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Devil Within
Flying down to Rio
It wasn't just the title of an old movie for Claudia March, but something actually happening--to her!
She'd been accepted for the position of governess to a mining engineer's daughter in Brazil, and no one could have been more excited to find herself on that transatlantic flight.
Claudia expected problems with the job, of course, and those she certainly encountered. But not with her charge. Becky was a darling. It was her father, the difficult and sarcastic Saul Treharne, who turned out to be impossible to manage!
It wasn't just the title of an old movie for Claudia March, but something actually happening--to her!
She'd been accepted for the position of governess to a mining engineer's daughter in Brazil, and no one could have been more excited to find herself on that transatlantic flight.
Claudia expected problems with the job, of course, and those she certainly encountered. But not with her charge. Becky was a darling. It was her father, the difficult and sarcastic Saul Treharne, who turned out to be impossible to manage!
- GenresHarlequin PresentsBrazil
191 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1984
1 person is currently reading
32 people want to read
About the author
Catherine George
447 books73 followersDeirdre Matthews was born in a village on the Welsh-English border, where the public library featured largely in her life. Her mother, who looked upon literature as a basic necessity of life, fervently encouraged her passion for reading, little knowing it would one day motivate her daughter into writing her first novel.
At 18, she met a future Engineer, who had set in a pendant a gold sovereign, that his grandmother put in his hand when he was born, and she have never taken off since. After their marriage he swept her off to Brazil, where he worked as Chief Engineer of a large gold-mining operation in the mountains of Minas Gerais, a setting which later provided a very popular background for several of her early novels. Nine happy years passed there before the question of their small son's education decided their return to Britain. Not long afterward a daughter was born, and for a time she lived a fulfilled life as a wife and mother who always made time to read, especially in the bath!
Her husband's job took him abroad again, to Portugal, West Africa, and various countries of the Middle East, but this time she stayed home with the family. And spent a lot of lonely evenings in between the reunions when her husband came home on leave. "Instead of reading other people's novels all the time," he suggested one day, "why not have a shot at writing one yourself?" So she did.
But first she took a creative writing course. Encouraged by the other students' enthusiasm for her contributions, she decided to try her hand at romance, and read countless Mills & Boon novels as research before writing one herself. Her first novel was accepted in 1982 as Catherine George, which Romantic Times voted best of its genre for that year, along with more than sixty written since.
These days son and daughter have fled the nest, but they return with loving regularity to where she and her husband back for good from his travels live, with Prince, the most recent Labrador, in a house built at the end of Victoria's reign in four acres of garden on the cliffs between the beautiful Wye Valley and the River Severn.
At 18, she met a future Engineer, who had set in a pendant a gold sovereign, that his grandmother put in his hand when he was born, and she have never taken off since. After their marriage he swept her off to Brazil, where he worked as Chief Engineer of a large gold-mining operation in the mountains of Minas Gerais, a setting which later provided a very popular background for several of her early novels. Nine happy years passed there before the question of their small son's education decided their return to Britain. Not long afterward a daughter was born, and for a time she lived a fulfilled life as a wife and mother who always made time to read, especially in the bath!
Her husband's job took him abroad again, to Portugal, West Africa, and various countries of the Middle East, but this time she stayed home with the family. And spent a lot of lonely evenings in between the reunions when her husband came home on leave. "Instead of reading other people's novels all the time," he suggested one day, "why not have a shot at writing one yourself?" So she did.
But first she took a creative writing course. Encouraged by the other students' enthusiasm for her contributions, she decided to try her hand at romance, and read countless Mills & Boon novels as research before writing one herself. Her first novel was accepted in 1982 as Catherine George, which Romantic Times voted best of its genre for that year, along with more than sixty written since.
These days son and daughter have fled the nest, but they return with loving regularity to where she and her husband back for good from his travels live, with Prince, the most recent Labrador, in a house built at the end of Victoria's reign in four acres of garden on the cliffs between the beautiful Wye Valley and the River Severn.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 5, 2017
A disappointingly unromantic conclusion to what had been at the very least a compelling governess-employer romance (though the constant comparisons to Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre were heavy-handed and quite misplaced).
The heroine was very sympathetic. Her background as an orphan raised in institutions, her intelligence and work ethic that plucked her out of obscurity and into an academic and professional career that, while not exactly exciting, nevertheless was something she could be very proud of, and her touching, vulnerable quest to find herself a makeshift family, a dream that she had not relinquished even at the age of 27, really made her likable and easy to identify with.
