Winter at Whitecliffs

by Miriam Macgregor

On trial for love

"No girl would come to the New Zealand backcountry unless she was in love with a man." This was hardly the greeting Lindy had expected from Whitecliffs owner, Scott Wardell.

And even though he had finally agreed to one month's trial, Scott still suspected Lindy's real reason for accepting the post as tutor to his ward was her interest in his half brother, Steve.

He was so wrong! But convincing him wasn't going to be easy, when the proof lay in how she felt about Scott.

Genres: Harlequin Romance, Romance

187 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1986

About the author

1912- 2001

Miriam MacGregor wrote several romances for Mills & Boon and Harlequin in the 1980's and 1990's. Her stories are mostly set in New Zealand.

She also wrote several well regarded non fiction books about New Zealand.

Mrs Macgregor was married twice. Rachel McAlpine states in The Passionate Pen that Mrs Macgregor moved to England in the 1990s to live with a daughter.


added information from The Passionate Pen, the back cover of Petticoat Pioneers & National Library New Zealand.

Reviews

[Naksed · Rating 1 out of 5]

From first page to next to last page:
OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW
OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW
OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW
OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW
OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW

Last page:
ILY, marry me.

The end.

[StMargarets · Rating 3 out of 5]

Crazy OW alert! She's a beauty.

Story is set in New Zealand. Heroine is unemployed from her accounting position and a friend of friend (OM) offers her a job teaching a five year-old boy on an isolated station. The heroine knew the boy as a baby when he and his sickly mother had stayed with heroine's neighbors and heroine had visited often. Boy's mother has since died.

Heroine is met at the bus stop by the hero, cousin of the (OM). Hero is not happy to see heroine and uses all kinds of excuses to send her home again. But she tells him she knew the boy and off they go to the station for a month's trial. She gets along fine with the boy and the housekeeper and all is well until the OM shows up with the OW - family friend and crazy person. OM tries to put moves on the heroine, but she's not having it.

Hero kisses her in the tower room and blathers a lot of nonsense about being moonstruck, etc. . . But heroine doesn't think he's serious about her. OW is making her play for the hero and she is constantly putting heroine down. Heroine tries to ignore it and works with the boy (we get lots of lesson plans). OW makes several scenes - in one she comes into the heroine's room and slaps her. Hero has raised eyebrows, but still can't see he's let a psycho in his house.

OM just kind of drifts away after finally being rebuffed by heroine. Hero and heroine have a day out. Heroine runs into boys real father, who says that OW was the reason they married and why they were so miserable. Seems boy's mother was in love with hero and when OW told her they were engaged, she married on the rebound, never to be happy again.

Hero makes plans for the boy to be transported to schooling, so heroine won't be needed after three weeks are up. But he has another job offer for her, if she will listen with an open mind when the time comes. Heroine thinks it's bookkeeping. Riiight. Meanwhile OW takes heroine out for a riding lesson and whips the horse so heroine will fall off. She does, right near the crevice of the whitecliffs of the title. Hero sees it all. Finally sends OW packing. HEA

This is an engaging read because the OW is so over the top. The romance of the heroine/hero is the usual jealousy/hiding true feelings kind of relationship.

[Margo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is Miriam MacGregor more in the style of one of my favorites, Stairway to Destiny. It gets a lower score (3.5 stars) because the OW is given far too much screen time, even if she is deliciously extreme in her methods towards the h.

The plot is as follows: The h comes to tutor the H's ward (or whatever he was, I seriously don't remember) until he is ready to go to school in a month. The H is seriously drawn to her, comparing her to moonlight and kissing her, but then the H's flaky stepbrother shows up with an old friend of the ward's late mother (the OW) and the H begins spending a lot of time with her, riding with her every day, going on trips with her, etc. He becomes jealous of the flaky stepbrother (vaguely the OM), who was responsible for the h getting the job in the first place, but really isn't much more than a casual acquaintance of hers, and becomes increasingly impatient with the OW, to the point where every single time she clashes with the h, he pretty much immediately backs the h. At this point, it should be pretty clear to the h that the H can't stand the OW, which makes her remaining there even stranger. I mean, really, you can practically hear him gritting his teeth whenever the OW says anything.

The H even refers to the OW as his "armour" to his ward, IN FRONT OF THE h, something that mystifies the h, but not the reader. (At that point, the H has pretty much given up on the pretext of being interested in the other woman.) Other people at the homestead spell it out to the h, but she still doesn't seem to get it, possibly because it is kind of ridiculous that a grown man would do this, and partially because she is rather naive (OK, not too bright). He then gets insanely jealous about the ward's father, who shows up very briefly, spontaneously giving the h an opal for taking care of his son so well. Somehow this leads to kisses when the h decides that the opal is actually more deserved by the housekeeper who has been raising the ward for quite a while, as opposed to the approximately two weeks the h has known the kid. The H basically is hearing the angels singing at this point, and things take a pretty strong turn towards a satisfactory resolution.

Soon he starts talking to the h about how he has a special job she might be interested in, but he never actually says what it is because the time and the place are always wrong, which mystifies the h, but not the reader. He even explains to her that because the OW was a good friend of the ward's mother, he can't really stop her from being there without a damn good reason because she considers it a second home.

Later they go out looking for a lost teddy bear, then he kisses her passionately in view of the (spying) OW, and that means it's time for the OW to make her move, and boy does she. (Part of me thinks that maybe the H set up the situation so that the OW could be kicked out in perpetuity, because I couldn't understand why he was insisting that the OW and the h spend time together when the OW was so clearly insanely jealous.) After that, things wrap up nicely, the H explains the "armour" comment for the benefit of the folks in the cheap seats, and that's the end of the story.

This story didn't quite reach Stairway to Destiny heights because the H was too aloof and the OW story just sort of stretched and stretched on, but it was a good read.

[Melinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the hero's attitude toward the OW was unkind. She was a nasty piece but he was using her in his own words as armor or a shield between him and the heroine. Since the OW had been after him for 5 years, and by her actions there was no way that he could construe her feelings toward him as sisterly, then his spending time with her and paying attention to her was not nice even if she was a witch.

[Helen Moulden · Rating 5 out of 5]

New author for me and I really enjoyed the story. Not a lot in it but I felt like I was an actual witness to the things that were happening. The scene where the bitch woman has slapped the little boy is something that is awful but this book was written in the 1980's and not now, so it was dealt with differently.

[Raquel Terradillos]

Prueba de fuego

[RomLibrary · Rating 3 out of 5]

On trial for love

"No girl would come to the New Zealand backcountry unless she was in love with a man." This was hardly the greeting Lindy had expected from Whitecliffs owner, Scott Wardell.

And even though he had finally agreed to one month's trial, Scott still suspected Lindy's real reason for accepting the post as tutor to his ward was her interest in his half brother, Steve.

He was so wrong! But convincing him wasn't going to be easy, when the proof lay in how she felt about Scott.