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Force Field
Her affairs were none of his business! — Maybe here, Kerry hoped, in this colorful seaside Cornish village, she could briefly escape the real-life tragedy of her father's recent death. — The invitation to play Rosalind in an amateur performance of As You Like It at a summer festival came at precisely the right moment.
And when her "sexy Rosalind" instantly attracted the ardor of young Adrian Caradoc, Kerry saw little harm in indulging in a mild holiday flirtation. Now, if only his imperious stepbrother, David, would stop his silly interfering!
And when her "sexy Rosalind" instantly attracted the ardor of young Adrian Caradoc, Kerry saw little harm in indulging in a mild holiday flirtation. Now, if only his imperious stepbrother, David, would stop his silly interfering!
192 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
1 person is currently reading
17 people want to read
About the author
Jane Donnelly
144 books28 followersJane Donnelly began earning her living as a writer as a teenage reporter. When she married the editor of the newspaper she freelanced for women's mags for a while. After she was widowed she and her 5 year old daughter moved to Lancashire. She turned to writing fiction to make a living while still caring for her daughter, she sold her first Mills & Boon romance novel as a hard-up singleparent in 1965. She wrote over 60 romance novels for Mills & Boon until 2000. Now she lives in a roses-round-the door cottage near Stratford-upon-Avon, with four dogs and assorted rescued animals. Besides writing she enjoys travelling, swimming, walking and the company of friends.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 4, 2021
4/4/2021
A striking Frank Kalan cover that captures the stone faced hero and blithe heroine of the story exceedingly well. I wish it wasn't a damsel in distress moment featured but the stark ultramarine background is lovely.
Also noting that H here is another male artist whose work comprises "serious" representational subjects like busts of old men (like H from Floodtide) and both he and the h make scornful remarks about abstract art. I'm not sure why Harley writers and their characters find abstract art so threatening—their attitudes are more 1880 than 1980's—personally I think the macho physicality of a 1950's era abstract expressionist would make for a smoking hot hero!
Jan 2021
A re-read that I had to search for and then it didn't live up to my memories. With a well integrated Shakespeare tie-in and an artist MC—two of my fav things—Force Field is a lively story marred by a lackluster romance. Kerry is an actress in an amateur theater troupe invited to a seaside town for a two week run of As You Like It. She hopes playing the ebullient Rosalind will nudge her out of the melancholy she's been in since the death of her father a few months back. Who knows? maybe a vacation fling will help too, perhaps with Adrian, the son of the merry widow who offered her estate grounds as the perfect setting for a pastoral comedy? Adrian is willing; Kerry's acting is so convincing he falls in love with Rosalind on opening night and insists on calling Kerry Rosalind for the entire book, childishly determined not to notice the actual person behind the role. Realizing she has no romantic interest in him but thinking he's pleasant enough company, Kerry is oddly sanguine about humoring this fantasy. It's only for two weeks and she's decided to behave as though everything is just a lark anyways, part of the it girl persona/cocoon she's currently inhabiting.
Adrian's much older step-brother David is equally determined not to be enchanted, certain that Kerry is a flighty opportunist because obviously actresses just are. He's an artist and he's boring but while other creative types including Shakespeare come in for some ribbing in FF "And, between you and me, I'm not overstuck on Shakespeare; I like something a bit livelier for my money." apparently David is just too brilliant to criticize. He doesn't want h to get any big ideas about his brother so he lets her know it's his money supporting Adrian's lifestyle. The fancy gardens—mine! the fancy house—mine! the gallery where Adrian works—mine! Upon ascertaining an expensive looking vase is his, she throws it at him!
It's really quite amazing that David, his merry stepmother Erica and brother Adrian get along so well when stepmother and brother clearly got the shaft in terms of inheritance. They're not even faking it. Sara Craven would have gone the ott vindictive bitch/weak scoundrel route without blinking an eye and I wouldn't have blamed her. This seems to be a case where the father's unbalanced will infantilizes a young man rather than a young woman, and it's also a curious echo of AYLI where the young hero Orlando coincidentally(not) has an older brother who inherited the family money and power and then refuses Orlando the proper education for a young man of his class. David definitely isn't cruel to Adrian, who's been educated and given a job etc, but as the older brother he seems to have treated Adrian with benign disinterest rather than guiding him to be a mature adult, so he isn't all that admirable either.
We are inside Kerry's head—inside her protective forcefield—a lot, and the interiority is effective for her characterization, she's funny and self-mocking, very aware that her hidden self is more vulnerable than she lets on just like Rosalind from AYLI whose mourning for her (exiled) father is also covered by a natural joie de vivre. Like all romance writers ever—Shakespeare and Donnelly attempt to distract their sorrowful heroines with love. Rosalind with Shakespeare's sweetest hero, Orlando, and Kerry with Coco, a sweet but troublesome dog who, abandoned at the B&B where h is staying, recognizes another lonely soul and immediately adopts Kerry for himself. True she falls for David too—but the thing she's got going with Coco is by far the more convincing love story in the book.
h and H's infrequent and oblique conversations aren't uninteresting but the relationship develops mainly in her head. David has a "force field" too; allegedly one of authority and strength of character, well-nigh irresistible, but Kerry's opinion notwithstanding too often he's just a guy smirking at her from across a room or table or audience. Obviously HP time has it's own rules: 15 minutes of barbed conversation can equal hours of RL time but body language or subtext has to convince me minds and hearts are changing behind the banter.
JD relies heavily on a big event, devoting too many pages to the rescue of Coco from an abandoned tin mine on David's estate which devolves into a rescue of Kerry as well. It's a necessary scene, establishing that David is willing to imperil himself to save Kerry's dog (Adrian later says he wouldn't have taken the risk) thereby demonstrating his decency and his love(?) for her. And even more importantly, that he has the muscle to haul her and her dog around when they fall down staircases and mineshafts and her ankle goes wobbly—which it does twice in FF but it goes on too long and ends with her being weepy and helpless. Not only boredom but annoyance. Why do so many HP authors resort to this nonsense where the hero's character is inversely strengthened by the weakening of the heroine?
If only a few of those pages had been used to expand on the cryptic scene where Kerry is taking a shower—in a bathroom she was inexplicably led to—and David saunters in from his connecting bedroom in nothing but the obligatory loose towel around his waist, casually says "You're back early", shaves and leaves without further acknowledgement. Kerry, frozen in shock still manages to sneak a peek at his broad and bronzed back but otherwise keeps mum, wondering—did he leave quickly upon realizing an unknown woman was in the shower and if so then who had he assumed she was? But it's never brought up between them so a wasted opportunity. They don't even kiss until the very end, which okay, in lieu of kisses I'll accept MCs desperately fighting against their need to kiss, but the eventual payoff should be worth the wait. So when these two finally kiss and it's immediately followed by a few sentences of decorously described sex on the floor of his studio it's just weird.
JD seems to be arching a brow at Shakespeare's romantic pairings, and well she might, Adrian is a poor excuse of a Orlando to be sure. Rosalind will outtalk and outwit younger brother Orlando for the rest of their days. But pairing Kerry with David—the older brother who doesn't appear to even enjoy her joyousness? that's unkind. I'm going to assume JD wanted Kerry and David's HEA to feel like Rosalind's description of the older brother's courtship:
For your brother and my sister no sooner met but they looked, no sooner looked but they loved, no sooner loved but they sighed, no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason, no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage, which they will climb incontinent, or else be incontinent before marriage. They are in the very wrath of love, and they will together. Clubs cannot part them.
with "sex on the floor" a pretty accurate modern translation of "incontinent". FWIW none of Shakespeare's comedic or romantic heroes are really worthy of her—I've always shipped Rosalind and Hamlet—she totally would have saved him.
A striking Frank Kalan cover that captures the stone faced hero and blithe heroine of the story exceedingly well. I wish it wasn't a damsel in distress moment featured but the stark ultramarine background is lovely.
Also noting that H here is another male artist whose work comprises "serious" representational subjects like busts of old men (like H from Floodtide) and both he and the h make scornful remarks about abstract art. I'm not sure why Harley writers and their characters find abstract art so threatening—their attitudes are more 1880 than 1980's—personally I think the macho physicality of a 1950's era abstract expressionist would make for a smoking hot hero!
Jan 2021
A re-read that I had to search for and then it didn't live up to my memories. With a well integrated Shakespeare tie-in and an artist MC—two of my fav things—Force Field is a lively story marred by a lackluster romance. Kerry is an actress in an amateur theater troupe invited to a seaside town for a two week run of As You Like It. She hopes playing the ebullient Rosalind will nudge her out of the melancholy she's been in since the death of her father a few months back. Who knows? maybe a vacation fling will help too, perhaps with Adrian, the son of the merry widow who offered her estate grounds as the perfect setting for a pastoral comedy? Adrian is willing; Kerry's acting is so convincing he falls in love with Rosalind on opening night and insists on calling Kerry Rosalind for the entire book, childishly determined not to notice the actual person behind the role. Realizing she has no romantic interest in him but thinking he's pleasant enough company, Kerry is oddly sanguine about humoring this fantasy. It's only for two weeks and she's decided to behave as though everything is just a lark anyways, part of the it girl persona/cocoon she's currently inhabiting.
Adrian's much older step-brother David is equally determined not to be enchanted, certain that Kerry is a flighty opportunist because obviously actresses just are. He's an artist and he's boring but while other creative types including Shakespeare come in for some ribbing in FF "And, between you and me, I'm not overstuck on Shakespeare; I like something a bit livelier for my money." apparently David is just too brilliant to criticize. He doesn't want h to get any big ideas about his brother so he lets her know it's his money supporting Adrian's lifestyle. The fancy gardens—mine! the fancy house—mine! the gallery where Adrian works—mine! Upon ascertaining an expensive looking vase is his, she throws it at him!
It's really quite amazing that David, his merry stepmother Erica and brother Adrian get along so well when stepmother and brother clearly got the shaft in terms of inheritance. They're not even faking it. Sara Craven would have gone the ott vindictive bitch/weak scoundrel route without blinking an eye and I wouldn't have blamed her. This seems to be a case where the father's unbalanced will infantilizes a young man rather than a young woman, and it's also a curious echo of AYLI where the young hero Orlando coincidentally(not) has an older brother who inherited the family money and power and then refuses Orlando the proper education for a young man of his class. David definitely isn't cruel to Adrian, who's been educated and given a job etc, but as the older brother he seems to have treated Adrian with benign disinterest rather than guiding him to be a mature adult, so he isn't all that admirable either.
We are inside Kerry's head—inside her protective forcefield—a lot, and the interiority is effective for her characterization, she's funny and self-mocking, very aware that her hidden self is more vulnerable than she lets on just like Rosalind from AYLI whose mourning for her (exiled) father is also covered by a natural joie de vivre. Like all romance writers ever—Shakespeare and Donnelly attempt to distract their sorrowful heroines with love. Rosalind with Shakespeare's sweetest hero, Orlando, and Kerry with Coco, a sweet but troublesome dog who, abandoned at the B&B where h is staying, recognizes another lonely soul and immediately adopts Kerry for himself. True she falls for David too—but the thing she's got going with Coco is by far the more convincing love story in the book.
h and H's infrequent and oblique conversations aren't uninteresting but the relationship develops mainly in her head. David has a "force field" too; allegedly one of authority and strength of character, well-nigh irresistible, but Kerry's opinion notwithstanding too often he's just a guy smirking at her from across a room or table or audience. Obviously HP time has it's own rules: 15 minutes of barbed conversation can equal hours of RL time but body language or subtext has to convince me minds and hearts are changing behind the banter.
JD relies heavily on a big event, devoting too many pages to the rescue of Coco from an abandoned tin mine on David's estate which devolves into a rescue of Kerry as well. It's a necessary scene, establishing that David is willing to imperil himself to save Kerry's dog (Adrian later says he wouldn't have taken the risk) thereby demonstrating his decency and his love(?) for her. And even more importantly, that he has the muscle to haul her and her dog around when they fall down staircases and mineshafts and her ankle goes wobbly—which it does twice in FF but it goes on too long and ends with her being weepy and helpless. Not only boredom but annoyance. Why do so many HP authors resort to this nonsense where the hero's character is inversely strengthened by the weakening of the heroine?
If only a few of those pages had been used to expand on the cryptic scene where Kerry is taking a shower—in a bathroom she was inexplicably led to—and David saunters in from his connecting bedroom in nothing but the obligatory loose towel around his waist, casually says "You're back early", shaves and leaves without further acknowledgement. Kerry, frozen in shock still manages to sneak a peek at his broad and bronzed back but otherwise keeps mum, wondering—did he leave quickly upon realizing an unknown woman was in the shower and if so then who had he assumed she was? But it's never brought up between them so a wasted opportunity. They don't even kiss until the very end, which okay, in lieu of kisses I'll accept MCs desperately fighting against their need to kiss, but the eventual payoff should be worth the wait. So when these two finally kiss and it's immediately followed by a few sentences of decorously described sex on the floor of his studio it's just weird.
JD seems to be arching a brow at Shakespeare's romantic pairings, and well she might, Adrian is a poor excuse of a Orlando to be sure. Rosalind will outtalk and outwit younger brother Orlando for the rest of their days. But pairing Kerry with David—the older brother who doesn't appear to even enjoy her joyousness? that's unkind. I'm going to assume JD wanted Kerry and David's HEA to feel like Rosalind's description of the older brother's courtship:
For your brother and my sister no sooner met but they looked, no sooner looked but they loved, no sooner loved but they sighed, no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason, no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage, which they will climb incontinent, or else be incontinent before marriage. They are in the very wrath of love, and they will together. Clubs cannot part them.
with "sex on the floor" a pretty accurate modern translation of "incontinent". FWIW none of Shakespeare's comedic or romantic heroes are really worthy of her—I've always shipped Rosalind and Hamlet—she totally would have saved him.
March 26, 2011
Where to begin. This book was... different. First off, I don't know much about Shakespeare (apart from Merchant of Venice, The Tempest, Taming of the shrew and Macbeth, which were 7th grade reading in unabridged form(horror!!!!) ----okay I'm rambling! )
Anyhoo - It seems like the story would be boring from the blurb. It wasn't (although I think it was a good thing I skipped the blurb altogether before reading).
Things I liked:
-Nice place setting, I usually hate the time spent on describing the scenery cuz less time's left for real story but here I could almost almost feel the sunshine - and sunshine in Europe is a great thing (I guess this book was set in UK - I dunno) - also when other things were described, I could feel the atmosphere - of the weather, play, dressing area etc etc - helped to get into the book.
-subtle dialog which could lead the reader to smile
-Not stupid heroine. She did wonder and yearn and all that but her introspection wasn't irritating (I skipped the paras where it got a bit much, but there weren't that many of them)
-a h who knew the score, was independent but, like the rest of womankind, needed a strong man to cuddle.
-one side detail about the OW which the h found truly amusing (as did I) - every time the h referred to the OW with that concept, it put a smile on my face.
-a lovely dog - and dogs provided instant credibility to a book cuz... well - they're animals... :P
-The H said some stuff which told the h why he wouldn't want to be with her and I realised that's true for all of these guardian/ward type relationships
oh and I got to know there's a character called Rosalind in the play called As You Like It (which goes on my TBR pile)
Things which ....could have improved the book further:
-The hero totally looks like a zombie on the cover
-It was going very nicely and at that pace the ending would have required at least 15 more pages. Seems like the HQN limit of 180 pages did the author in -
-more emotion from the H so that we know he's affected (we can sort of see he's affected but I guess he hides it well) - again, that may be a limitation of the no. of pages
Anyhoo - It seems like the story would be boring from the blurb. It wasn't (although I think it was a good thing I skipped the blurb altogether before reading).
Things I liked:
-Nice place setting, I usually hate the time spent on describing the scenery cuz less time's left for real story but here I could almost almost feel the sunshine - and sunshine in Europe is a great thing (I guess this book was set in UK - I dunno) - also when other things were described, I could feel the atmosphere - of the weather, play, dressing area etc etc - helped to get into the book.
-subtle dialog which could lead the reader to smile
-Not stupid heroine. She did wonder and yearn and all that but her introspection wasn't irritating (I skipped the paras where it got a bit much, but there weren't that many of them)
-a h who knew the score, was independent but, like the rest of womankind, needed a strong man to cuddle.
-one side detail about the OW which the h found truly amusing (as did I) - every time the h referred to the OW with that concept, it put a smile on my face.
-a lovely dog - and dogs provided instant credibility to a book cuz... well - they're animals... :P
-The H said some stuff which told the h why he wouldn't want to be with her and I realised that's true for all of these guardian/ward type relationships
oh and I got to know there's a character called Rosalind in the play called As You Like It (which goes on my TBR pile)
Things which ....could have improved the book further:
-The hero totally looks like a zombie on the cover
-It was going very nicely and at that pace the ending would have required at least 15 more pages. Seems like the HQN limit of 180 pages did the author in -
-more emotion from the H so that we know he's affected (we can sort of see he's affected but I guess he hides it well) - again, that may be a limitation of the no. of pages
March 7, 2016
Disappointing. The heroine Kerry was great, a talented actress, she has a lighthearted flirtation with the OM Adrian while on holiday and doing community theater. Adrian's older brother, David (the hero) disapproves. It being a harlequin, we are to suppose he is jealous. However, none of his actions show that he is even attracted to Kerry much less jealous of his brother. Furthermore Kerry and David hardly interact with each other. As a romance it was bordering on cool. I added a star simply because I liked the character of Kerry.
May 4, 2023
I'm disappointed. It could be such a good romance. Instead it's lukewarm.
We've got a great heroine. She's got all it takes to be memorable. Plus, we've got a strong silent hero. And what do we get in the end?
A description of a summer festival and an amateur theatre performance. The crowd is enchanting and fun, the secondary characters are cute but where's the love between the actress and the sculptor?
She runs around the countryside with his stepbrother, he keeps on working undisturbed. She gets into trouble and is forced to stay in his house. It's always crowded and they never even kiss. Untill suddenly they make love and it's a happy-end.
And a question about "love". The heroine admits she's had flings, but nothing serious. And then it's suddely Erika, the widow, who's called amoral by the hero because she's had affairs.
Flings are not affairs?
We've got a great heroine. She's got all it takes to be memorable. Plus, we've got a strong silent hero. And what do we get in the end?
A description of a summer festival and an amateur theatre performance. The crowd is enchanting and fun, the secondary characters are cute but where's the love between the actress and the sculptor?
She runs around the countryside with his stepbrother, he keeps on working undisturbed. She gets into trouble and is forced to stay in his house. It's always crowded and they never even kiss. Untill suddenly they make love and it's a happy-end.
And a question about "love". The heroine admits she's had flings, but nothing serious. And then it's suddely Erika, the widow, who's called amoral by the hero because she's had affairs.
Flings are not affairs?
Read
July 4, 2018Her affairs were none of his business!
Maybe here, Kerry hoped, in this colorful seaside Cornish village, she could briefly escape the real-life tragedy of her father's recent death.
The invitation to play Rosalind in an amateur performance of As You Like It at a summer festival came at precisely the right moment.
And when her "sexy Rosalind" instantly attracted the ardor of young Adrian Caradoc, Kerry saw little harm in indulging in a mild holiday flirtation. Now, if only his imperious stepbrother, David, would stop his silly interfering!
Maybe here, Kerry hoped, in this colorful seaside Cornish village, she could briefly escape the real-life tragedy of her father's recent death.
The invitation to play Rosalind in an amateur performance of As You Like It at a summer festival came at precisely the right moment.
And when her "sexy Rosalind" instantly attracted the ardor of young Adrian Caradoc, Kerry saw little harm in indulging in a mild holiday flirtation. Now, if only his imperious stepbrother, David, would stop his silly interfering!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews