Realms of Gold

by Elizabeth Hunter

Emily Thorne considered herself the steady, quiet one of her family-she carried on with her job, saved for the future, hardly gave a thought to love and marriage. But was it true, or was she simply unawakened? Perhaps her stormy relationship with the wealthy Demis Kaladonis would provide the answer.

Genres: Harlequin Romance, Hqn, Ebooks, Harlequin

249 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

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

Elizabeth Mary Teresa de Guise, née Hunter on 24 October 1934 in Nairobi, Kenya. She spent much of her years in Kenya and South Africa, and studied at the Open University. Her brother Alexander also wrote Western novels. After their parents' divorce, she and her sister, decided change their surname by de Guise.

Elizabeth wrote under the pseudonym of Isobel Chace, and under her real names: Elizabeth Hunter and Elizabeth de Guise. She was a member of the Romantic Novelists' Association.
Elizabeth passed away in May 2005, at 70.

Reviews

[StMargarets]

Heroine doth protest too much.

Hero is a Greek millionaire who falls in love with the heroine on the train taking her to her family’s Christmas. Heroine is prickly with him, but a day later she finds him on her father's doorstep. Before the New Year she is married and on her way to Greece. Seems hero is taking over her father’s business as a dowry. Heroine thinks he must really have wanted the business and doesn’t see how smitten he is.

Once in Greece, there is an unstoppable OW, the hero’s neurotic older sister and a hapless British OM to keep the H/h jealous of each other until the very end. Lots of mythology and travelogue in this one, which I enjoyed very much. Hero is a good guy – just a bit inscrutable. Heroine was ridiculous to take up the OM, but that’s a vintage trope put to good use here.

[Naksed]

HAIKU BOOK REVIEW: The Realms of Gold, by Elizabeth Hunter

This author must have
had a toxic sister in
her real life too.

[Leona]

Avoid at all cost.

[MissKitty]

Nah, I didn’t really enjoy this one. The author tries to say that the heroine is the practical, quiet one in a family of drama queens, but what she shows us is a heroine who acts like a brat to the hero, does impulsive stupid things and generally makes bad decisions. Plus there is a whole slew of the most improbable coincidences to top everything off. 🙄

[Aou]

Tooo chauvinist H and toooo idiot h!

[Karen]

Lovely romance from the 70s. Marriage of convenience story although the hero is actually besotted with her. There is an OW who causes some trouble but the hero is lovely. No violence etc in this one, as there can be with some of the novels from this period.

[RomLibrary]

Emily Thorne considered herself the steady, quiet one of her family-she carried on with her job, saved for the future, hardly gave a thought to love and marriage. But was it true, or was she simply unawakened? Perhaps her stormy relationship with the wealthy Demis Kaladonis would provide the answer.

[Andi]

A h and H who end up in a marriage of convenience for no coherent reason. The ‘sensible’ h tends to behave like a high-strung mess; the H is smitten but mostly treats the h like a recalcitrant 10-year old, cuz after all she’s a girl, and he, the man, knows best. (What’s that German word for someone having a punchable face? The H was so smugly irritating and sexist, this ‘punchableness’ seems to have translated itself into his depiction on the front cover. Doesn’t he look smarmy?)

Silly premise, cliched stereotypes and enervating characters - the result is a poor to middling ‘meh’.

[Lori Nemitz]

Read between January & June 1983.

Original notes on book from 1983: Typical Harlequin. Set in Greece.