Far from being a Debbie Downer, none of these life experiences have made her a violin-wielding tragic figure. She impressed me with her pluck, her optimism, her patience and sunny disposition. When, at a certain point in the story, she finally breaks down in tears, because she is both overwhelmed by the feeling that she has really been accepted into this makeshift family of friends and acquaintances, but also because she longs for the man she loves to return her feelings, she is the most surprised at herself, because she never gives in to tears.
I really, really, really wanted her to have a worthy, besotted, swoon-worthy hero. She so deserved it. Unfortunately, the hero presented to us here was appalling. Upon meeting her, he quite ruthlessly drives like maniac, all the while puffing his cigarette in her face, after she has already endured not one but two extremely rickety flights and suffering from jet lag. When she quite understandably gets sick, he is almost giddy at her plight.
What did she do to deserve such a punishment? Nothing, except for his misguided impression that she is a mercenary gold-digger. This is based on the fact that she expressed her misgivings at leaving her country, her home and her secure job to take up a position that was not guaranteed to last, and was offered in return, quite fairly, a sum of money intended as cushion in case things went awry and she had to rely on a nest-egg while looking for another job.
How could this asshole fault her for something like this, especially knowing as he does, about her unstable background, lack of any supporting family whatsoever, and vulnerability as a young woman facing the hostile world quite alone. Especially as this sum would be negligible for someone in his financial position and a sound investment to make towards a woman who would be able to take on the responsibility that neither himself, nor his ex-wife, not his aunt, nor an assortment of well-meaning friends and acquaintances, were capable of meeting?
All throughout the book, I was waiting for his apology to her for acting like such a boor and to take back his hurtful words, but that never happened. In fact, he continued to act like a complete jerk to her, completely unprovoked.
What is worse is that I could not get over the feeling that the hero is in love with his cousin's wife, who lives in a neighboring ranch and thankfully isn't a vicious OW but becomes a friend of the heroine, and that the heroine is only second best to his unrequited love for the cousin's wife. It feels as the cousin and his wife may have had their own courtship explored in a preceding book, where the hero must have played the part of the unlucky OM. It certainly feels that way. The thread of that subplot is never explored or satisfyingly tied up.
All this concluded in a uninspiring seduction scene and a lame marriage proposal couched in terms of convenience. Basically that he would be getting a free teacher and mother combined for his daughter, without having to pay her extensive salary, and presumably she would get the honor and pleasure of getting this big fat jerk as her husband. Only reluctantly did the hero then slap on, as if an addendum to a dry legal document, that in fact he did love the heroine. I didn't buy it and I felt very sorry for this heroine, who deserved so much better :(
The heroine was very sympathetic. Her background as an orphan raised in institutions, her intelligence and work ethic that plucked her out of obscurity and into an academic and professional career that, while not exactly exciting, nevertheless was something she could be very proud of, and her touching, vulnerable quest to find herself a makeshift family, a dream that she had not relinquished even at the age of 27, really made her likable and easy to identify with.
Far from being a Debbie Downer, none of these life experiences have made her a violin-wielding tragic figure. She impressed me with her pluck, her optimism, her patience and sunny disposition. When, at a certain point in the story, she finally breaks down in tears, because she is both overwhelmed by the feeling that she has really been accepted into this makeshift family of friends and acquaintances, but also because she longs for the man she loves to return her feelings, she is the most surprised at herself, because she never gives in to tears.
I really, really, really wanted her to have a worthy, besotted, swoon-worthy hero. She so deserved it. Unfortunately, the hero presented to us here was appalling. Upon meeting her, he quite ruthlessly drives like maniac, all the while puffing his cigarette in her face, after she has already endured not one but two extremely rickety flights and suffering from jet lag. When she quite understandably gets sick, he is almost giddy at her plight.
What did she do to deserve such a punishment? Nothing, except for his misguided impression that she is a mercenary gold-digger. This is based on the fact that she expressed her misgivings at leaving her country, her home and her secure job to take up a position that was not guaranteed to last, and was offered in return, quite fairly, a sum of money intended as cushion in case things went awry and she had to rely on a nest-egg while looking for another job.
How could this asshole fault her for something like this, especially knowing as he does, about her unstable background, lack of any supporting family whatsoever, and vulnerability as a young woman facing the hostile world quite alone. Especially as this sum would be negligible for someone in his financial position and a sound investment to make towards a woman who would be able to take on the responsibility that neither himself, nor his ex-wife, not his aunt, nor an assortment of well-meaning friends and acquaintances, were capable of meeting?
All throughout the book, I was waiting for his apology to her for acting like such a boor and to take back his hurtful words, but that never happened. In fact, he continued to act like a complete jerk to her, completely unprovoked.
What is worse is that I could not get over the feeling that the hero is in love with his cousin's wife, who lives in a neighboring ranch and thankfully isn't a vicious OW but becomes a friend of the heroine, and that the heroine is only second best to his unrequited love for the cousin's wife. It feels as the cousin and his wife may have had their own courtship explored in a preceding book, where the hero must have played the part of the unlucky OM. It certainly feels that way. The thread of that subplot is never explored or satisfyingly tied up.
All this concluded in a uninspiring seduction scene and a lame marriage proposal couched in terms of convenience. Basically that he would be getting a free teacher and mother combined for his daughter, without having to pay her extensive salary, and presumably she would get the honor and pleasure of getting this big fat jerk as her husband. Only reluctantly did the hero then slap on, as if an addendum to a dry legal document, that in fact he did love the heroine. I didn't buy it and I felt very sorry for this heroine, who deserved so much better :(
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 4, 2017
It took me two days to slog through this. The premise: heroine is recruited to be a governess to a five year-old girl whose mother has recently died. The divorced hero runs a mine in Brazil and is still getting acquainted with the little hellion. The heroine asks for some financial assurances and the hero immediately concludes that she is a gold digger.
The rest of the narrative is the heroine settling in and learning how to deal with the daughter. There is trip to town to buy Christmas presents, a tennis match, a punishing kiss to remind the heroine they are unchaperoned and zzzz. It was just really boring.
The rest of the narrative is the heroine settling in and learning how to deal with the daughter. There is trip to town to buy Christmas presents, a tennis match, a punishing kiss to remind the heroine they are unchaperoned and zzzz. It was just really boring.
July 9, 2024
This was just super boring.
August 12, 2011
Another dominant male naive woman. The hallmark of early 80's Harlequin Presents ...
August 16, 2024
I liked how the narrative was written and how the heroine was able to form a friendship with Becky and the aunt, but there's little to no romance here... Just as Naksed wrote in her review, disappointing reading.
Furthermore, things happened way too fast. Claudia arrived in Brazil around the first week of December and the book ends at New Year's; there's simply no way that in a couple of weeks things had already progressed that far with Becky and everyone.
Claudia is an educated, sensitive and confident woman. Yet, the fact that she felt lonely and earned for a family seemed to have gotten the best of her, for she fell in love with the most boorish man around, Saul.
The better sides of Saul's character were actually mentioned by his aunt, in relation to his ex-wife, and that may have served to paint him more like a victim deserving of understanding and explain his workaholic nature.
I don't think that was very convincing though, for the whole three weeks he never really showed any lovable features. His daughter aside, the times Saul was an actual gentleman, nice and smiling, was mostly when he met with the lady neighbour, not being able to deny her requests, but even then he blamed Claudia and got the opportunity to once again label her a gold-digger.
These two may have desired each other, but there was absolutely no love there. The few moments they spent together at home felt forced - the aunt sudden and conveniently suffering from strong migraines, the daughter not being home, etc. Well, to be clear, Claudia was sexually assaulted by her boss because he was under the assumption she was more experienced and it was okay.
Then the books just ends abruptly, they never having announced to anyone they were now a couple - including the daughter.
Furthermore, things happened way too fast. Claudia arrived in Brazil around the first week of December and the book ends at New Year's; there's simply no way that in a couple of weeks things had already progressed that far with Becky and everyone.
Claudia is an educated, sensitive and confident woman. Yet, the fact that she felt lonely and earned for a family seemed to have gotten the best of her, for she fell in love with the most boorish man around, Saul.
The better sides of Saul's character were actually mentioned by his aunt, in relation to his ex-wife, and that may have served to paint him more like a victim deserving of understanding and explain his workaholic nature.
I don't think that was very convincing though, for the whole three weeks he never really showed any lovable features. His daughter aside, the times Saul was an actual gentleman, nice and smiling, was mostly when he met with the lady neighbour, not being able to deny her requests, but even then he blamed Claudia and got the opportunity to once again label her a gold-digger.
These two may have desired each other, but there was absolutely no love there. The few moments they spent together at home felt forced - the aunt sudden and conveniently suffering from strong migraines, the daughter not being home, etc. Well, to be clear, Claudia was sexually assaulted by her boss because he was under the assumption she was more experienced and it was okay.
Then the books just ends abruptly, they never having announced to anyone they were now a couple - including the daughter.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 28, 2025
didn't make it through the first chapter
February 8, 2016
Title didn't fit the story. The guy wasn't mean and nasty like a lot of HP heroes although he did his share of sneering and threw out the odd insult. He was a man who dearly loved his little daughter and was a hardworking considerate employer. He wasn't a womanizer so I didn't understand the title.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews