This Time Round

by Catherine George

"I wouldn't intentionally hurt any woman."Leo Seymour's words were meant to be reassuring. But Davina Lennox couldn't help remembering that seven years ago, intentionally or otherwise, he had badly hurt her.She'd been a lovestruck teenager then, and Leo had been nearly mad with rage and jealousy over losing the woman he loved to Davina's brother.That was all water under the bridge now, they both agreed. Yet, in spite of Leo's offers of affection, Davina just couldn't believe that he would ever feel the same depth of passion for her.

Genres: Harlequin Romance

190 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1988

About the author

Deirdre 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.

Reviews

[Naksed · Rating 2 out of 5]

HAIKU BOOK REVIEW: This Time Round, by Catherine George.


This time round, nothing had changed.
Same psycho, same waif,
and worse of all, the dog died!

Heroine fell in love with hero on her seventeenth birthday the moment he walked into the door of her home, trailing after heroine's brother. At the time, Hero was involved with an actress who was working on a movie about Lord Byron. Hero was the assistant to the director on that set.

Then, to everyone's shock, Heroine's brother ran off with the actress and hero had a conniption of Othello-like proportions. Heroine took the brunt of it (guilt by association). She got cured of her puppy love real fast. Hero was sick with rage and jealousy and ready to commit murder/suicide. Heroine looked at the ugly side of love obsession and decided to stay clear of deep entanglements.

Over seven years, she studied, became a nurse, then she was demoted to just working in a medical office as a general dogsbody, because of a back injury. She had boyfriends and even went to bed with a couple of them but decided she didn't like the experience enough to repeat it. At the back of her mind, the hero always stood as the ideal man despite all the bad feelings associated with him. She was like a Penny Jordan heroine who walked into a Catherine George story.

Seven years after the epic Lord Byron movie jilting/elopement Escandalo, Hero returns to heroine's village . He is now a celebrated director and back to film the Lord Byron bio. The last one was scrapped when the actress ran off with heroine's brother. Actress ended up marrying heroine's brother. Hero runs into his ex from time to time and while he remains civil, he apparently still carries a huge chip on his shoulder about her defection and his former best friend's betrayal.

So heroine is very surprised when hero wants to reacquaint himself with her. Despite her best efforts to politely decline his offer of friendship, Hero persists in pursuing her, even going to the lengths of renting the upstairs flat at her house so he can insinuate himself into her life.

Yaddi yaddi yadda: They get married. She doesn't really trust him, wondering if hero is merely getting a revenge on her brother and his ex by insinuating himself into their lives and using her as a stand-in for the real love of his life. Heroine unfortunately accepts this unworthy marriage of convenience arrangement because she always Seekretly loved the hero and still does, despite all his flaws. After seven years of unrequited love, she decided that life was too bleak to live without him.

Hero makes genuine and very plausible efforts to convince heroine of his love for her and show that he is well and truly over his ex. I actually believed him. When ex shows up on his next movie set, there is a moment of awkwardness at first until someone makes a joke, then they all laugh together and the tension is gone. Hero is gaga over heroine and looks at his ex only in his professional capacity as director. Everything seems rosy and heroine is starting to believe in their HEA.

Then heroine gets stuck on a hike with hero's leading actor and close friend. They were huddling together to prevent hypothermia and the actor friend kissed the heroine awake when she was having a nightmare. Cue hero to walk in at that exact moment and catch them in flagrante. Now he thinks history repeated itself and he was betrayed once again by the woman he loved with a man that he considered his best friend.

Hero is horrid to heroine, yanking her arm so violently that it is almost dislocated. The result of the physical and emotional stress of the hike gone wrong and her husband's horribleness afterwards is that she miscarries. While she is still recovering from that trauma in the hospital bed, her husband has the cruelty to ask her if the baby was his or the other guy. Heroine tells him off epically and asks for a divorce. Hero is forced to shut his big fat trap for once.

There are months of separation during which the hero stubbornly returns every weekend to his rented flat upstairs from the heroine's home. (They hadn't even had time to move in together in a proper house before the marriage blew up in their faces). She puts a deadbolt on the connecting door between the two apartments. He continues taunting her cruelly, telling her he won't give her a divorce because that will be a convenient excuse not to commit himself to any of the many Hollywood groupies panting after him. He tells her he is keeping up the pretense of cohabiting so she can't claim desertion to succeed in her divorce request.

Things come to a head when hero's actor friend comes for a visit to the heroine. He apologizes to her for setting her up to spend time alone with her and for putting the moves on her when she was vulnerable. He admits that he ruined her marriage because he had a crush on her and stupidly acted on it. He was so used to women falling at his feet and heroine was the one who got away, so he had to have her. Now he realizes how wrong he was and hopes she will forgive him *eye roll*

Heroine graciously accepts his apologies but she very firmly declines any romantic relationship between them. She is not interested in the actor friend and never will be, even if her marriage is over. The actor leaves, pleading one last time that if she ever changes her mind, she only has to whistle and he will come running. The hero, who was in the upstairs flat the whole time, eavesdrops on the conversation. He finally realizes that nothing happened, at least nothing that the heroine instigated, and what's more, the heroine is not interested in the actor friend and she takes her marriage vows seriously even if hero screwed things up royally.

There is no grovel. Heroine comes home to find hero has made a nice romantic dinner and he humbly asks her to take him back. Heroine has been miserable without him and she was just waiting for him to make the first step. Hero's half-hearted apologies about his vile words to her especially about the paternity of the baby are justified (by him and somewhat by heroine) because of his past betrayal by his ex, which is the prism through which he sees all women. At least, he accepts that his out-of-control jealousy is a big problem that he needs to work on though I really don't think that kind of Othello style sickness of the mind can be mended without therapy but whatever, it's Harlequin Land! No therapy needed, murderous jealous rage is simply a proof of love. The ILYs are exchanged and the heroine asks the hero to quickly help her make another baby.

My favorite character in the whole story was heroine's trusty old dog, who was a fierce and loyal protector even though he had the bad taste to like the hero. The dog was truly the real hero of the piece, especially when he jumped on a would-be date-rapist and inserted his teeth into his wrist and would not let go til heroine told him to. But alas, he had to be put down by the vet due to old age, which made me tear up for realz. I hate reading about animals being abused or dying. That's why I can never re-read Marley and Me, that probably took a few years off my life. But anyway, I digress.

The scene on the book cover refers to heroine, sleepless at the thought of the hawt hero sleeping upstairs from her, wandering into the garden at night and the hero finding her asleep on the bench and trying to put the moves on her, which ends ignominously when the heroine tells him he ate too many onions for dinner for his seduction attempt to succeed. LOL

[Lakshmi C · Rating 2 out of 5]

7 years ago, Sean and Leo were good friends. Leo was engaged to Madeline and Davina had a crush on Leo. But Sean and Madeline fall in love and run away together. What happens next?

This book loses 3 stars because :

I didn't like Davina much. I can't figure out why.

The ghost of Madeline always hovered over their relationship. The memory of Madeline is always with Davina, she doesn't forget and won't let the reader forget either.

Davina claims that Leo broke her heart but when she was younger, Leo was unaware of her feelings. Even after the drama with Sean and Madeline, I felt Davina's words were careless and hurtful.

The runaway couple Sean and Madeline never make amends and are the only ones who escape unscathed.

This book gets 2 stars because :

I liked Leo. He was passionate, self aware and persistent. He was not confused about his feelings at any point and was open about his problem with jealousy.

I enjoyed the parts about the movie and liked the charming movie star, Jack.

This was another, not so great read from another favorite author. This is the third book in a row and my reading streak seems to be jinxed. All I can do for now is flail about tragically in the sea of disappointment.

[Leona · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book waffled between a snooze fest and a wall banger.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 Stars ~ It all began when Davina's brother, Sean, bumped into an old college friend at the local pub and decided to bring him home to share in the family celebration of her 17th birthday. Davey fell in love at first sight with Leo, the up and coming assistant film director. Davey soon learnt that the attention Leo paid her was just to fill in time until he was reunited with his fiancee, Madeleine. And to make Davey's life even more miserable, Sean and Madeleine fell in love, leaving her to deal with an enraged Leo. It's now seven years later, and Davina and Leo meet again. Leo's success as a film director has kept him in the spotlight, and he's gained a reputation as a lady's man. He wants to get to know Davey and for them to be friends, but she rejects this idea all together admitting to him how badly he'd hurt her when she was 17. Their attraction is quite strong and finally Leo wears her down. When he suggests they go away together when his film wraps up, she says no, knowing that when their affair would end she'd be left shattered. She's shocked when he proposes. At first their marriage is wonderful and they vow they'll be together forever. And then Leo's obsessive jealousy returns and Davey realizes she can't live in a marriage like that.

Leo's always been the man for Davey, but she never really felt that she was Leo's great love, and she was okay with that. She couldn't see that Leo truly loved her for herself, until his insane jealousy reared up to nearly destroy everything. These two have a chemistry that leaps off the pages and I was rooting for them all the way to their HEA.

[Gabie (OwlEyesReviews) · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5/5 stars

During this social distancing period, my roommate and I thought it would be fun to give each other books from our shelves to read. I gave her Anna and the French Kiss and she gave me this Harlequin Romance she got in a vending machine at a bar we went to once. I read the entire thing. Let's just say, this is the type of books you'd think to get out of a bar vending machine. I"m going to leave it at that.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A love story about maturing enough to be worthy of each other but to also be able honour, love, tolerate and compromise with each other.

Hormones running a muck can bring a lot to your life but it’s really hard to crate forever from a desire based on young lust or lust and vengeance.

This is Leo and Davina’s journey to their Happily Ever After and the trials and tribulations they had to go through to get there.

[Roub · Rating 1 out of 5]

what a waste of time ! i was dreadfully bored !! the book seemed 2 drag on n on.

[Bea Tea · Rating 4 out of 5]

So close to being perfect, only to stumble HARD at the last hurdle. I enjoyed this one so much, how the h was unwilling to fall into the H's arms after he had treated her so indifferently in the past, and how he had to work his butt off to slowly win her heart... and then right at the end the author decides he has to be *viciously* jealous and lash out, hurt and abandon the h the moment she suffers a miscarriage. She then has to crawl back to him and simper while he says he'll probably do it again, and hurt her again, that's just the way he is baby.

God damn, my rage gland went into overdrive and I slammed this book closed with a feeling of utter fury and despair - why oh why the author decided to rub shit all over a perfectly lovely romance by robbing us of a HEA I'll never know. I had to give it 4 stars though, because a good 95% of the book was rather good.

[RomLibrary]

"I wouldn't intentionally hurt any woman."

Leo Seymour's words were meant to be reassuring. But Davina Lennox couldn't help remembering that seven years ago, intentionally or otherwise, he had badly hurt her.

She'd been a lovestruck teenager then, and Leo had been nearly mad with rage and jealousy over losing the woman he loved to Davina's brother.

That was all water under the bridge now, they both agreed. Yet, in spite of Leo's offers of affection, Davina just couldn't believe that he would ever feel the same depth of passion for her.

[Νίνα Δοδούδη · Rating 2 out of 5]

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