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Ring Of Gold
It was not the holiday she'd planned...
When a friend forced her to take a much-needed break from the pressures of her job, Paige Montgomery had her own plans.
Top of the list was to get her life into some kind of order.
Instead she found herself in the wilds of British Columbia sharing a cabin with an uncooperative stranger--father of the small boy she'd brought from San Francisco and his legal guardian.
Travis Brent Renshaw made it perfectly plain their presence was totally unwelcome.
Any sensible person would have retreated at that point.
But Paige was not going to back down...
When a friend forced her to take a much-needed break from the pressures of her job, Paige Montgomery had her own plans.
Top of the list was to get her life into some kind of order.
Instead she found herself in the wilds of British Columbia sharing a cabin with an uncooperative stranger--father of the small boy she'd brought from San Francisco and his legal guardian.
Travis Brent Renshaw made it perfectly plain their presence was totally unwelcome.
Any sensible person would have retreated at that point.
But Paige was not going to back down...
- GenresHarlequin PresentsHqn
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
About the author
Sandra Field
215 books37 followersJill MacLean was born on 1941 in England, UK. In 1950, her family moved to Nova Scotia, Canada.
After receiving her Bachelor of Science with honours from Dalhousie University, she married. She worked at the Fisheries Research Board until her daughter was born. Following the birth of her son, she was employed by the pathology laboratory of Sydney City Hospital and the biology department of Mount Allison University. More recently, she completed a Masters in Theological Studies at the Atlantic School of Theology; her thesis juxtaposed Hebrew concepts of chaos in the book of Job with modern chaos theory.
When her husband joined the Armed Forces as a chaplain, she had to stop working. They moved three times in the first 18 months, the last move was to Prince Edward Island. By then her children were in school; she couldn't get a job; and at the local bridge club, she kept forgetting not to trump her partner's ace.
However, she had always loved to read, fascinated by the lure of being drawn into the other world of the story. So one day she bought a dozen Harlequin novels, read and analyzed them, then sat down and wrote one. Her first book, To Trust My Love, typed with four fingers, was published in 1974 as Sandra Field (she believes she's curiously the first Canadian to write for Harlequin). During the four years she lived in Prince Edward Island, she researched an 18th century French settlement located near present-day Brudenell, resulting in a historical book, Jean Pierre Roma, published in 1977 under her real name. She also started to write in collaboration with other Martimer writer under the pseudonym Jan MacLean. She also used to singed her novels the pseudonym of Jocelyn Haley. Her pseudonyms was an attempt to prevent the congregation from finding out what the chaplain's wife was up to in her spare time.
Before she turned 40, her life was changed, she had lost three of the most important women in her life: her mother and sister to illness, and her seventeen-year-old daughter to a car accident, and she separated from her husband in 1976. One of the lasting legacies of the grief caused by these losses has been the idea that it is impossible and undesirable to live every waking moment in the knowledge that loss can strike at any time.
She's been very fortunate for years to be able to combine a love of travel (particularly to the north - she doesn't do heat well) with her writing, by describing settings that most people will probably never visit. And there's always the challenge of making the heroine's long underwear sound romantic. Her novels has been translated into Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Italian, Greek, Dutch, Swedish, Yugoslavian, Japanese... and sold in more than 90 countries. Her first collection of poetry, The Brevity of Red, was published in 2003. When her nine-years-old grandson, Stuart, asked him a book for him, she wrote her first Children's book and decided continued writing this type of books.
Jill now lives in Bedford, Nova Scotia, and she's lived most of her life in the Maritimes of Canada, within reach of the sea. Kayaking and canoeing, hiking and gardening, listening to music and reading are all sources of great pleasure. But best of all are good friends, some going back to high-school days, and her family. In Newfoundland, she has a beautiful daughter-in-law and the two most delightful, handsome, and intelligent grandchildren in the world (of course!).
After receiving her Bachelor of Science with honours from Dalhousie University, she married. She worked at the Fisheries Research Board until her daughter was born. Following the birth of her son, she was employed by the pathology laboratory of Sydney City Hospital and the biology department of Mount Allison University. More recently, she completed a Masters in Theological Studies at the Atlantic School of Theology; her thesis juxtaposed Hebrew concepts of chaos in the book of Job with modern chaos theory.
