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The Angry Man
Polly's heart was not really broken.
It had been hurt, though, by her broken romance in England. Thorn Clemance's offer of a job as companioin to the lovely Serena Clemance took Polly to the lush Australian valley where the Clemance brothers conducted agricultural research. But Plly couldn't make any sense of the Clemance household. What was wrong with Serena? Why was she guarded? And until she knew Thorn's relationship with Serena-Polly dared not admit she was falling in love with him!
It had been hurt, though, by her broken romance in England. Thorn Clemance's offer of a job as companioin to the lovely Serena Clemance took Polly to the lush Australian valley where the Clemance brothers conducted agricultural research. But Plly couldn't make any sense of the Clemance household. What was wrong with Serena? Why was she guarded? And until she knew Thorn's relationship with Serena-Polly dared not admit she was falling in love with him!
- GenresRomance
189 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
14 people want to read
About the author
Joyce Dingwell
111 books14 followersEnid Joyce Owen Dingwell, née Starr, was born on 1908 in Ryde, New South Wales, Australia. She wrote, as Joyce Dingwell and Kate Starr, 80 romance novels for Mills & Boon from 1931 to 1986. She was the first Australian writer living in Australia to be published by Mills & Boon. Her novel The House in the Timberwood (1959), was made into a motion picture, The Winds of Jarrah (1983). Her work was particularly notable for its use of the Australian land, culture, and people. She passed away on 2 August 1997 in Kincumber, New South Wales.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 30, 2014
The Angry Man by Joyce Dingwell (1979)
Harlequin Romance #2318
The Angry Man.
How could I not?
First, a detour to cover art. I am working with an artist on the cover of book two of the RiverLust series, Simon’s Story. It’s called Swan Bay.
I don’t believe you can paint a handsome man on the cover of a romance novel. Beautiful heroines? Yes. But the heroes always come off wrong.
Point in fact: The Angry Man cover hero is bleak. Crocodile Dundee with a longer face and shadowed, sunken cheeks. His hair is some kind of a poofy gray 70s mullet.
Go ahead. Take a look at the cover of The Angry Man. Does he look angry to you? See that slight lift of his upper lip, over there on the right? The way his brows are furrowed together as he regards the heroine? Yes. The lovely doe-eyed one. He is not angry; he’s sardonic, bemused. The man on this cover looks more perturbed than angry. Which is the perfect summation of Joyce Dingwell’s hero in this book.
English Polly loved her neighbor, who loved her sister, so her uncle sent her away. To Australia. Where after working on a statistics team as the resident non-statisician, she is told she has to stay another six months, because her former lover’s courtship of her sister is going more slowly than anticipated.
So she takes the position of paid companion to Mrs. Clemance, young and beautiful wife of Thorn Clemance. Thorn is an ag specialist for a pharmaceutical company. A medical herbalist. But the beautiful Mrs. Clemance is not his wife. It’s his cousin’s widow. The hero is, in fact, not married. We learn this as the heroine does, and it’s a breathless beat.
'Look at me, MissKendall, look at me, tell me what you see.’
‘I-I don’t understand you.’ Polly tried to retreat a step, but he advanced, and at once they stood barely an inch apart.
'I think you do understand. I think you see a man who is a no-half-measures man. I think you see a man who would not be put off with subtleties, evasions and half-truths from any woman he made his wife. I think you see a man who would demand an entirety, a fulfillment, a conclusion, a completion.’ A pause. ‘I think you see a man who would be demanding four, not eight walls.'
Oh, dear. Here’s looking at you.
The ultimate logic of conflict? Unknown. There is an ancestral puzzle requiring a flow chart to comprehend. And, for some reason, Thorn couldn’t tell Polly about his cousin’s widow’s recent sanitarium visit, her convalescence in his home, or the will that required that before she inherit, she must remain unmarried for two years. Which would have explained Polly’s charge to keep the young woman away from men.
The hero is in fact exactly like his picture (and the reader). Confused and frustrated.
Not an awful book. Joyce Dingwell (b. 1908) wrote 80 of them. She knew how to write. But for this one, in the end, I am left with only a single, bright nugget:
Upon first introduction, her toes were dipped in the river until he found her and hauled her out. A shark had taken the hero’s dog from that very rock, only a week earlier!
There is no cure for a shark attack…When you put your gear on we’ll get back.’
‘Gear? I’ve only removed my shoes and my pantyhose!’
He shrugged, saying almost uninterestingly: ‘Put ‘em on.’
Incensed, feeling a fool, hoping at least he would look away as she did so, Polly complied. It was not easy to wriggle discreetly into pantyhose, and she wished he would wander off. A tactful man would have. But he didn’t, he stood there right to the final hitch.
The final hitch? This whole line is worth reading for the settings. These girls get to go everywhere.
Sign up for more romance reviews and updates on the RiverLust! series.
Harlequin Romance #2318
The Angry Man.
How could I not?
First, a detour to cover art. I am working with an artist on the cover of book two of the RiverLust series, Simon’s Story. It’s called Swan Bay.
I don’t believe you can paint a handsome man on the cover of a romance novel. Beautiful heroines? Yes. But the heroes always come off wrong.
Point in fact: The Angry Man cover hero is bleak. Crocodile Dundee with a longer face and shadowed, sunken cheeks. His hair is some kind of a poofy gray 70s mullet.
Go ahead. Take a look at the cover of The Angry Man. Does he look angry to you? See that slight lift of his upper lip, over there on the right? The way his brows are furrowed together as he regards the heroine? Yes. The lovely doe-eyed one. He is not angry; he’s sardonic, bemused. The man on this cover looks more perturbed than angry. Which is the perfect summation of Joyce Dingwell’s hero in this book.
English Polly loved her neighbor, who loved her sister, so her uncle sent her away. To Australia. Where after working on a statistics team as the resident non-statisician, she is told she has to stay another six months, because her former lover’s courtship of her sister is going more slowly than anticipated.
So she takes the position of paid companion to Mrs. Clemance, young and beautiful wife of Thorn Clemance. Thorn is an ag specialist for a pharmaceutical company. A medical herbalist. But the beautiful Mrs. Clemance is not his wife. It’s his cousin’s widow. The hero is, in fact, not married. We learn this as the heroine does, and it’s a breathless beat.
'Look at me, MissKendall, look at me, tell me what you see.’
‘I-I don’t understand you.’ Polly tried to retreat a step, but he advanced, and at once they stood barely an inch apart.
'I think you do understand. I think you see a man who is a no-half-measures man. I think you see a man who would not be put off with subtleties, evasions and half-truths from any woman he made his wife. I think you see a man who would demand an entirety, a fulfillment, a conclusion, a completion.’ A pause. ‘I think you see a man who would be demanding four, not eight walls.'
Oh, dear. Here’s looking at you.
The ultimate logic of conflict? Unknown. There is an ancestral puzzle requiring a flow chart to comprehend. And, for some reason, Thorn couldn’t tell Polly about his cousin’s widow’s recent sanitarium visit, her convalescence in his home, or the will that required that before she inherit, she must remain unmarried for two years. Which would have explained Polly’s charge to keep the young woman away from men.
The hero is in fact exactly like his picture (and the reader). Confused and frustrated.
Not an awful book. Joyce Dingwell (b. 1908) wrote 80 of them. She knew how to write. But for this one, in the end, I am left with only a single, bright nugget:
Upon first introduction, her toes were dipped in the river until he found her and hauled her out. A shark had taken the hero’s dog from that very rock, only a week earlier!
There is no cure for a shark attack…When you put your gear on we’ll get back.’
‘Gear? I’ve only removed my shoes and my pantyhose!’
He shrugged, saying almost uninterestingly: ‘Put ‘em on.’
Incensed, feeling a fool, hoping at least he would look away as she did so, Polly complied. It was not easy to wriggle discreetly into pantyhose, and she wished he would wander off. A tactful man would have. But he didn’t, he stood there right to the final hitch.
The final hitch? This whole line is worth reading for the settings. These girls get to go everywhere.
Sign up for more romance reviews and updates on the RiverLust! series.
July 4, 2018
The H is secretive, high-handed, and above all, angry. He's also crazy jealous, although the h doesn't recognize it. The OW is vulnerable and must be protected by the H, who has enlisted the h's care to help keep this hothouse flower far from life's cruelties, and other men. I realize I hate these emotional invalid OW's -- they tend to take up so much of the book. Not enough tenderness or affection from the H to make it believable.
March 31, 2022
This book made me feel that I was trapped in a morass of vague innuendo, unclear partially elucidated thoughts and foggily expressed feeling. I didn’t know what was going on with the H who was all over the place. The OW floated around like a mental patient and the reader is left totally in the dark about any and all relationships in the story. Our h left her sentences and thoughts hanging in the air so often I pitied her. Forget the Angry man of the title, I became the one that was angry.
The main reason I read harlequin is because of how they make me feel. They have simple plots and and formulaic stories and that is all good. But when a HEA makes the reader annoyed as well as lost it’s time to finish this book off and start a new one. Not another Dingwell though.
The main reason I read harlequin is because of how they make me feel. They have simple plots and and formulaic stories and that is all good. But when a HEA makes the reader annoyed as well as lost it’s time to finish this book off and start a new one. Not another Dingwell though.
September 10, 2022
I was intrigued by a Dingwell with such a low rating. Not even Margret Pargeter's gotten below a 2 and she's got some real hum-dingers in her back catalog.
I don't think this is bad, just not what I expect from a Joyce Dingwell:
I liked this scene a lot though although I think another reviewer mentions specifically this is a scene they hate, lol! Different strokes for different folks; the book wasn't doing much for me but this was tantalizing in a taboo way.
Overall, book was fine, just sort of huh in a lot of spots. It's a 2.5, rounded to 3 because Dingwell's writing makes is readable.
I don't think this is bad, just not what I expect from a Joyce Dingwell:
Polly felt a hate rising in her, a hate for him for using her; hate for herself for her response. But most of all a hate for his practised mastery of the situation...mastery of Polly Kendall.
But curiously, for all her anger, Polly stood as though magnetised as the man slowly and deliberately began running his sensual fingers through her hair, first at the temples, then at the nape of her neck. Her pulses moved with his as he traced the line of her slender backbone, as he explored the hollow of her throat, as his hands once more followed the swell of her breats. The she felt his hand at the neck of her shirt unbuttoning the shirt; then she felt the warmth of his fingers on her flesh.
I liked this scene a lot though although I think another reviewer mentions specifically this is a scene they hate, lol! Different strokes for different folks; the book wasn't doing much for me but this was tantalizing in a taboo way.
Overall, book was fine, just sort of huh in a lot of spots. It's a 2.5, rounded to 3 because Dingwell's writing makes is readable.
March 6, 2025
This is a re-working of her 1955 book Greenfingers Farm (this one was written in 1979). It has more physicality then Greenfingers, but is less emotive. The heroine (19) is in rather a daze and still suffering from unrequited love from her neighbour from England (she has been in Sydney for 6 months). She then meets the hero (30-odd), who has hired her to be a companion for a girl a little bit older than her (and of course exceptionally beautiful) who lives in his house and has the same name. Of course the heroine thinks the is an OW - a wife in this case, but it is a similar scenario to Greenfingers Farm.
I give this 4 rather than 5 stars as the hero does not have the rural charm of the earlier book's hero and he could have been more open with her. A lot of incidents are similar, but it takes a different turn at the end.
It's still a well written romance with some Joyce Dingwell wordless quirks, but for 5 stars it needed more tenderness/connection.
I give this 4 rather than 5 stars as the hero does not have the rural charm of the earlier book's hero and he could have been more open with her. A lot of incidents are similar, but it takes a different turn at the end.
It's still a well written romance with some Joyce Dingwell wordless quirks, but for 5 stars it needed more tenderness/connection.
June 27, 2016
Polly Kendall is working in Australia, while her home and heart is in England. The six months she was to be away to give her sister a chance at love has been stretched to another six month jaunt. ne where she takes on the task of being a companion for a beautiful girl. A girl that she assumes is the wife of her boss, but then she just does not know what the relationship is.
Thorn Clemance has the task of caring for his cousin's widow. A simple, but beautiful girl that he must protect, even from his own brother. But for all his tight restraints, he finds that the one he really wants to care for is Polly.
Thorn Clemance has the task of caring for his cousin's widow. A simple, but beautiful girl that he must protect, even from his own brother. But for all his tight restraints, he finds that the one he really wants to care for is Polly.
February 13, 2015
Didn't really like this one. The majority of Joyce Dingwell's books are clean and I enjoy reading them since they are usually set in Australia or New Zealand but this one I couldn't finish. Once the fellow started fondling the female lead and then started unbuttoning her blouse I had had enough.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews