Whirlwind Courtship

by Jayne Taylor, Jayne Ann Krentz

When Phoebe arrives quite by accident at the doorstep of Harlan's mountain cabin, he is less than pleased. Convinced that she has been sent by his matchmaking aunt, Harlan would gladly throw Phoebe out, but she's in trouble. So grudging host and grudging guest will have to make the best of things. . . .

Genres: Romance, Contemporary, Contemporary Romance, Category Romance, Humor, Fiction

259 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Psuedonyms:
Jayne Ann Krentz
Amanda Quick
Jayne Castle
Jayne Bentley
Stephanie James

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

Reviews

[Azet · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Whirlwind Courtship" is a fitting title for this Romance novel by Jayne Taylor (aka Jayne Ann Krentz) who is one of my top favourite authors. Getting lost in the woods, our troubled heroine Phoebe Hampton manages to find a cabin and does not expect the owner to be a very handsome hero in the form of the blue eyed and red-haired, and quite angry Harlan Hampton who thinks she is one of the women his aunt has match-made for him. But in turn for house chores he decides to let her stay in his cabin, where a attraction starts to form with a love Phoebe doesn`t think she can handle. He starts to seduce her several times, and in fear of her heart she tries to distract him with the idea of courtship...hence Harlan gives her the whirlwind courtship of her dreams.

This story gave me all the romantic feels despite being so dated. Harlan is such a bully that i literally had to laugh at times. Phoebe stood no chance in trying to run away from him. No chance at all. Already in the cabin he thought her to be his and he was willing to fight for her to admit it no matter what. Lucky him Phoebe have a sense of humor, i love how she started to laugh when Harlan proposed marriage, or no, he didn`t propose. He just decided it. He was so pig-headed and bossy and took no denials from Phoebe.Even i felt frustrated at times. Then i also love how Phoebe threw the bitchy Cynthia (Harlan`s ex) into the fish pond, even Harlan couldn`t stop grinning at that,LOL. I also thought Phoebe`s bird Fend so adorable and its growing bond with Harlan`s dog. This was another fun romantic experience, this author never disappoints.

[reeder (reviews) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Phoebe Hampton stumbles out of the Pacific Northwest roadshow of Deliverance into Harlan Garand's weekend fishing cabin. She's hungry, tired, and needs to report a crime to the police. He thinks she's been sent by his Aunt Flo (*snerk*) to crash his fishing weekend and "compromise" him into marriage...because Aunt Flo reads romance novels and thinks it's 1853 or something. (And that's the theme JAK is going to beat to death in this book. The hero is not a stereotypical romance hero, he's a real man. Apparently, in 1980 real men were douchebags who didn't believe women who claimed they had been kidnapped and assaulted. Sadly, that's kind of true.)

Phoebe manipulates Harlan into letting her stay at the cabin until he's ready to drive back to civilization. In exchange, she has to do all the chores, including *shudder* cleaning the fish he catches. In between his unnecessary displays of alpha male power, the pair banter about the fact that they're not each other's type: he dates willowy blondes (Phoebe is a well-rounded brunette), while she's contemplating a marriage proposal from a tall, dark, and handsome business executive with a sterling family background (a Disney prince personified, while the redheaded doucheb--*ahem*--hero won't help a lady in distress).

[One of the things that makes JAK's backlist so compelling for me is the repeated use of the same themes, scenarios, and tropes. "Not [his/her] type" is one of those themes. It's an annoying pebble in the otherwise brilliant Family Man, and used most effectively in Serpent In Paradise, where the heroine is in fact exactly the hero's type, but he thinks he can't have his type because of tragic backstory reasons.]

The following day, one of Phoebe's creepy captors shows up at the cabin looking for her, and Harlan is chagrined he didn't believe her in the first place. He trusses up the wannabe rapist and drives everyone down to the police at last. This demonstrates that he is, in fact, awesomely heroic when the situation is blatantly obvious and doesn't require any subtle nuances of trust.

Safely back in civilization, Phoebe tries to get rid of Harlan because she's not his type and her Disney prince is dropping by her apartment that evening to receive a (negative) response to his marriage proposal. By now, Harlan has decided he wants Phoebe, so he's not leaving until the prince has received his congé. Which means he's there for the humiliating reveal that the Disney prince may have proposed because Phoebe's brother is some kind of wealthy genius inventor and the prince wanted the business connection. She then kicks them both out of her apartment, but the hero comes back the next day and proposes with one of those "I am a 35-year-old successful CEO with a family business and I need an heir" proposals that NEVER sweep a woman off her feet.

Phoebe is concerned that he'll just see her as a challenge if she says no and afraid she'll surrender completely if he seduces her, so she manipulates Harlan into agreeing to a three week (presumably sexless) courtship. (Remember when she manipulated him into letting her stay at the cabin? Manipulating is Phoebe's thing, but I read it as her being clever enough to successfully negotiate against the patriarchy. '80s-era feminism at its finest.)

During courtship date #1, they run into the rejected Disney prince's sister (who somehow manages to be a fragile blonde, even though her brother is tall, dark, and handsome), and Harlan embarrasses Phoebe by suggesting to the catty blonde that he is marrying Phoebe because he compromised her. Returning from their date, Phoebe is alarmed to discover her bedroom window is wide open. Oh, no! Wannabe rapist #2 is still on the loose and may be after her.

Harlan decides to take Phoebe to Aunt Flo's (*snerk*) for safety, but first they need to drop by his house to pick up his dog and some clothes, since he'll be standing guard. When they get there, a gorgeous blonde OW is waiting in his living room, dropping little OW nuggets like "I let myself in with the key you keep hidden outside" and "You know I often spend the night here."

Harlan efficiently dispatches the OW and returns to tell Phoebe that "she and I are through. You're not to concern yourself with her, Phoebe. Is that understood?" To which Phoebe gently replies, "You have lipstick on your cheek, Harlan." We never get an explanation or timeline for this relationship, which is just a bit icky. They had a fight and broke up before Harlan met Phoebe, but when? Was it on the Friday immediately before the fishing weekend?

Now we're off to Aunt Flo's stately home, where Flo and Phoebe bond over their love of romance novels. Phoebe defiantly (and correctly) points out that admiring domineering heroes in romance doesn't mean the reader wants one in real life, while Aunt Flo states that of course women want a domineering man because they make good providers. (I want to say Aunt Flo is channeling the 1950s, but I think people may still have thought in terms of "providers" rather than "partners" in 1980.) Also, Aunt Flo is planning an engagement party for them on Saturday.

The next day, the OW calls Phoebe at her office to kindly explain that she and Harlan were on a break and Phoebe will probably just get hurt if she sticks around, to which Phoebe replies that if Harlan had wanted to marry the OW, they would already be married, so buzz off.

The OW buzzes straight to the engagement party, where Phoebe finds her chatting up Harlan alone in the garden. After some verbal sparring, Phoebe pushes the OW into the decorative fish pond. (She hadn't even lost the argument! She's just being retro-feisty. It's so cringeworthy.) Harlan gets angry at Phoebe for behaving like an adolescent, so Phoebe packs her bags and sneaks out into the night, but Harlan catches up with her in his Jag and takes her back to his home where they finally have sex and declare their mutual love.

But wait, we're not done. Remember the backstory where Phoebe was kidnapped and nearly raped in the hills? Now the other wannabe rapist shows up at Harlan's home with a gun. In a one page action sequence, Harlan and his trusty black Lab Jinx take down the intruder, but not before the guy coldcocks Phoebe with the butt of the gun. She wakes up in the hospital with Harlan yelling at the doctor, then suddenly it's their wedding day and they're packing Jinx into the car for their honeymoon...which I fear is going to be at the fishing cabin and Phoebe's going to have to clean more fish. The End.

That last chapter really illustrates JAK's inexperience as a writer at this point in her career. She should have wrapped everything up with the criminals before the protagonists had sex and declared their mutual love, but she had left a dangling hillbilly rapist and needed to tie that up, so we ricochet from action sequence to hospital to wedding in a way that contributes nothing to the relationship or the novel's themes.

Yet, oddly, though the hero's interactions with the heroine are terribly dated (during an early attempt at seduction, he actually says, "Relax. You'll enjoy it." *cringe*) and the dialogue is stilted in its attempt to be clever, I can detect the chemistry between her protagonists that will eventually make Krentz one of the most popular romance authors of the 1990s. In fact, that growing popularity put this book into my hands when it was reprinted in 1989. Otherwise, Whirlwind Courtship would have been lost to the mists, like JAK's MacFadden titles.

JAK checklist
Pacific Northwest setting: Oregon
Familiar professions: She's in corporate data management; he has inherited the family shipping firm.
What's in a name? Too many ARs and ANs, that's what. Harlan Garand?? His middle name is probably Aran.
Marital status: They're both single, never married.
Age: She's 27 (too old to be compromised); he's 35 (time to settle down and sire that heir).
Heroine's eye exam: Green eyes and glasses.
Hero's eye exam: Icy blue.
Hair color: Rejoice! He's a redhead, all part of not being the standard hero package of tall, dark and handsome. She's a brunette (aka "not a blonde").
Pets: He has a black Lab named Jinx ("surely the owners of such a happy dog must be decent people"); she keeps a salty parakeet named Ferd ("Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Oregonian").
Vehicles spell success: He drives a Jag.
Metaphors are for flogging: The romance novel thing. Except it's really muddled. He doesn't look like a hero and is clearly lacking in chivalry, but he carries the heroic attribute of dominance (which the Disney prince lacks, btw). I don't know if she's supposed to be not-heroine material because she's a plump brunette instead of a fragile blonde. We all know that fragile blonde is code for OW.
Hero threatens to spank heroine: Of course he does. It's a metaphor for dominance. A spanking might have been preferable to the creepy scene where he forces her to clean the fish against her will.

[Adriana · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had a really tough time getting thru this one. I even admit to skimming the last pages.
The male hero is a gigantic a$$ who dominates the heroine to the point where I consider it abuse. He never listens to her and always makes her do what he wants, even if he needs to use force.
The heroine is supposed to be this independet, strong woman, but she goes along with whatever and never really stands up for herself.
It just wasn't for me.

[Prac Agrl · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was really good
3.5 for me
i enjoyed the banter between the H and h
Liked the h, she was spunky but at times gave in too easily to the H
But the book at times reeked of chauvinistic attitude and didn't like the H in few instances:
1)When he tells her ex's sister that he had to marry her as he had compromised her, i mean even if you speak about it in joking way it didn't seem right to say to someone who is vindictive, loves to gossip , hates the h and will spread around.
2)How for most of the period the emphasis was on h's cooking skills and being motherly as we know how vulnerable the h is about her looks and figure.
3)His insistence to the h to confess how much she loves him but what only telling her in the end when she was injured.
4)Why go with OW outside in the garden??? i mean it was suspicious, i didn't like it.

[Anna McFadden · Rating 5 out of 5]

when Phoebe Hampton by accident shows up at the cabin of a consummate bachelor Harlan Garand's mountain cabin. he's convince shes another marriage minded female sent by his match making aunt and she insist that
she is in a dire need a shelter and food and of course he ready to throw her out but decides to let her stay as the the whirkwin weekend progress with her he decides not only he wants her in his bed but as his wife which she don't believe means shes not his normal type of tall skinny blonde

[Mara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too light, too fast. Not interesting enough.

[Rachael · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was awful. The male main character so chauvinistic and manipulative. No chemistry and I ended up skimming most of it because I was so annoyed with the whole scenario

[Maura · Rating 2 out of 5]

This all started out well. The heroine, Phoebe, finds herself in some tough circumstances and is lost and wandering in the woods when she stumbles upon Harlan's cabin. She begs him for help but he seems to think she was sent as some matchmaking ploy by his Aunt. He does agree to let her stay as long as she takes some initiative in the chores and what not. Then they go fishing and it's time to clean the fish and suddenly Harlan turns into a psycho shithead. He FORCES her to gut the fish while she's gagging over it and then warns her against disobeying him again. I didn't know whether to laugh at how ridiculous he was or cower in terror at is creepiness. It gets worse. That night he says something along the lines of, "Would you scream rape if I kissed you?" and she's all "You'd never rape me Harlan, I know better." and then he very nearly does. He actually tells her to "Relax. You'll enjoy it." He doesn't follow through, but once he realizes that Phoebe is telling the truth, he becomes a stalker.

They get back to Portland and Harlan just sort of inserts himself into her life and demands that he marry her. They've known each other for several days and he doesn't ask...he demands.

"I never asked you to marry me. I don't intend to ever ask you.
That would be inviting the severest form of rejection, as you've just been at
pains to demonstrate! My ego couldn't take it. No, honey, I'm telling you that
we're going to be married. There, that's much simpler, isn't it?"

Isn't he romantic? And so secure. And what's worse is that she's such a doormat that she just takes it. Only she does insist on a courtship, which the hero is reluctant to provide because it means he can't sleep with her yet. He threatens to end the nonsense of the courtship and just "take what is his" repeatedly.

I can't say I enjoyed the story, but I did get a laugh out of how OTT the hero was with his chauvanism and stalker tendencies.

[Jac Zifos · Rating 2 out of 5]

Haven't read this in over 10 years, so I gave it another look. Now I remember why I haven't gone back to read it since. Phoebe was a pushover, making a token resistance each time Harlan dictated something, then immediately caved into his intimidating masculine personality.

Oh, and what was up with all the exclaimation points?! Who exclaims every verbalized thought? It seemed as though they were shouting at each other the entire tedious work! It was so annoying!

See? Just typing the above paragraph annoyed me, so reading 150 or so pages of exclaimations was exhausting.

I've often wondered if Amanda Quick/Jayne Castle/Jayne Ann Krentz/Jayne Taylor were all different personalities of the same author. Each body of work grouped under each name seem written by different people entirely. For instance, I love Amanda Quick, but Jayne Taylor and Jayne Castle leave me cold, while Jayne Ann Krentz is hit or miss for me.

[Courtney · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yeah, this was awful.

What really bothered me was what a pushover the heroine was, and what a complete douche the hero was. He was so controlling it was almost comical, he might as well have hit the girl. He practically raped her on several occasions.

It was too much. I finished it cause I kept thinking "Surely the douche bag will get called out, surely he will learn the error of his ways and cease to be a douche."

Nope. Total douche. Complete fail of a story. The dialogue has its funny moments, but all that is completely washed away by the chauvinistic ass of a hero. But I guess this was supposed to be a step down from an actual bodice ripper.

[Maria · Rating 2 out of 5]

Published under the name Jayne Taylor, this book lacks the depth of most of her work in the nineties, but it is still worth the re-read. The characters are not as well-drawn and likable as are most of her characters and the plot line is pretty far out there, but Ms. Krentz does portray manipulation in a gentle way, demonstrating why it is not a good thing in a relationship, and subtly points out the differences between romance novel heros and reality. I couldn't get under the skin of either Phoebe or Harlan and so found it difficult to empathize with either.

[Gmc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whirlwind Courtship by Jayne Ann Krentz writing as Jayne Taylor
Phoebe Hampton is a resourceful and strong women able to get out of the trouble she gets into mostly. Harlan Garand is on a week end get away to the mountains fishing, and gets a big surprise , Phoebe walks out of the wilderness, and tells him a heroic tale of kidnap and escape, he believes it's all a plot to trap him in marriage, But changes his tune when one of the kidnappers shows up at his cabin.

[Farah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The plot was enjoyable , I can't deny the charm the characters had and I absolutely loved Fred and Jinx but seriously the things that came out of Harlan's mouth were just GAH .. relationships back then were seriously weird , I have no idea why I enjoy reading those books but something about them is just too amusing. All hail the 2000's.

[BookAddict ✒ La Crimson Femme · Rating 3 out of 5]

Angry male with a confused female is a theme Ms. Taylor (aka Jayne Ann Krentz) tends to use quite a bit. I liked these during my ultra feminist phase because the women always show up the males and the man has to admit their mistake. Romantic yet unrealistic. It's fiction for a reason...

[Freya · Rating 3 out of 5]

start was good but past half way it became a bit too unrealistic and i couldn't relate to the main female in the way she let him push her around.

[Lisa Drake · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really like this adorable story. Between the witty banter, spirited battle of wills, and the obvious love shared by the main characters I can't help but be swept up in their whirlwind courtship.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Jayne Ann Krentz at the beginning. Although I'm not fond of over aggressive men, it is still a well written story as are all her books.