When her husband joined the Armed Forces as a chaplain, she had to stop working. They moved three times in the first 18 months, the last move was to Prince Edward Island. By then her children were in school; she couldn't get a job; and at the local bridge club, she kept forgetting not to trump her partner's ace.
However, she had always loved to read, fascinated by the lure of being drawn into the other world of the story. So one day she bought a dozen Harlequin novels, read and analyzed them, then sat down and wrote one. Her first book, To Trust My Love, typed with four fingers, was published in 1974 as Sandra Field (she believes she's curiously the first Canadian to write for Harlequin). During the four years she lived in Prince Edward Island, she researched an 18th century French settlement located near present-day Brudenell, resulting in a historical book, Jean Pierre Roma, published in 1977 under her real name. She also started to write in collaboration with other Martimer writer under the pseudonym Jan MacLean. She also used to singed her novels the pseudonym of Jocelyn Haley. Her pseudonyms was an attempt to prevent the congregation from finding out what the chaplain's wife was up to in her spare time.
Before she turned 40, her life was changed, she had lost three of the most important women in her life: her mother and sister to illness, and her seventeen-year-old daughter to a car accident, and she separated from her husband in 1976. One of the lasting legacies of the grief caused by these losses has been the idea that it is impossible and undesirable to live every waking moment in the knowledge that loss can strike at any time.
She's been very fortunate for years to be able to combine a love of travel (particularly to the north - she doesn't do heat well) with her writing, by describing settings that most people will probably never visit. And there's always the challenge of making the heroine's long underwear sound romantic. Her novels has been translated into Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Italian, Greek, Dutch, Swedish, Yugoslavian, Japanese... and sold in more than 90 countries. Her first collection of poetry, The Brevity of Red, was published in 2003. When her nine-years-old grandson, Stuart, asked him a book for him, she wrote her first Children's book and decided continued writing this type of books.
Jill now lives in Bedford, Nova Scotia, and she's lived most of her life in the Maritimes of Canada, within reach of the sea. Kayaking and canoeing, hiking and gardening, listening to music and reading are all sources of great pleasure. But best of all are good friends, some going back to high-school days, and her family. In Newfoundland, she has a beautiful daughter-in-law and the two most delightful, handsome, and intelligent grandchildren in the world (of course!).
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 3, 2017
Re Ring of Gold - Sandra Field does a non HP HP for February of 1990, and it has a somewhat unusual premise for HPlandia.
The h is a social worker in San Francisco with a tragic past. Two years earlier her 17 yr old brother died when he was using drugs and living on the streets. An earthquake knocked down the wall of a condemned property he was squatting in and it killed him. The h's father had died years earlier and when the h went to tell her mother about the tragedy, her mother blamed her for not getting her brother off the streets and allowing him to use drugs. Then she had a heart attack and died two months later. The h has been struggling for two years with incredible grief and guilt. So to sublimate her intense emotional pain, she has been pouring herself into her at risk teen social working job and she is perilously close to a complete breakdown.
Enter her very good friend, a lawyer who has a case of a five year old child that has to be taken to his father because his party girl mother has passed away. The boy's mother was estranged from her husband, a man who wrote one brilliant novel and then two very bad movies. He went off the rails after his pregnant wife left him, claiming she was carrying another man's child, and then he moved to obscurity in the Yukon Territory of Canada.
The h is conned into taking the boy up to his father, as the lawyer friend claims she has a big trial and can't do it. But really the friend is worried about how bad the h looks and wants her to take some vacation time and figures the mountains of the Yukon will help her relax.
So it is off to Whitehorse we go and the h and the little boy are in a state of uneasy truce. The boy isn't too pleased to be dumped on a stranger, so there was some convincing irky kid moments which eliminated him from plot moppet status.
When we get to Whitehorse, the h finds out that the H lives in a remote area off a lake. (SF names the lake Tahkini, but given her description I suspect it was lake Laberge as Tahkini isn't on the Yukon river.) The h gets a guy to ferry them across the lake and then they have to hike over to the H's house.
He isn't home, so the exhausted travelers wind up sleeping in the small cabin's only bed. The h notices that the little boy has twisted little toes on both feet, but he says he was born that way and the h thinks nothing of it.
In the middle of the night the H returns and he is NOT pleased to find a redhead in his bed. In fact he claims that he isn't the boy's father at all, his dead wife said someone else was the father and he refuses to let the little boy stay. This sets the h off and she decides that she and the boy will just move in on top of the H until he sees the error of his ways.
So for two weeks the H ignores the boy and the h starts to feel a simmering attraction towards the H tho his refusal to take his son is exasperating. The h is tenacious tho, and she isn't giving up no matter what. She also manages to catch up on her sleep and recharge her drained psyche.
The little boy, Brent, is soon happily settled in. There are dogs and kittens and a nice neighbor family with three girls for him to play with. The H and h continue to fight about the H stepping up to his fatherly responsibilities, the H is having none of it and the battles soon turn into a lurve club moment.
The h and H love it up in a field of flowers and then the H hurts Brent's feelings by rejecting him pretty harshly. Brent runs off and everyone is on the hunt for him. When he is found, the H apologizes and changes his mind about letting Brent stay. Then he notices Brent's toes, and since he has the same kind of toes, he knows his wife lied and it is instant father/son bonding.
The h is in love but the H tells her they can't continue the lurve mojo theme because he was hurt too much from the last woman who left him. The h has to get back to her job anyways, her teenage clients need her, but Brent doesn't want her to go. She agrees to stay for two more weeks and then she meets a very old mountain man, who prospected for a lot of gold and has recently lost his brother. They were companions and mountain men together for many years and the old mountain man and the h find a mutual bond in sharing their separate griefs over the deaths of their brothers. The h starts on her own path of healing and starts to reevaluate her life.
The H and h are getting closer and the H wants her to stay, but the h gets a call that one of her teens has run away, so the h goes rushing back to San Francisco and the H refuses to see her off. He is angry she is leaving, just when she got him to start writing again and he is furious that she made him face his demons and she won't face her own.
The h goes back to SF, the teen turns out to be fine and the lady who took over her job is doing better than the h was. The h thinks about things and decides that she really wants to be with the H and Brent. So she quits her job, packs up what she will need and heads back to the Yukon, she checked and they need social workers up in the Yukon too, cause there isn't a lot of people who live there with the necessary qualifications.
The H and Brent are out adventuring when she finally arrives, but the h finds the old mountain man has injured himself in a mine. They have a nice little chat about the H and her love for him and the mountain man promises her a ring from his stash of gold if she and the H marry.
The h sets out to get help to get the mountain man out of the mine and everybody shows up for the rescue. The H is at the front of the rescue line, he was going to go after the h before she came back on her own, and he and the h swear true love forever with writing and kids and Brent gives his five year old seal of approval, now he has real parents and he is looking forward to being a big brother for the HEA.
This one was different, and a lot of the book is almost a study on the mechanisms of grief and recovery and unpacking a lot of past baggage intermixed with the humor of a city lady braving the untamed wild.
Brent was a great character, in fact he kinda steals the show in a very nice way. The H and h were okay too, but this is probably the only HP where the child and his character growth are more interesting than the H and h's love story.
Try this one if you want a different kind of HP voyage, it has a nice flow and tho the trope is slightly skewed, the story was an engrossing read and worth the outing to HPlandia.
The h is a social worker in San Francisco with a tragic past. Two years earlier her 17 yr old brother died when he was using drugs and living on the streets. An earthquake knocked down the wall of a condemned property he was squatting in and it killed him. The h's father had died years earlier and when the h went to tell her mother about the tragedy, her mother blamed her for not getting her brother off the streets and allowing him to use drugs. Then she had a heart attack and died two months later. The h has been struggling for two years with incredible grief and guilt. So to sublimate her intense emotional pain, she has been pouring herself into her at risk teen social working job and she is perilously close to a complete breakdown.
Enter her very good friend, a lawyer who has a case of a five year old child that has to be taken to his father because his party girl mother has passed away. The boy's mother was estranged from her husband, a man who wrote one brilliant novel and then two very bad movies. He went off the rails after his pregnant wife left him, claiming she was carrying another man's child, and then he moved to obscurity in the Yukon Territory of Canada.
The h is conned into taking the boy up to his father, as the lawyer friend claims she has a big trial and can't do it. But really the friend is worried about how bad the h looks and wants her to take some vacation time and figures the mountains of the Yukon will help her relax.
So it is off to Whitehorse we go and the h and the little boy are in a state of uneasy truce. The boy isn't too pleased to be dumped on a stranger, so there was some convincing irky kid moments which eliminated him from plot moppet status.
When we get to Whitehorse, the h finds out that the H lives in a remote area off a lake. (SF names the lake Tahkini, but given her description I suspect it was lake Laberge as Tahkini isn't on the Yukon river.) The h gets a guy to ferry them across the lake and then they have to hike over to the H's house.
He isn't home, so the exhausted travelers wind up sleeping in the small cabin's only bed. The h notices that the little boy has twisted little toes on both feet, but he says he was born that way and the h thinks nothing of it.
In the middle of the night the H returns and he is NOT pleased to find a redhead in his bed. In fact he claims that he isn't the boy's father at all, his dead wife said someone else was the father and he refuses to let the little boy stay. This sets the h off and she decides that she and the boy will just move in on top of the H until he sees the error of his ways.
So for two weeks the H ignores the boy and the h starts to feel a simmering attraction towards the H tho his refusal to take his son is exasperating. The h is tenacious tho, and she isn't giving up no matter what. She also manages to catch up on her sleep and recharge her drained psyche.
The little boy, Brent, is soon happily settled in. There are dogs and kittens and a nice neighbor family with three girls for him to play with. The H and h continue to fight about the H stepping up to his fatherly responsibilities, the H is having none of it and the battles soon turn into a lurve club moment.
The h and H love it up in a field of flowers and then the H hurts Brent's feelings by rejecting him pretty harshly. Brent runs off and everyone is on the hunt for him. When he is found, the H apologizes and changes his mind about letting Brent stay. Then he notices Brent's toes, and since he has the same kind of toes, he knows his wife lied and it is instant father/son bonding.
The h is in love but the H tells her they can't continue the lurve mojo theme because he was hurt too much from the last woman who left him. The h has to get back to her job anyways, her teenage clients need her, but Brent doesn't want her to go. She agrees to stay for two more weeks and then she meets a very old mountain man, who prospected for a lot of gold and has recently lost his brother. They were companions and mountain men together for many years and the old mountain man and the h find a mutual bond in sharing their separate griefs over the deaths of their brothers. The h starts on her own path of healing and starts to reevaluate her life.
The H and h are getting closer and the H wants her to stay, but the h gets a call that one of her teens has run away, so the h goes rushing back to San Francisco and the H refuses to see her off. He is angry she is leaving, just when she got him to start writing again and he is furious that she made him face his demons and she won't face her own.
The h goes back to SF, the teen turns out to be fine and the lady who took over her job is doing better than the h was. The h thinks about things and decides that she really wants to be with the H and Brent. So she quits her job, packs up what she will need and heads back to the Yukon, she checked and they need social workers up in the Yukon too, cause there isn't a lot of people who live there with the necessary qualifications.
The H and Brent are out adventuring when she finally arrives, but the h finds the old mountain man has injured himself in a mine. They have a nice little chat about the H and her love for him and the mountain man promises her a ring from his stash of gold if she and the H marry.
The h sets out to get help to get the mountain man out of the mine and everybody shows up for the rescue. The H is at the front of the rescue line, he was going to go after the h before she came back on her own, and he and the h swear true love forever with writing and kids and Brent gives his five year old seal of approval, now he has real parents and he is looking forward to being a big brother for the HEA.
This one was different, and a lot of the book is almost a study on the mechanisms of grief and recovery and unpacking a lot of past baggage intermixed with the humor of a city lady braving the untamed wild.
Brent was a great character, in fact he kinda steals the show in a very nice way. The H and h were okay too, but this is probably the only HP where the child and his character growth are more interesting than the H and h's love story.
Try this one if you want a different kind of HP voyage, it has a nice flow and tho the trope is slightly skewed, the story was an engrossing read and worth the outing to HPlandia.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 10, 2011
This was such a cute book. The premise was a bit far-stretched but I can't say it was impossible. The kids, the dogs, the neighbors were well portrayed. Come to think of it,I loved the child in this book more than the hero...
wow. I didn't expect that.
wow. I didn't expect that.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews