoiled young man out for some lighthearted flirtation and fun, with no moral compass. We certainly know: it’s his bad driving (could a flag be more red in a BN book?) that brings him to Serena’s hospital, where he temporarily enchants her with his smooth talk and his bright blue eyes. Alas, there will be little serenity for Serena in the course of this book.

Laurens is quite a different kettle of fish than his massive, placid-seeming, handsome RDD cousin, Gijs van Amstel. Our hero Gijs, instantly smitten by Serena’s dark “gipsy” beauty, can plainly see the heartbreak and disillusion coming for Serena at the hands of his feckless cousin. He does his best to mitigate the hurt where he can but he’s got skin in the game too. So he waits patiently to pick up the pieces.

Serena is dazzled and confused—the latter, particularly, since her inner voice keeps whispering all the ways in which Gijs is so much more admirable, likable, and fanciable than his cousin. As we know from many another BN book, there is a huge difference between love and infatuation, and Serena has puffed Laurens up in her romantic imagination to be something he’s not. She’s also, unwillingly and unacknowledged, falling in love—true love—with Gijs, whom she’d barely allowed herself to notice at first but who soon is intruding upon her Laurens-fantasy, making her unsettled and shy.

Nonetheless, Serena is knocked for a loop when she discovers that Laurens-the-player has another girl lined up to (eventually) be his bride, and she’s been a fool. By that time, Serena has at least admitted to herself that she really really likes Gijs, more than anyone, even Laurens, so although she’s still shocked and hurt by Laurens’ callousness, she doesn’t dismiss Gijs offer of an MoC outright. In an unusually blunt manner, our RDD tells her he’d like to marry her for companionship and mutual convenience—“someone to share my table, but, not, I hasten to add, my bed” (whew! My imagination makes this hot stuff somehow. :-D). He proposes a marriage that will be “friendly and businesslike, at least until such time as you—we—should have got to know each other really well.” He believes in marriage for life, he says, but in their case, they’ll see how it goes. But we know, through the many “tells” that Betty gives us despite no hero PoV, that Gijs is in love with Serena and hopeful that she’ll fall in love with him once the path is clear.

Serena is increasingly drawn to and reliant on Gijs, while her feelings for Laurens are fading quickly, but she doesn’t want to see herself as being so fickle as to discard her “love” for Laurens so quickly, even though Gijs has become so much more important to her. Gijs takes her to stay with his parents, who are wonderfully welcoming (unlike Laurens’ mother) and very understanding.
Gijs takes her back to England (where they visit a happily married Hugo and Sarah from Fate Is Remarkable and their one-year-old twins). The next day, Gijs drives Serena home and we discover that he has allies in her parents—her mother, in particular, seems to have been taken into Gijs confidence and knows that he’s in love with her daughter. When Serena realizes that if Gijs leaves without an answer to his proposal, she’ll likely never see him again, she accepts his offer, almost in a panic. He tells her they’ll have a traditional white wedding (with just a month to plan it—these RDDs and their rushed nuptials!).

Serena drifts along in a new dream, not willing to examine too closely why she’s disappointed by Gijs’ friendly, unloverlike treatment of her. “The weekend was a dream in which Serena knew herself to be living, and like all dreams, nothing that she or anyone else said or did seemed in the least strange, which was probably why, when Gijs left to return to Holland on Sunday evening, she kissed him goodbye with a fervor which, while entirely to be expected in a loving bride-to-be, was hardly called for in her case.” Hee—listen to your heart, Serena! She writes him regularly, and he calls most evenings, and she’s mopey when he doesn’t.

Wedding fever! Within three weeks, Serena pulls off an orange-blossom-and-cream-silk-dress ceremony (which I guess is a little easier when your father is a clergyman). She’s happy, feeling a “faint warm glow in place of the stony misery she’d been carrying around with her…she felt the beginning of happiness.” He gives her pearls as a wedding gift, and when she says he hasn’t thanked him properly for them yet, he pulls the car over and tells her, by all means, thank him properly...between friends of course. Her kiss is carefully demure, but he takes over and shows her how it’s done, but then disconcerts her by treating it casually and lightly.

They return to Holland, where she is initially happy but still uncertain as to what she feels for Gijs and what he feels for her. She tells him she’ll be a good wife—including being “loyal in her thoughts”—and he asks if she really knows what kind of wife he wants, but agrees that friendship is a sound basis for marriage. We know that he means for now. He lays on the gifts: a basset hound puppy. A new car! Gijs is the RDD version of The Price Is Right and Serena has won the Showcase!

Gijs also invites his bride to come with him on his rounds and to assist him in his medical practice—I love when BN heroes and heroines (rarely) continue to work together in some capacity after their MoC; we see it in Fate Is Remarkable as well. Serena is also busy learning Dutch, managing our RDD’s large historic home, and learning to be a good hostess (a not-always-seamless process, as our RDD finds out when he comes home to temper and tears over a broken Charlotte Russe and puppy piddles, and a stressed-out Serena, whom he soon has laughing). For Serena’s inaugural dinner: the Galloping Gourmet’s Gurkas Norge followed by the Potts’ family recipe for seafood in white wine and brandy (BN’s books would make a good basis for a recipe book!) Gijs gives her yet more gifts : ruby earrings, bracelet and matching brooch—family heirlooms, of course, (but he doesn’t ruin it, as certain RDDs have before him—looking at you, Reilof, and you too, Litrik, and you as well, I believe, Radinck--by saying that he can hardly take credit for giving them to her since it’s just something all RDD wives inherit, pfffttt. Gijs is one of Betty’s nicer RDDs.) The party is a success, and Gijs makes his admiration of her plain, but she realizes that despite her list of things to be grateful for—“a good looking husband who was goodness itself and kind too, and they were great friends…a lovely home and more money than she knew what to do with—and Gus, and the rubies”—despite all that, she is not content.

Laurens is expected at the party, and Gijs reminds her that he is there to support her—he knows how painful it will be, requiring courage and pride. But Serena realizes that “Laurens, in some mysterious way, had faded.” Nonetheless, it’s a shock when she sees him arrive at the party; she’d been dreading it, but Gijs presence and casual conversation steady her, and later she can only think about how Gijs called her “darling” for the first time and how she was compelled to whisper to him that “I didn’t really see him, Gijs—it didn’t matter—it wasn’t the same.”

She helps him out at his practice a few days later, Laurens returns now that his leg is healed. Laurens is spiteful and makes some crack about “old Gijs” and Serena is contemptuous and angry, telling him that Gijs is worth 100 of him. She’s astonished at her own outburst, and Laurens is surprised to find that his former doormat has a temper and a sharp tongue. When he gets snappy with her later, Gijs steps in with that casually threatening RDD manner and Laurens hastily apologizes. That night, Gijs gets called out in the middle of the night, and Serena falls asleep waiting for him. She makes him tea when he returns, and has her Dawning Realization that she loves him as the morning sun highlights his weary face: “the face of the man she loved.” But she thinks it’s the last thing he wants under the terms of their arrangement, so sadness and secrecy ensue….

Gijs seems to realize that something has changed but he reacts by being more remote and reserved—biding his time and awaiting events. We have the usual “working together/saving people” scene in which they rescue children trapped when a floor collapses, but it doesn’t really draw them closer in the way that Serena is longing for by this point. She even more upset and disconcerted when he mentions that Laurens’ horrible mother, Tante Emilie, would like Serena to go visit her for coffee—Gijs had a note from his “old friend,” Adriana, whom Laurens is supposed to be marrying and who Serena thinks was once Gijs’s girlfriend, and Gijs had gone to see Adriana at Tante Emilie’s the night before, he tells her. She’s thinking quite jealous and “savage” thoughts about Adriana and upcoming social outings where Gijs will be the perfect husband on the surface but treat her with casual friendliness once they’re on their own, and Serena is seesawing back and forth between the heights and depths of her secret (and she thinks unwanted) love. Gijs asks if she wants to know why he went to see Adriana, and she says that she’s pretty sure she has guessed why (she is completely off base, thinking he’s going to tell her he’s in love with Adriana and wants to end their MoC). Emotional math is never a BN heroine strength!

She works herself into muddled misery and is contemplating fleeing home to England, leaving the field clear for Gijs and his supposed love. She agrees to go see Tante Emilie (why?), and that awful lady tells her that Laurens is going to America—and, oh, by the way, Gijs is in love with Adriana, always has been, but of course his marriage to Serena now stands in his way.

Serena is scared to ask Gijs directly what he feels but finally asks if he was ever in love with Adriana. He responds by asking who wouldn’t be in love with such a pretty creature at some point in his life. Wrong answer, Gijs, even if true! She asks if he’s still in love with her, and he avoids a direct answer, and she asks if he tried to convince Adriana to change her mind about going to America with Laurens. He admits he did. He offers again to tell her why and she again says she knows why, and they’re interrupted by Laurens, who says he stopped by to let Gijs know that Adriana wants him to stop by again. “I’ve had to stand down for Gijs, you know” Laurens tells her, lightly. She resolves to talk to Gijs when he returns—and then he doesn’t.

Gijs asks the next day if she’d like to go to England, and she misunderstands but agrees quietly that she would. Gijs is busy with work but seems to understand that something is very wrong—he tries to talk to her to clear things up, but she thinks he is telling her he wants to end their MoC and resolves to go to England and set him free. She gets the number for the van Elvens—she and Sarah hit it off and I think Serena knows that Sarah, having been in a similar situation, will provide shelter and comfort while she gets her life together.

Gijs is bright eyed and casual later when he tells her that he got a call at the hospital and will need to leave the next morning for “a meeting” that he knows will be a success. I’m not sure why he doesn’t just clear things up at that point but it wouldn’t be a BN novel without a lovelorn heroine flight back to England (Caroline at least had the sense to just fake her disappearance and hide out at home, hee).

Serena arrives in London tired, sad, and uncertain as to what she is going to tell Sarah, but there’s no need to worry about that: Gijs is there waiting for her. Hugo and Sarah leave them alone, and when she asks why Gijs is there, he asks in return where else would he be but where his “dearest heart” is. Sarah had called him, he tells her—and then reminds her of Hugo and Sarah’s backstory and says that Sarah didn’t want it to take as long for Gijs to find her as it took for Hugo to find Sarah when she did her similar flit. Hee. He confesses that Sarah knew that he was in love with Serena—as do her parents. “But you didn’t tell me,” she says, and he says that she didn’t want to know—“You had to empty [your head of Laurens]…and just when I was beginning to think you had discovered that it was I and not Laurens you loved you chose to stuff your head with a great deal of nonsense which, most unfortunately, made sense.” It was like unravelling wool… Serena thinks, but the explanations add up to a better romantic total, and our mutual avowals of love and an HEA are not long in following. ��How nice,” he observed slowly, “that we don’t have to get married, and how equally nice that we can go home together.” Hugo’s honeymoon cabin in the Highlands looms large in their near future, and I have fun plotting out fan-fic for what happens once they arrive. 😉

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

The problem with reading a whole bunch of Betty Neels in a row is that they all start to run together. Gijs runs into Gerard who runs into Roele. But on the upside, I sleep well at night.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 Stars ~ Serena is Trauma Nurse in a busy London Hospital and she's rushed off her feet when a young man comes in after a car accident. He's quite handsome and when he awakes he flirts shamelessly with her and insists that she must get to know him better. Laurens is from Holland, a doctor in a private practice with his cousin, Gijs. It's Gijs that comes to London to see to Laurens problems, as he was the cause of the accident, there are police matters to attend to. At first Serena view Gijs as a rather sluggish man not in any hurry, pandering to Laurens whims. Lauren keeps up his pursuit of Serena and from his hospital room he woos her. As he's about to return to Holland, he asks Serena to put in her notice at the hospital and leave with him when he returns to London to pick up his new car. He leads her to believe that he wants to marry her. Normally a level headed girl, she's lets herself be flattered by Laurens attention, and she agrees. Only when she arrives in Holland she discovers that his mother has other ideas for Laurens, and so it seems does Laurens. And for some reason Gijs keeps turning up just when she needs him, so when Serena catches Lauren and another woman kissing, it's perfectly natural for her to run to Gijs. He takes her to stay with his own parents until he can take her home to her family in England and he proposes a marriage of convenience between them. Serena accepts his proposal and is surprised when he insists they have a white wedding from her father's church. Settling down to a routine in Holland, Serena is quite happy looking after Gijs and feeling needed. But when she suddenly realizes that's it's Gijs that she loves, she learns from Lauren's mother that Gijs loves another woman.

Betty Neels enjoys her marriage of convenience love stories, especially where the hero is already in love with his bride, and he patiently waits for her to catch up. We are reaquainted with Hugo and Sarah, a previous couple of convenient marriage, and who help Gijs in his conquest of Serena. Of course, we can easily see that Gijs adores Serena, he has that constant gleam in his eye and a tiny curve to his lips when he looks at her. And of course, he kissses her with verve which quite flusters her. Serena is really quite a level headed woman and is sharp in a crisis, it was lovely to read how totally confused she is over her own heart. I'm sure I'll enjoy reading this love story again and again.

[Pamela Shropshire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful brunette Serena Potts, Casualty Sister, falls in love with Laurens van Amstel when he comes in the hospital after he has a car crash (in his E-type Jaguar). He is very handsome and quite a charmer, given to lavish, but unfortunately insincere, compliments. Laurens makes vague references to a future for the two of them and invites her to his home in Holland, convincing Serena to resign her position.

Once Laurens is released from hospital, Serena actually sees more of his cousin, Gijs van Amstel, whom she discounts as being dull and lazy, influenced by Laurens' dismissive, almost contemptuous remarks about his cousin.

So Serena arrives in Holland to a cool welcome by his mother. Soon she sees Laurens talking to a lovely blond girl, Adriana; and soon after that, finds them kissing. Gijs makes excuses and pretends that Adriana is his girlfriend. But after another such occasion, Serena can no longer deny the evidence of her own eyes and fortunately, Gijs is there with a shoulder to cry on. Overwrought, Serena takes out her anguish on Gijs, saying that he is glad and that he never wanted her to come to Holland.

Gijs replies that she is wrong: "I was delighted that you came, but for all the wrong reasons." She doesn't even query this remark!

For a few days, things are smoothed over. It is Laurens' mother who sets Serena straight, telling Serena that Laurens and Adriana are to be married soon; that both are from the "adel," the Dutch aristocracy. "In Holland, adel marry adel. And that is that.

Serena confronts Laurens, who shows his true colours: ". . . I know I hinted . . . But I never asked you to marry me. . . If I've been thoughtless - I'm sorry, and I was going to tell you about Adriana. . . We were having such a good time . . . I didn't think you were quite so serious - no harm done."

Serena runs out of the house - straight to Gijs. He tells her that he's been expecting her. He listens while she gets it all out, lets her cry all over him, and then proposes a marriage of convenience. "You need a safe anchorage and I need someone to help in . . . emergencies, listen . . . when I need to air my views. . . someone to share my table, but not, I hasten to add, my bed." Serena splutters, "Not - not . . . " and Gijs tells her he is a perfectly normal man but not impulsive; that they will get to know each other, yada yada.

Gijs takes Serena to meet his parents, who are warm and friendly, unlike Laurens' mother. Later in the evening, Jonkvrouw van Amstel comes to Serena's room and they have a frank talk about the situation. Serena, upon learning that Gijs is also a Jonkheer, says that she cannot marry him. His mother replies that, "We are proud to welcome so lovely a girl into the family and with a good man of the church for a father." Such a sweet lady will be a good mother-in-law, Serena!

Later, Gijs asks if Serena has heard from Laurens. Serena tells him that Laurens called but she didn't talk to him and isn't ready to do so yet. "Later perhaps, if you're there." Which is music to Gijs' ears and causes his heart to leap in hope!

So, Serena marries him and wears a Real Bridal Gown - one of only a handful of TGB's heroines to do so. She and Gijs return to Zierikzee and settle in to married life. Serena helps Gijs at his surgery - another rarity among the RDD/RBD wives. There is no marathon shopping because Serena had nice clothes already, but Gijs does give her some lovely gifts: a strand of pearls, a brand-new Mini (dark blue), a basset hound puppy (she names him Gus), and ruby and diamond jewelry set - bracelet, earrings and brooch. Well, he did tell her he would be a good husband!!!

Of course it isn't long until Serena realizes she loved Gijs - honestly, Laurens shows very poorly next to Gijs!

There is a minor medical emergency involving some small children. After Serena is cleaned up at the hospital, Gijs stays and works. He gets home late, then goes out again. The next morning he tells her he went to see Adriana, but is rather mysterious about it. Later he mentions it again, saying that he needs to tell her something; he hesitantly asks her if she has guessed. Serena imagines that Gijs is in love with Adriana, and says that yes, she has guessed and doesn't want to talk about it, and she runs out of the room.

Next day, Laurens' mother invites Serena over for coffee, er, to make mischief. She maliciously drops a few hints that feed the beastly scenario that Serena has trapped in her mind and suggests that Serena go to see Adriana. It's a wild goose chase that leaves her more confused than ever.

Serena decides to go to England and allow Gijs to take Adriana away from Laurens. She gets up early one morning, leaves a note for Gijs, says goodbye to the dogs, and goes to Sarah van Elven's house in Richmond. Gijs is there. He explains all to straighten out her jumbled ideas, tells her he fell in love with her at first sight and observes that he is glad they "don't have to get married, and how equally nice that we can go home together," and that they are having a week's honeymoon at Hugo's cottage in Scotland. But first they go back home to Zierikzee, to get started on the half dozen children Serena decided she wants.

I've always liked this one. Gijs is one of the best RDDs, but Serena is sometimes TSTL. It's nice to see Sarah and Hugo even briefly. Adriana, despite being the Otger Woman(at least in Serena's mind) isn't a Veronica. The book is weak on secondary characters. Not much in the way of food or fashion descriptions, but a lot of scenery details. Not quite 4 stars.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a long, long time to warm to this Neels. The heroine was in love with a worthless guy for the first half and ignoring the far superior gentle-giant hero. In the end, I think it is one of La Neels's finest achievements. Why, say you? Because the heroine, Serena, spends the entire book in agony (not angst, like contemporary romance does) but an agony of love and uncertainty. She loved Laurens the worthless one and settled for marrying the hero, Gijs, whom she respects and likes. When time, and conversation, and Gijs's qualities have her slowly falling in love with him, she experiences the same uncertainty, the same notknowingness. Laurens hurt her and dumped her and treated her cavalierly. It's so easy once the fantasy of him is over to get over him. But Gijs not loving her, he who is all kindness and gentle humour, consideration and handsomeness ... well that cannot be borne, can it? Neels has written a romance which is actually the coming of age, the maturation, of a young girl who has to learn what people are worth and who is worthy of her love. The emotional highs and lows, the uncertainties and vulnerabilities, whether undeserved for Laurens or thoroughly deserved for Gijs, are so apt and psychologically astute. Neels's Uncertain Summer reminded me very much of Heyer's Convenient Marriage. I love them both. To whomever's reading, read them both! Onwards with my great Betty read ... Cassandra By Chance is NEXT! I've wanted to read this forEVAH.

[Fiona Marsden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Serena, the heroine, meets Laurens van Amstel when he is brought into the hospital after a traffic accident he was responsible for. He is handsome and charming and seems totally bowled over by the pretty Serena. His uncle Gijs is less charmed by Serena it would appear. He certainly doesn't approve of their romance.

When Serena gives up her job to go stay with Laurens family with a view to marriage she finds things aren't nearly as cut and dried as she expected. And somehow Gijs is always around and rather disturbing.

It is Gijs who picks up Serena after her dreams come crashing down, offering to marry her and give her a home.

This story reminded me a little of Fate is Remarkable and we get to meet Sarah and Hugo in this story. There are several stories by Neels about heroes salvaging the heroine after a broken love affair (and vice versa) There are usually enough differences not to bother me in any case.

Gijs is lovely and while there is a hint of Other Woman, it is all in the heroine's imagination and the machinations of Lauren's mother. Ending is a little contrived, bringing in Sarah and Hugo but still sweet.

[Cecilia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was fairly typical fare for Betty Neels, and enjoyable enough. I would have liked it more, however, if she hadn't wrapped things up the way she did. Appearing in the story are the two protagonists from another of her books (Fate is Remarkable), which is not unusual - we often see a blissfully happy and babified couple from another of her books. However, the older book had a particular dramatic bit towards the end, which is mentioned in this book. And then it's also pretty much copied. Now, the device is acknowledged as being basically the same twist, and the old couple gives the new hero a bit of a helping hand to get him to solve his problem faster than the old hero was able to, but it still came across as bizarre. And weak. So only 3 stars.

[Shelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I just finished the latest S. King book so I thought Uncertain Summer would be a nice read to lighten things up. This book was written in the early 70's and was reissued recently. I didn't realize this when I grabbed it to read, but it became apparent immediately. Obviously the characters and romances written in that time are a bit different from those written now. It's an enjoyable read if you can step back into time. I think the book is less than 200 pages, but the story has a lot of detail to it. The heroine is young and I varied in my opinions of her, but I liked the hero.

[Teri-K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Neels love triangle books aren't my favorites, and in this one it's a real triangle. Serena is in love with Laurens and his cousing Gijs is in love with her... Still, just about any Neels book is a pleasure to read when you're in the right mood.

NB - If you enjoy Neel's books join the conversation at the GR group Betty Neels Junkies. See you there!

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 actually.

[Mudpie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5* 1972

The nonsense with Laurens went on for far too long! Serena was naive and impulsive to throw away her job for Laurens the Louse. I wish Serena had given him a few tight slaps, seeing how he was so nasty to her in the surgery! How on earth could Gijs work with such a guy like the Louse?! Good riddance to him!

SPOILERS


That mystery at the end with Adriana was so contrived and ridiculous! Silly Gijs would not give direct answers and what was Serena to think? And Tante Emilie was nasty and evil as hell. She had no reason to play mind games with Serena; her precious son was going to marry the aristocratic Adriana, and Serena safely married to Gijs, so why, why why send Serena on a merry chase?! Bloody hell!

But in a rather startling departure from the norm, Betty let us know very early on that Gijs had deep feelings for Serena. His eyes sure said lots! When he gave Serena a white wedding with all the family around I knew he was in love with Serena! Serena's mother also betrayed the fact when she seemed like a child with a secret, when Serena bemoaned that she liked but not loved Gijs and neither did he love her...Gijs must have confessed his love to her parents BEFORE the wedding. Aww...

Their story so closely followed that of Sarah and Hugo, no wonder the couple made cameo appearances and played a pivotal role in the end. The van Elvens had twins! A Hugo and Rosemary, so Sarah kept her promise to Mrs Brown. Refer to Fate is Remarkable!

Gijs was a very KIND hero and good husband but I hated how instead of clear speaking, they wasted precious time together talking about nothing!. Serena was too silly over Laurens so I deducted stars. The vaccination fiasco was too contrived so minus star too!

PS. I LOVE Gijs' mother! She's toooo sweet, when she offered her listening ear to Serena whether she married Gijs or not!

[Barty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read: 18Nov25,

4 stars. it would have been higher because it gave me lots of feelings but a couple of things made me really mad.

h (24) is a petite beautiful brunette nurse. H (37?) is an RDD. OM (27?) is a big part of the story and is the H's younger playboy cousin. h meets OM first when he's admitted to her hospital after he crashes his car into a bus. h is charmed by his flirty manner, his sweet words, his hot and expensive car and proceeds to ignore all red flags. like the fact he crashed that car into a bus and it wasn't the first time. he has a broken leg. he asks for his older cousin to be called so that cousin can deal with his mess and fend off the cops. cousin is the H. he is charmed by the h on first sight when he goes to visit his cousin but remains aloof because she clearly has feelings for the OM.

despite her love at first sight crush on an idiot, h is quite likeable as a character. she's friendly, well liked, heroic, competent, optimistic.

OM, quite frankly, wants to bed her, but when he realises she is a parson's daughter and has traditional values, he decides he'll take her away to Holland to 'spend time with her', and he dupes her into thinking marriage is what he is after (without actually asking her to marry him) and persuades her to quit her job. the lovestruck girl has stars in her eyes and desperately wants to believe him so she quits her job as she assume she is going to Holland permanently to be married. wtf.

meanwhile OM is subtly slagging off his cousin,the H, to the h because he feels threatened by cousin being the superior man and h is believing every impression he gives. she thinks the H is poor and lazy and that he works for the OM. the fool! but when H does nice things for her (supposedly at the OM's request) like drive her for hours from her job to her family home in the country of vice versa she feels a little awkward with him. a sense of awareness. which makes her rude to him. plus she thinks he is only doing OM a favour. I think it makes her look spoiled. even though she tells him she will take the train, she's still a bit rude to him when he arrives to drive her etc

SPOILERS

Anyway, the foolish h quits work and goes to Holland where she gets a cold reception in the OMs home from his mom. also, soon afterwards she spots the OM holding hands with some beautiful girl. then later, spots him kissing the beauty! she is v upset and H sweeps in on both occasions to soother her and give excuses for the OM.

the thing that really peeves me off about the story is that H knows his cousin is a cheating scumbag and he aids and abets his slimy cousin with all the lying. when the other pair are holding hands, he tells the h that they are 'like brother and sister' and when she spots them kissing he says 'naughty Laurens for kissing my girl. I had told him to bring her here to meet me. it's a good job I don't mind'. wtf. later he says it was all he could think of at the time! presumably to prevent her feelings being hurt? but that is a pathetic excuse and MAKES NO SENSE. H is essentially helping his cousin mess around with both of these women and I found it despicable.

then, OM plans.to secretly meet the girl at his mom's house and has schemed to get h out of the house for the day. but his plans for her fall through, and the H suspects what his cousin is planning so he comes rushing in to ask h to dine with him and have a tour of his home. again, he is keeping her out of the way so the scumbag can get away with his cheating. I found it GROSS. let the poor girl find out so she can escape before her heart is further crushed ffs!

worse, by this time h perceives H to be the only friend she has in Holland so when she gets home early and sees OM with his tongue down the girls throat again, she is hugely upset and shocked. she then learns that he's engaged to the other girl and so she goes sobbing to the H about it. wtf! she realises he's lied to her too but instead of calling him out, she weeps on his shoulder. plus he gaslight her by saying the OM is a good guy really but he just has a weakness for a pretty face and implied the situation if the h's fault for being so naive and that any other girl would have been fine with that situation. wtf!

and when he has the nerve to propose marriage to her as a solution to her problems, she actually considers it. wtf!

so anyway, she realises she has strong friendly feelings for him as he has been good to her so she agrees to marry him. thus begins a marriage of convenience where he is very good to her. his love language is giving gifts and he showers her with lovely things.

they work together at his practice and socialise together and he helps her hold her head up whenever she meets the OM.

she eventually falls for her hubby but the past confusion of her being in love with the OM and his also having a (distant) past with the other girl gets in their way.

MORE SPOILERS

I felt that the H should have been held accountable for his hiding all the OM's lying. instead the final climax is that the h thinks that the other girl has decided she wants the H after all and that the H is regretting his marriage, thus the h runs away. but she goes to HIS friends as a refuge and the friend has already let the H know her plan. so he doesn't even have to suffer the angst of her running away. he simply turns up there before she even arrives and effectively calls her a silly little sausage and tells he he has loved her from the start. aargh. it was so frustrating and I was so annoyed, an ld yet I did enjoy his sweet confessions of love too. sigh.

some of the events were so so annoying and yet the H was so likeable and fanciable too. aaargh! probably because he always watched out for her and he always cared forbher in a v sexy supremely competent manner. and the story had plenty of drama and a bit of angst and never a dull moment and plenty of cozy loving situations and so it could have been a 5 star read if all the other stuff had not peeved me off! I really liked it except for that the H never paid for misleading the h. alas. meh, I shall probably read this again and love it next time because I will be prepared for it.

[Jite · Rating 4 out of 5]

sigh…

I did enjoy this once Serena stopped being such a dunce. The premise is that A&E nurse, Serena, falls in love at first sight with a rich, reckless, bad-boy patient, Laurens, ignoring several red flags in her infatuation for him. When he shows his true colours, his cousin, Gijs steps in to save the day as a shoulder to cry on. But their platonic relationship is challenged when Serena realises she has feelings for him as well.

I struggled to understand what Serena saw in Laurens especially having her eyes open and feeling like he was moving her too fast. I suppose infatuation does affect good sense and I loved the characterisation of stable, reliable Gijs, there to save the day. This is the sort of Neels where the hero’s affection and feelings for the heroine are evident from early on, rather than just popping up at the end. This would not be a Betty book without the talking at cross purposes and big misunderstanding that can be solved in 2 sentences. Overall, I enjoyed this and will cycle it into my rota of frequent Betty re-reads.

[Deane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good story....although I couldn't believe that Serena would still be in love with Laurens when he so often didn't keep his word and was just entertaining himself with her as he is recovering in the hospital....she does go to Holland, get a most unwelcome there from his mother....and then she goes to a dance and finds Laurens kissing Adrian....even then she takes his apology.

All the while she is going through this ridiculous visit, left her job, and finally had to agree to marry Gijs, who is a cousin of Laurens....he suggests that they marry because Laurens is going to America with Adrian and Serena and Gijs are good friends.

All ends well as usual although I wasn't a fan of Serena....

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't read a Betty Neels book in a long while. Thankfully, I decided to amend that a few days ago when I picked up this story. The two main protagonists are Gijs and Serena. I liked them both, they are good people trying their best. Serena, although a very nice person and a super competent nurse, was also really naive and a bit silly. Thankfully, that didn't bother me too much, even when she leapt to a conclusion towards the end that honestly made no sense. Having said all that, what I love about Ms. Neels' writing is how she can weave a gentle, sweet, and delightful love story into a compelling read, filled with tea, country drives, and romance.

[Livia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rarity, UNCERTAIN SUMMER is an off-shoot of FATE IS REMARKABLE.

Doctor Gijs van Amstel is the good friend of Dr. Hugo van Elven featured in Fate Is Remarkable. Gijs meets and immediately falls in love with Nurse Serena Potts but, there is a troublesome cousin of Gijs standing in the way, constantly murking up the waters.

Gijs and Serena enter into a marriage of convenience that is rocky and romantic. Helped along by the heroine and hero of a previous book the two take a rough path to happiness.

UNCERTAIN SUMMER is a delightful, traditional Neels doctor/nurse story.

[Tausha Duncan · Rating 5 out of 5]

All is well

I just love Betty Neels! This book is a little different from her others in that this girl isn't "plain", or "stout", or any of the other unflattering things Mrs. Neels uses to describe her heroines. This girl is actually pretty, and it does cause her some trouble. The book seems to move really fast at first then it slows down considerably, then it kind of races to the end. It's still got all of the emotional strings that pull you into the story. If you are someone who loves Betty Neels, you will love this story.

[Naant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really keen about the story. Serena was a little thick and how foolish was she giving up her job like that. But i warmed up a bit to her after the wedding. Gijs was nice but what i don't like is how he covered all his cousin faults as if they were nothing. Lauren was such a jerk and childish. The only one that i genuinely love is Gijs mom. She's wonderful mom in law.

[Joanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charming old-fashioned romance

I read Harlequin romances when they cost 50 cents! Lol, this was in the late sixties-early seventies. I always enjoyed the mature Dutch doctors, and in fact I had a very short relationship with one while we were both studying French in France one summer.

Very sweet story, takes me back to my late teens!

[NV · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sweet

Sweet charming story set in England and Holland.The description of landscapes and building interiors is very well done. The love story is full of miscommunication and ends happily.

[Lois Bates · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uncertain Summer

As I have gotten older, I have come to love Betty Neels' books. Maybe it's because, as the world is getting, well, worse, I appreciate the lack of gratuitous sex scenes. Yet this book held my interest. I found it well written and the characters were engaging.

[Monique E. Lacroix · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful

One of the better ones although they are all good. I just love to read these stories. They are full of simple love and lots of complications.

[Michelle David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely

A rather old fashioned and clean little romance. But a nice little visit to how things might have been back then

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this one; still generic but good chars.

[Vendethiel]

Such a lovely book. Gijs is the best and so well written and gentle. Serena has flaws and faults but she's not too foolish. The ending is beautiful.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

The nurse is young, especially when it comes to men. Does it turn out ok in the end? Handsome rich Dutch doctor? Of course it does! Cute clothes, nice cars. Happy ending.

[Gogol · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have only very recently discovered Betty neels and her comforting, sensible, slow burn romances make a very nice contrast with the unhinged angstfests by the likes of Robyn Donalds, even so, of the three books I’ve read of BN so far this wasn’t the best. I think that as of now I like Matilda’s wedding the most.
In this one the heroine is just so desperate!
At first on the strength of a hint at marriage she quits her job, AND announces to everyone at work and her family that she’s moving to Holland to marry her ex patient, and when she arrives and is met with lukewarm welcome and is even told outright that she had assumed too much, she still doesn’t let go and stays to the bitter end even after witnessing her so called fiancé in a loving cinch with another woman who turns out to be the real fiancée, until finally after the mother and son duo, seeing as she doesn’t get their various hints feel obliged to spell it out for her. Then the hero, who had stood silently by, sweeps in and marries her presumably because he’d been in love with her all this time, she marries him obviously on the rebound and also thinking sensibly of her future. Then we have a small angst by misinformation provided by the mother of the ex and a vow of eternal love. Not the sweet slow burn of Matilda’s romance by the longest shot.

[Karen-Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Serena had given up her job and gone to Holland in order-as she thought-to marry Laurens van Amstel who had proposed to her after a whirlwind romance. So it was mortifying, to say the least, that soon after she arrived she began to realize that Laurens was trying to back out of the situation-that, in fact, he had every intention of marrying another girl. His cousin Gijs had an answer to her problem-but wasn't it a rather a drastic one?

I enjoyed this very much. Serena did seem a muddle headed girl.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

The aunt ruined this book for me- who goes to that much work to make trouble? As well, I never did understand the heroine's rambling a at the end.