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Flame on the Horizon
Rocking the boatMeeting her ex-husband, Reid, aboard the same adventure cruise is not Annys's idea of vacation fun. But hardly surprising, considering that the holiday suits both their personalities - it's physical and competitive. It requires the participants to have the qualities that first brought Annys and Reid together...and later drove them apart.The rugged challenge of crewing the ship fuels the daring in each and the desire that brings the past flooding back. But does their rekindled passion promise further heartbreak when they know from experience that as a team they can't win?
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1993
1 person is currently reading
41 people want to read
About the author
Daphne Clair
122 books64 followersDahpne Clair is one of many pseudonyms of Daphne de Jong, a New Zealand writer who also uses the names Laurie Bright, Claire Lorel and Clarissa Garland. She is the winner of the Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award and has been a finalist for the Romance Writers of America Rita Award more than once.
Daphne Clair de Jong decided to be a writer when she was eight years old and won her first literary prize for a school essay. Her first short story was published when she was sixteen and she's been writing and publishing ever since. Nowadays she earns her living from writing, something her well-meaning teachers and guidance counsellors warned her she would never achieve in New Zealand. Her short stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, and a collection of them was presented in Crossing the Bar, published by David Ling, where they garnered wide praise.
In 1976, Daphne's first full-length romantic novel was published by Mills & Boon as Return to Love. Since then she has produced a steady output of romance set in New Zealand, occasionally Australia or on imaginary Pacific islands. As Laurey Bright she also writes for Silhouette Books. Her romances often appear on American stores' romance best-seller lists and she has been a Rita contest finalist, as well as winning and being placed in several other romance writing contests. Her other writing includes non-fiction, poetry and long historical fiction, She also is an active defender of the ideology of Feminists for Life, and she has written articles about it.
Since then she has won other literary prizes both in her native New Zealand and other countries. These include the prestigious Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award, with Dying Light, a story about Alzheimer's Disease, which was filmed by Robyn Murphy Productions and shown at film festivals in several countries. (Starring Sara McLeod, Sam's wife in Lord of the Rings).
Daphne is often asked to tutor courses in creative writing, and with Robyn Donald she teachs romance writing weekend courses in her home in the "winterless north" of in New Zealand. Daphne lives with her Netherlands-born husband in a farmlet, grazing livestock, growing their own fruit and vegetables and making their large home available to other writers as a centre for writers' workshops and retreats. Their five children, one of them an orphan from Hong Kong, have left home but drift back at irregular intervals. She enjoys cooking special meals but her cake-making is limited to three never-fail recipes. Her children maintain they have no memory of her baking for them except on birthdays, when she would produce, on request, cakes shaped into trains, clowns, fairytale houses and, once, even a windmill, in deference to their Dutch heritage from their father.
Daphne frequently makes and breaks resolutions to indulge in some hearty outdoor activity, and loves to sniff strong black coffee but never drinks it. After a day at her desk she will happily watch re-runs of favourite TV shows. Usually she goes to bed early with a book which may be anything from a paperback romance or suspense novel to history, sociology or literary theory.
Daphne Clair de Jong decided to be a writer when she was eight years old and won her first literary prize for a school essay. Her first short story was published when she was sixteen and she's been writing and publishing ever since. Nowadays she earns her living from writing, something her well-meaning teachers and guidance counsellors warned her she would never achieve in New Zealand. Her short stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, and a collection of them was presented in Crossing the Bar, published by David Ling, where they garnered wide praise.
In 1976, Daphne's first full-length romantic novel was published by Mills & Boon as Return to Love. Since then she has produced a steady output of romance set in New Zealand, occasionally Australia or on imaginary Pacific islands. As Laurey Bright she also writes for Silhouette Books. Her romances often appear on American stores' romance best-seller lists and she has been a Rita contest finalist, as well as winning and being placed in several other romance writing contests. Her other writing includes non-fiction, poetry and long historical fiction, She also is an active defender of the ideology of Feminists for Life, and she has written articles about it.
Since then she has won other literary prizes both in her native New Zealand and other countries. These include the prestigious Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award, with Dying Light, a story about Alzheimer's Disease, which was filmed by Robyn Murphy Productions and shown at film festivals in several countries. (Starring Sara McLeod, Sam's wife in Lord of the Rings).
Daphne is often asked to tutor courses in creative writing, and with Robyn Donald she teachs romance writing weekend courses in her home in the "winterless north" of in New Zealand. Daphne lives with her Netherlands-born husband in a farmlet, grazing livestock, growing their own fruit and vegetables and making their large home available to other writers as a centre for writers' workshops and retreats. Their five children, one of them an orphan from Hong Kong, have left home but drift back at irregular intervals. She enjoys cooking special meals but her cake-making is limited to three never-fail recipes. Her children maintain they have no memory of her baking for them except on birthdays, when she would produce, on request, cakes shaped into trains, clowns, fairytale houses and, once, even a windmill, in deference to their Dutch heritage from their father.
Daphne frequently makes and breaks resolutions to indulge in some hearty outdoor activity, and loves to sniff strong black coffee but never drinks it. After a day at her desk she will happily watch re-runs of favourite TV shows. Usually she goes to bed early with a book which may be anything from a paperback romance or suspense novel to history, sociology or literary theory.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 8, 2024
HAIKU BOOK REVIEW: A Flame On The Horizon, by Daphne Clair.
Two misunderstood,
thrill-seeking, workaholics
clash on a sailboat.
Two misunderstood,
thrill-seeking, workaholics
clash on a sailboat.
April 17, 2018
Second chance story where the divorced H/h meet again on a tall ships adventure holiday. The H/h broke up because of misunderstandings and both of their heavy work schedules.
This was a lively story with lots of action and a New Zealand travelogue as the adventure holiday progresses. A life and death situation brings them closer, but their differences aren't resolved until two months later.
This isn't terribly angsty since the heroine needed to grow up a bit to make a success of her marriage - and hero needed to get his priorities straight. I did believe their HEA.
This was a lively story with lots of action and a New Zealand travelogue as the adventure holiday progresses. A life and death situation brings them closer, but their differences aren't resolved until two months later.
This isn't terribly angsty since the heroine needed to grow up a bit to make a success of her marriage - and hero needed to get his priorities straight. I did believe their HEA.
April 6, 2018
Re Flame on the Horizon - Daphne Clair gets the May 1994 second HP Plus spot. This one is a second chance at the HPlandia marriage stakes between two highly competitive, but wildly attracted to each other, people.
This one has A LOT of sparks between the H and h. There are angry sparks, lurve mojo sparks and jealousy sparks that pretty much sizzle all through the story.
When the book opens, the h is running late to catch the 19th century sailing ship she booked herself a three week vacation on. It is definitely on the adventure vacation side of things and there is lots and lots of very interesting travelogue about what you actually do to sail one of those ships, as well as lovely NZ travelogue as we all sail around the Bay of Islands and the NZ coast.
(Maybe DC was feeling the challenge from the Postcards from Europe series, cause DC went full on descriptive more than a few times and it was all interesting.)
The h barely makes the ship as they are raising the gangplank, then she gets a tremendous shock. Her ex husband is also on the ship for HIS vacation and their parting was NOT amicable at all. In fact there is still some serious hostility even after three years of divorce.
The H takes it into his head to make general group 'we are divorced and not amicable' announcement, to the titillation of all the other vacationers and the h pretty much takes offense that the H is even breathing.
Since both the H and h are driven business people in their respective careers, (the h does sports wear, both designing and boutiques, and the H is a consulting engineer with his own firm,) when they end up on separate watch teams, (which the h finagles after they got put together on the same one,) the head to head competition is on.
These two compete over everything - like little kids trying to outdo each other. If one of them does a dive from the lower yard arm, the other has to do it from the upper. If one rock climbs without a rope, the other has to as well, and all of this rivalry is heightened by inner jealousy attacks as both the H and h are approached by potential OW and OM.
The h is better at hiding her little green monster, but the H's jealousy forces him to impose more than a few roofie kisses on the h. She doesn't complain a whole lot, but her resentment is clear. As the sailing and adventure activities continue, we get flashbacks of how the H and h started and little memory vignettes of their relationship and how it all went so wrong.
The two met on a skiing holiday and then had a real whirlwind romance, the H really liked that the h doesn't cling, can keep up with him physically and doesn't whine and takes care of herself without relying on him. The h is massively in love and lust for the first time in her life, but she worries that the H wants more of domestic engineer type wife that what she actually is.
(He came from a family where his mother was incapable without a man to lead her around, so he hates weak women as his mum committed suicide after his father passed, but he is also used to them waiting on him too. The h comes from an overprotective family background and therefore likes independence and isn't afraid to take big risks.)
About a month or so later they married and the honeymoon was great and very active, but real life turned out to be completely different. The H and h were both building their respective businesses and the only real communication they had was of the lurve club pounding variety or shouting in frustration over something.
So their demands on each other in the course of their individual empire building start being unmet - she doesn't want to have to spend hours doing the business wife cook and hostess thing, she tries to make time for the two of them, but needs the extra hours to get her business growing and winds up working a lot of odd hours.
The H is equally busy and doesn't seem to understand that she is driven to build her business independent of anyone else, which means she rejects his offer of financial support for people to take over some of her business duties and she won't travel to his out of area projects for weeks with him.
Things really go south when the H jokingly gets that he is going to get a beach bunny sub for the h, since she can't travel to his big project with him for weeks at a time, and he hires a really hot beach bunny type engineer, that the h finds the woman in her house visiting with the H when she got home from a business trip of her own.
The h comments that he never brings his male colleagues home and the H claims he thought she would be out of town until the next day, which sets the h's temper off. The H blows it off like it is nothing, but the H's remarks about h subs and the h's suspicions that the H is going off the boil on their lurve mojo set her to thinking that the H maybe getting a lot of free milk from other cows. Her suspicion's, coupled with the H's increasingly non-communicative and abrupt behavior finally culminate in a huge blow up, tho we don't know what it is yet.
In the real time, the entire group goes whitewater rafting. When the H's potential OW is knocked overboard, the H tries and fails to rescue her in the rushing water. The h is in a raft further back. As it sweeps by the poor girl, the h manages to get to her and get her towards the riverbank. The H and h get the girl to shore together and this leads to a huge lurve club beach moment later that night.
The H had been trying to get the h to talk about their past relationship for a few days prior to the beach lurve club explosion incident. The h doesn't want to and it is fairly obvious that the H wants to try again, but the h is not wanting to go there. It is strongly hinted that the h believes the H was unfaithful, but we don't know what is causing the flashes of anger the H has for the h.
Finally we all make it back from vacation, (I was tempted to take a nap, cause just reading about the adventure cruise was tiring,) and the h finds out she is preggers. The H made the h promise to talk seriously with him about the demise of their marriage once the vacation is over and the H holds the h to that promise.
He shows up to the h's place and realizes she is preggers. The H then decides he will move in with the h. The h had moved to a new city when the marriage ended, but the H claims that he can run his business remotely and travel a little, but not as much as when they were married. We finally get the full story of the H and h's marriage disaster as the h has another flashback to when she left the H.
The h found out she was preggers and was really excited. She tried to set up a big celebratory meal, but the H was late again and the dinner was ruined. So she tiredly told him the news much later that same night and the H was not enthusiastic, he called it inconvenient.
In fact, it sounded to the h like it was just going to be a big manacle round his neck and it hurt her feelings, cause she was really thrilled and really wanted to sort their relationship out. She takes the H's very non-enthused response as an indicator that he isn't really that into her anymore.
Still, they are having a baby and both of them have been working a lot and are stressed out, so the
next day the h drops into the H's office to take him to lunch. Where she finds him being consoled by his Beach Barbie engineer in his office. (The H was sitting in a chair with his arms around the Beach Barbie, face buried in her chest and she was stroking his hair, telling him it would be alright.) The h is in shock and walks out of the H's office building without saying anything to anyone.
Then she slips on the marble stairs and falls badly. She has to take herself to an emergency clinic, she miscarries the baby and is too drugged up when she gets home to properly explain things to the H. He obviously believes she had a deliberate termination, but the h passes out. When she wakes up the next day, the H is going to work like no big deal and she packs up, leaves a 'goodbye, we are finished' note and files for divorce.
This finally all comes out when the H and h start talking to each other and the H explains that he wasn't sleeping with anyone else and certainly not his employee. The H claims was excited about the baby, but the h did not seem to be and he was stressed out and at his limits with trying to get his big project running so he and the h could work on their marriage. The Beach Barbie was supposedly only comforting the H as he whined about how the h wasn't happy about the baby, then he thought the h deliberately terminated the pregnancy.
But now the air is magically cleared and the H is all ready to start again. He swears he hasn't had another woman since he met the h and the h believes him. So she admits she loves him too, claims that she has conquered her insecurities over him and his possible OW relationships and we leave the two of them lurving it up for the big sparkly passion pink HEA.
This one is pretty fast paced and well written. I buy that the H did not sleep with anyone else, but I do consider him being "consoled" by his female engineer after spilling his marital woes to be emotional cheating. Granted the h played her part in things failing, but there is still no excuse for him to be spilling his guts to his employee when he won't even talk to the h about anything minor, let alone a major event like her pregnancy.
Also, I did not like how he berated the h for not confronting him and his beach bunny engineer when she saw them, and yet he doesn't even think to ask about the h supposedly terminating their child and her reasons for that - you would think that would come up in the process of divorce.
So overall while this book is intense, pretty well written and very engrossing, the two of them weren't fully developed and the reunion was a bit abrupt with some dangling threads. I don't know how well they will mesh in the future, if the h decides she wants to continue on her empire building again.
But for now, marriage and motherhood seem to be her goals, with her business running on the side. The two of them seem to be happy enough together and the outcome was believable enough to call this a win for this HPlandia HEA outing.
This one has A LOT of sparks between the H and h. There are angry sparks, lurve mojo sparks and jealousy sparks that pretty much sizzle all through the story.
When the book opens, the h is running late to catch the 19th century sailing ship she booked herself a three week vacation on. It is definitely on the adventure vacation side of things and there is lots and lots of very interesting travelogue about what you actually do to sail one of those ships, as well as lovely NZ travelogue as we all sail around the Bay of Islands and the NZ coast.
(Maybe DC was feeling the challenge from the Postcards from Europe series, cause DC went full on descriptive more than a few times and it was all interesting.)
The h barely makes the ship as they are raising the gangplank, then she gets a tremendous shock. Her ex husband is also on the ship for HIS vacation and their parting was NOT amicable at all. In fact there is still some serious hostility even after three years of divorce.
The H takes it into his head to make general group 'we are divorced and not amicable' announcement, to the titillation of all the other vacationers and the h pretty much takes offense that the H is even breathing.
Since both the H and h are driven business people in their respective careers, (the h does sports wear, both designing and boutiques, and the H is a consulting engineer with his own firm,) when they end up on separate watch teams, (which the h finagles after they got put together on the same one,) the head to head competition is on.
These two compete over everything - like little kids trying to outdo each other. If one of them does a dive from the lower yard arm, the other has to do it from the upper. If one rock climbs without a rope, the other has to as well, and all of this rivalry is heightened by inner jealousy attacks as both the H and h are approached by potential OW and OM.
The h is better at hiding her little green monster, but the H's jealousy forces him to impose more than a few roofie kisses on the h. She doesn't complain a whole lot, but her resentment is clear. As the sailing and adventure activities continue, we get flashbacks of how the H and h started and little memory vignettes of their relationship and how it all went so wrong.
The two met on a skiing holiday and then had a real whirlwind romance, the H really liked that the h doesn't cling, can keep up with him physically and doesn't whine and takes care of herself without relying on him. The h is massively in love and lust for the first time in her life, but she worries that the H wants more of domestic engineer type wife that what she actually is.
(He came from a family where his mother was incapable without a man to lead her around, so he hates weak women as his mum committed suicide after his father passed, but he is also used to them waiting on him too. The h comes from an overprotective family background and therefore likes independence and isn't afraid to take big risks.)
About a month or so later they married and the honeymoon was great and very active, but real life turned out to be completely different. The H and h were both building their respective businesses and the only real communication they had was of the lurve club pounding variety or shouting in frustration over something.
So their demands on each other in the course of their individual empire building start being unmet - she doesn't want to have to spend hours doing the business wife cook and hostess thing, she tries to make time for the two of them, but needs the extra hours to get her business growing and winds up working a lot of odd hours.
The H is equally busy and doesn't seem to understand that she is driven to build her business independent of anyone else, which means she rejects his offer of financial support for people to take over some of her business duties and she won't travel to his out of area projects for weeks with him.
Things really go south when the H jokingly gets that he is going to get a beach bunny sub for the h, since she can't travel to his big project with him for weeks at a time, and he hires a really hot beach bunny type engineer, that the h finds the woman in her house visiting with the H when she got home from a business trip of her own.
The h comments that he never brings his male colleagues home and the H claims he thought she would be out of town until the next day, which sets the h's temper off. The H blows it off like it is nothing, but the H's remarks about h subs and the h's suspicions that the H is going off the boil on their lurve mojo set her to thinking that the H maybe getting a lot of free milk from other cows. Her suspicion's, coupled with the H's increasingly non-communicative and abrupt behavior finally culminate in a huge blow up, tho we don't know what it is yet.
In the real time, the entire group goes whitewater rafting. When the H's potential OW is knocked overboard, the H tries and fails to rescue her in the rushing water. The h is in a raft further back. As it sweeps by the poor girl, the h manages to get to her and get her towards the riverbank. The H and h get the girl to shore together and this leads to a huge lurve club beach moment later that night.
The H had been trying to get the h to talk about their past relationship for a few days prior to the beach lurve club explosion incident. The h doesn't want to and it is fairly obvious that the H wants to try again, but the h is not wanting to go there. It is strongly hinted that the h believes the H was unfaithful, but we don't know what is causing the flashes of anger the H has for the h.
Finally we all make it back from vacation, (I was tempted to take a nap, cause just reading about the adventure cruise was tiring,) and the h finds out she is preggers. The H made the h promise to talk seriously with him about the demise of their marriage once the vacation is over and the H holds the h to that promise.
He shows up to the h's place and realizes she is preggers. The H then decides he will move in with the h. The h had moved to a new city when the marriage ended, but the H claims that he can run his business remotely and travel a little, but not as much as when they were married. We finally get the full story of the H and h's marriage disaster as the h has another flashback to when she left the H.
The h found out she was preggers and was really excited. She tried to set up a big celebratory meal, but the H was late again and the dinner was ruined. So she tiredly told him the news much later that same night and the H was not enthusiastic, he called it inconvenient.
In fact, it sounded to the h like it was just going to be a big manacle round his neck and it hurt her feelings, cause she was really thrilled and really wanted to sort their relationship out. She takes the H's very non-enthused response as an indicator that he isn't really that into her anymore.
Still, they are having a baby and both of them have been working a lot and are stressed out, so the
next day the h drops into the H's office to take him to lunch. Where she finds him being consoled by his Beach Barbie engineer in his office. (The H was sitting in a chair with his arms around the Beach Barbie, face buried in her chest and she was stroking his hair, telling him it would be alright.) The h is in shock and walks out of the H's office building without saying anything to anyone.
Then she slips on the marble stairs and falls badly. She has to take herself to an emergency clinic, she miscarries the baby and is too drugged up when she gets home to properly explain things to the H. He obviously believes she had a deliberate termination, but the h passes out. When she wakes up the next day, the H is going to work like no big deal and she packs up, leaves a 'goodbye, we are finished' note and files for divorce.
This finally all comes out when the H and h start talking to each other and the H explains that he wasn't sleeping with anyone else and certainly not his employee. The H claims was excited about the baby, but the h did not seem to be and he was stressed out and at his limits with trying to get his big project running so he and the h could work on their marriage. The Beach Barbie was supposedly only comforting the H as he whined about how the h wasn't happy about the baby, then he thought the h deliberately terminated the pregnancy.
But now the air is magically cleared and the H is all ready to start again. He swears he hasn't had another woman since he met the h and the h believes him. So she admits she loves him too, claims that she has conquered her insecurities over him and his possible OW relationships and we leave the two of them lurving it up for the big sparkly passion pink HEA.
This one is pretty fast paced and well written. I buy that the H did not sleep with anyone else, but I do consider him being "consoled" by his female engineer after spilling his marital woes to be emotional cheating. Granted the h played her part in things failing, but there is still no excuse for him to be spilling his guts to his employee when he won't even talk to the h about anything minor, let alone a major event like her pregnancy.
Also, I did not like how he berated the h for not confronting him and his beach bunny engineer when she saw them, and yet he doesn't even think to ask about the h supposedly terminating their child and her reasons for that - you would think that would come up in the process of divorce.
So overall while this book is intense, pretty well written and very engrossing, the two of them weren't fully developed and the reunion was a bit abrupt with some dangling threads. I don't know how well they will mesh in the future, if the h decides she wants to continue on her empire building again.
But for now, marriage and motherhood seem to be her goals, with her business running on the side. The two of them seem to be happy enough together and the outcome was believable enough to call this a win for this HPlandia HEA outing.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 29, 2018
First book by Daphne Clair that I have read. It was a good story with plenty of things happening all the way through. I enjoyed the way the author set the story with memories to fill in the gaps.
May 2, 2023
i dont want them to get back together wth
pback-to-read
February 11, 2019Rocking the boat
Meeting her ex-husband, Reid, aboard the same adventure cruise is not Annys's idea of vacation fun. But hardly surprising, considering that the holiday suits both their personalities - it's physical and competitive. It requires the participants to have the qualities that first brought Annys and Reid together...and later drove them apart.
The rugged challenge of crewing the ship fuels the daring in each and the desire that brings the past flooding back. But does their rekindled passion promise further heartbreak when they know from experience that as a team they can't win?
Meeting her ex-husband, Reid, aboard the same adventure cruise is not Annys's idea of vacation fun. But hardly surprising, considering that the holiday suits both their personalities - it's physical and competitive. It requires the participants to have the qualities that first brought Annys and Reid together...and later drove them apart.
The rugged challenge of crewing the ship fuels the daring in each and the desire that brings the past flooding back. But does their rekindled passion promise further heartbreak when they know from experience that as a team they can't win?
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews