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Secrets #1
El color de la medianoche
El Color De La Medianoche by Robyn Donald released on Feb 23, 1996 is available now for purchase.
160 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published June 10, 1994
8 people are currently reading
129 people want to read
About the author
Robyn Donald
449 books149 followersRobyn Elaine Donald was born on 14 August 1940 in Northland, New Zealand. She was the oldest child in her family, and as a child, she thrilled her four sisters and one brother with bloodcurdling adventure tales, usually very like the latest book she'd borrowed from the library.
Robyn owes her writing career to two illnesses. The first was a younger sister's flu. She was living with her husband and Robyn and spent most of that winter acquiring, suffering, and recovering from various infections. One day she croaked that she had read everything on Robyn's bookshelves, so would Robyn please buy her something cheerful and sustaining. Robyn found three paperbacks- one Mills and Boon Modern Romance novel and a couple of other romances. Robyn read them, too, of course, and so enjoyed them she spent the next couple of years hunting down more Mills and Boon books. This was much more difficult then than it is today, so she decided to write her own, and for the following busy 10 years she wrote and hoped that one day she would finish a manuscript good enough that was good enough to send to a publisher.
The second illness was her husband's, and it was bad a heart attack. He was so young it terrified them all. While he was recovering, he suggested that Robyn finish the manuscript she was writing and send it off. It wasn't a perfect manuscript, but the doctor had said to humour her husband, so she finished the manuscript, edited it as best she could, and sent it off. Three months later, she was astounded to read a letter from the editor saying that if She made a few revisions they would buy her novel Bride at Whangatapu.
Published since 1977, Robyn sees her readers as intelligent women who insist on accurate backgrounds, so she spends time researching as well as writing.Robyn Donald sometimes thinks that writing is much like gardening. It's a similar process creating landscapes for the mind and emotions from the seeds of ideas and dreams and images. Both activities can also lead to moments of extreme delight, moments of total despair, and backache.Now Robyn lives in the Bay Islands. She continues writing, and also finds time for a very supportive husband, two adult children and their partners, a granddaughter and her mother, not to mention the member of the family that keeps her fit - a loud, cheerful, and ruthlessly determined "almost" Labradordog.
Robyn owes her writing career to two illnesses. The first was a younger sister's flu. She was living with her husband and Robyn and spent most of that winter acquiring, suffering, and recovering from various infections. One day she croaked that she had read everything on Robyn's bookshelves, so would Robyn please buy her something cheerful and sustaining. Robyn found three paperbacks- one Mills and Boon Modern Romance novel and a couple of other romances. Robyn read them, too, of course, and so enjoyed them she spent the next couple of years hunting down more Mills and Boon books. This was much more difficult then than it is today, so she decided to write her own, and for the following busy 10 years she wrote and hoped that one day she would finish a manuscript good enough that was good enough to send to a publisher.
The second illness was her husband's, and it was bad a heart attack. He was so young it terrified them all. While he was recovering, he suggested that Robyn finish the manuscript she was writing and send it off. It wasn't a perfect manuscript, but the doctor had said to humour her husband, so she finished the manuscript, edited it as best she could, and sent it off. Three months later, she was astounded to read a letter from the editor saying that if She made a few revisions they would buy her novel Bride at Whangatapu.
Published since 1977, Robyn sees her readers as intelligent women who insist on accurate backgrounds, so she spends time researching as well as writing.Robyn Donald sometimes thinks that writing is much like gardening. It's a similar process creating landscapes for the mind and emotions from the seeds of ideas and dreams and images. Both activities can also lead to moments of extreme delight, moments of total despair, and backache.Now Robyn lives in the Bay Islands. She continues writing, and also finds time for a very supportive husband, two adult children and their partners, a granddaughter and her mother, not to mention the member of the family that keeps her fit - a loud, cheerful, and ruthlessly determined "almost" Labradordog.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
April 12, 2022
Ordinarily, I wouldn't rate books a 4-star with tropes like this:
--dead wife H loved
--H's dead wife was h's beloved stepsister
--H's wife died only 1 year ago through suicide and he was still reeling from it
--H became impotent due to his wife and still dealing with it with h
--H almost-cheated on his wife with OW the night his wife committed suicide
--non-virgin h wasn't as beautiful as H's dead wife and part of why her ex-BF dumped her
BUT... **SPOILERS**
Good emo- and S-tension. Well-developed realistic romance. Good-enough sex scenes. Likable characters & character growth, although we know more about h since all book is in her 3rd-person POV. We only know H from his non-verbals/actions/words. Angsty moments got me teary-eyed a couple times, especially when h told her stepmom that she wanted H to love her & not just for her to love H who went through a lot due to her stepsister's suicide. Liked 25yo h's simplicity/practicality/candidness & inner strength. Liked how she was honest with herself about being in love with H who was still dealing with her sister's suicide & their brief complicated marriage. Liked that h was strong enough to leave & give herself the distance she needed from H & didn't come back for another year. Liked how she didn't wallow in self-pity but managed her heartbreak & disappointment with honesty & being productive with her work & travels.
30s(?) NZ ranch-owner H's character was likable too & sad that he was put through an emotional ringer during his 10-month marriage to h's stepsister, who acted out her sexual-emotional issues from being sexually molested by her own father as a kid by witholding sex from H while crying or acting seductive. And H had no clue about her sexual molestation (h didn't either until towards the end, when her stepmother finally told her about the incest & her ex-husband going to jail for it around the time she married h's father). So, after many months of that & his wife denying anything wrong with her, he began to hate her, had rape dreams about her, & became impotent. His impotence lasted through with h & was quite angsty. Really liked H's tortured alpha-dominant character. How he tried to control his desires & feelings for h but it leaked through at times, when she was near. Even h's stepmother noticed how much H watched h. Loved his admission of his fantasies of her & that he loved her more than anyone ever. That was believable. What was heartbreaking but realistic was how he was still careful during sex with h due to his trauma with his wife. h had to remind H that she was not her stepsister during intimacy at the end. And that she can handle what he can dish out sexually with her. It'd have been more satisfying to have an epilogue years later, showing H completely free sexually & emotionally for his traumatic marriage to h's sister.
Sexual History:
25yo h had 1 other lover aside from H. When she was 19yo, she was in lust with her BF, who devirginized her and who she enjoyed sex with. Months later, he broke up with her while pointing at her defects and comparing her to his ex-GF, who he reconnected with. She became wary of men & spent the next 6 years working as a traveling cook. Seeing H made her feel similar physical desires as her ex-BF and made her see that she never loved her ex-BF. She tried to resist her attraction to H by being very cut & dried with him. But a couple of shared kisses and 1 instance of him touching her to orgasm cut down on her resistances. His telling her he was impotent didn't turn her off and only made her smex him minutes after. Once they were done though, she was upset with him since he was obviously not impotent with her and thought he lied & used impotence as his ploy to get her to smex him. So, she left him that very night to her parent's house. He called her there to tell her to inform him if she was pregnant. She soon left for 1 year of traveling work. When she came back to her parents house the next year, she saw H at a party with OW.
H married h's older stepsister for love 1 month after they met. During their 10 month marriage, they never had sex since his wife would cry & complain about sex. They also slept in separate bedrooms. She denied being raped and he thought she may have been a virgin. Until she was diagnosed with chlamydia(she had many lovers before H) and her doctor told her she was infertile. She wanted to have kids through in-vitro but H nixed it since he was offended by her wanting kids but without having sex with him. He tried being sensitive to her & discussing things with her re: sex but her crying and then acting seductive & little-girlish plus his rape dreams of her resulted in his impotence. He began to hate her & tried to fix his impotence by making out with OW the night, when he was away the night his wife committed suicide. Even though he didn't physically cheat on his wife, he admitted to having intent & felt bad about that. When h came along, he was able to feel physical excitement and able to kiss & touch her passionately. But he still couldn't get it up until that 1st instance when she went on top of him & smexxed him. During their 1-yr separation, no info on whether he was celibate since he was still in contact with OW. He told h he loved her @ 1st sight but no actual info on his celibacy. He had to work though his feelings & issues re: his deceased wife and the news about her being molested by her own father during his year apart from h. I'd like to think that he didn't experiment with OW re: his lack of erectile dysfunction when h was away for 1 year.
--dead wife H loved
--H's dead wife was h's beloved stepsister
--H's wife died only 1 year ago through suicide and he was still reeling from it
--H became impotent due to his wife and still dealing with it with h
--H almost-cheated on his wife with OW the night his wife committed suicide
--non-virgin h wasn't as beautiful as H's dead wife and part of why her ex-BF dumped her
BUT... **SPOILERS**
Good emo- and S-tension. Well-developed realistic romance. Good-enough sex scenes. Likable characters & character growth, although we know more about h since all book is in her 3rd-person POV. We only know H from his non-verbals/actions/words. Angsty moments got me teary-eyed a couple times, especially when h told her stepmom that she wanted H to love her & not just for her to love H who went through a lot due to her stepsister's suicide. Liked 25yo h's simplicity/practicality/candidness & inner strength. Liked how she was honest with herself about being in love with H who was still dealing with her sister's suicide & their brief complicated marriage. Liked that h was strong enough to leave & give herself the distance she needed from H & didn't come back for another year. Liked how she didn't wallow in self-pity but managed her heartbreak & disappointment with honesty & being productive with her work & travels.
30s(?) NZ ranch-owner H's character was likable too & sad that he was put through an emotional ringer during his 10-month marriage to h's stepsister, who acted out her sexual-emotional issues from being sexually molested by her own father as a kid by witholding sex from H while crying or acting seductive. And H had no clue about her sexual molestation (h didn't either until towards the end, when her stepmother finally told her about the incest & her ex-husband going to jail for it around the time she married h's father). So, after many months of that & his wife denying anything wrong with her, he began to hate her, had rape dreams about her, & became impotent. His impotence lasted through with h & was quite angsty. Really liked H's tortured alpha-dominant character. How he tried to control his desires & feelings for h but it leaked through at times, when she was near. Even h's stepmother noticed how much H watched h. Loved his admission of his fantasies of her & that he loved her more than anyone ever. That was believable. What was heartbreaking but realistic was how he was still careful during sex with h due to his trauma with his wife. h had to remind H that she was not her stepsister during intimacy at the end. And that she can handle what he can dish out sexually with her. It'd have been more satisfying to have an epilogue years later, showing H completely free sexually & emotionally for his traumatic marriage to h's sister.
Sexual History:
25yo h had 1 other lover aside from H. When she was 19yo, she was in lust with her BF, who devirginized her and who she enjoyed sex with. Months later, he broke up with her while pointing at her defects and comparing her to his ex-GF, who he reconnected with. She became wary of men & spent the next 6 years working as a traveling cook. Seeing H made her feel similar physical desires as her ex-BF and made her see that she never loved her ex-BF. She tried to resist her attraction to H by being very cut & dried with him. But a couple of shared kisses and 1 instance of him touching her to orgasm cut down on her resistances. His telling her he was impotent didn't turn her off and only made her smex him minutes after. Once they were done though, she was upset with him since he was obviously not impotent with her and thought he lied & used impotence as his ploy to get her to smex him. So, she left him that very night to her parent's house. He called her there to tell her to inform him if she was pregnant. She soon left for 1 year of traveling work. When she came back to her parents house the next year, she saw H at a party with OW.
H married h's older stepsister for love 1 month after they met. During their 10 month marriage, they never had sex since his wife would cry & complain about sex. They also slept in separate bedrooms. She denied being raped and he thought she may have been a virgin. Until she was diagnosed with chlamydia(she had many lovers before H) and her doctor told her she was infertile. She wanted to have kids through in-vitro but H nixed it since he was offended by her wanting kids but without having sex with him. He tried being sensitive to her & discussing things with her re: sex but her crying and then acting seductive & little-girlish plus his rape dreams of her resulted in his impotence. He began to hate her & tried to fix his impotence by making out with OW the night, when he was away the night his wife committed suicide. Even though he didn't physically cheat on his wife, he admitted to having intent & felt bad about that. When h came along, he was able to feel physical excitement and able to kiss & touch her passionately. But he still couldn't get it up until that 1st instance when she went on top of him & smexxed him. During their 1-yr separation, no info on whether he was celibate since he was still in contact with OW. He told h he loved her @ 1st sight but no actual info on his celibacy. He had to work though his feelings & issues re: his deceased wife and the news about her being molested by her own father during his year apart from h. I'd like to think that he didn't experiment with OW re: his lack of erectile dysfunction when h was away for 1 year.
June 11, 2018
Triggers: discussion of suicide of the hero's first wife (and heroine's stepsister), incest, impotence.
But it's a really lovely romance.
I know - hard to believe that out of such rocky soil a sweet hopeful flower of a relationship could possibly bloom. The H/h are suffering from survivor guilt and their relationship inches along as they fall for each other. After an impetuous sex scene, the author wisely gives them a year apart. Then they have time to absorb the final details about the stepsister's life and death, feel all of their negative feelings and finally lay her memory to rest. All of the heroine's family did this - not just the H/h
The H/h reunion was very well done with eyes meeting across a crowded room followed by an invitation for the entire family to the hero's farm for Christmas. The H keeps the h (and us) guessing. But the final act has the hero rescuing a dog, the heroine
The pace and unspooling of the backstory are masterfully done. If you can get beyond the triggers, you will be rewarded with a romance that is all the more welcome against such a dark backdrop.
Boogenhagen has an excellent review with all the spoilers.
But it's a really lovely romance.
I know - hard to believe that out of such rocky soil a sweet hopeful flower of a relationship could possibly bloom. The H/h are suffering from survivor guilt and their relationship inches along as they fall for each other. After an impetuous sex scene, the author wisely gives them a year apart. Then they have time to absorb the final details about the stepsister's life and death, feel all of their negative feelings and finally lay her memory to rest. All of the heroine's family did this - not just the H/h
The H/h reunion was very well done with eyes meeting across a crowded room followed by an invitation for the entire family to the hero's farm for Christmas. The H keeps the h (and us) guessing. But the final act has the hero rescuing a dog, the heroine
The pace and unspooling of the backstory are masterfully done. If you can get beyond the triggers, you will be rewarded with a romance that is all the more welcome against such a dark backdrop.
Boogenhagen has an excellent review with all the spoilers.
June 19, 2018
Re The Colour of Midnight - Robyn Donald turns up the intensity with this one, it is the first book in the HP 1995 Secrets series, a set of six books that are not interconnected, but revolve around the H or h probing into forbidden or secret information.
(This is the start of two separate HP mini-lines within the HP line up, the next book in the January 1995 line starts the other.)
The book opens with the h, Minerva, a personal chef on holiday, traveling to the Northland of New Zealand to seek out a place called Spanish Castle. The Spanish Castle refers to the local rock formation that a big farming estate is named after.
The h wants to use her credentials from the LaToya Jackson Online Detective School to find out what drove her stepsister Stella to commit suicide the previous year. The h has been off on various worldwide assignments to the wealthy ever since her widowed father remarried and the h acquired a nice, but fluttery stepmother and beautiful, but promiscuous stepsister in Stella.
The h loves her new step relations, but after getting the older Stella out of various scrapes and spats as teens, the h was ready to exercise her wanderlust and see a bit of the world. Minerva is amazingly well traveled, along with being extremely capable and pragmatic and she is fearless in her wanderings.
She only takes short term one year chef contracts, tho she recently completed a two year one because the billionaire she worked for needed her skillz on his yacht and she has been cruising the Caribbean and he only spent about three weeks on his yacht the whole time.
Now she is back home in NZ, thinking about applying as a chef on an Antarctic research station after her next contract and then opening a restaurant in NZ, but first she needs to find out what drove her stepsister to suicide.
The first the h knew of the whole situation was a delayed delivery letter two years earlier, advising Minerva that Stella had met the love of her life, Nick, a Northland businessman and farmer, and was marrying him.
Minerva got the letter too late and missed the wedding, then came several letters from Stella, but they were distant, newsy sorts of notes without a lot of personal substance and the next thing Minerva heard was that Stella had taken an overdose of pills and committed suicide.
Minerva comes home a year later on a vacation before she takes up a Virgin Island's chef contract and it is obvious that the ghost of Stella and why she killed herself is hovering over everyone, but most especially the flittery, mostly kind stepmother. Minerva isn't letting sleeping dogs lie, everyone seems too damaged and Minerva wants to understand.
If she can get some answers for the stepmother, she can, by extension, relieve her beloved father of some of the strain that seems to be showing up more strongly on his face and everyone can find some closure and move on.
So Minerva goes to Spanish Castle and over a broken sign post showing the correct path through the Kauri Forest to the farm, Nick rises up out of the gloom like the Duke of Avon from that Heyer classic These Old Shades, he even has the appropriately named horse called Demon to enhance the parallels.
(There is also a cute little farm dog named Rusty, and RD makes a point of remarking how Rusty doesn't quite fit the Devilish Lord and Master image, Nick is carrying a paw hurt Rusty over his saddle bow.)
Soon Minerva is ensconced at Spanish Castle and taking over a Brazilian Diplomat dinner for Nick's housekeeper, who has a pregnant daughter in labor complications and the h remarks that as 'family' to Nick, it is her duty to help out.
Nick is very enigmatic and the h is struck by the HP Lurve Force Mojo attraction - she is trying hard to deny it, but she knows she is wildly attracted to the dead Stella's husband and it is causing a lot of inner turmoil.
(Minerva has had one prior love affair, with a man as strongly magnetically attractive as Nick. After the guy seduced her, he dumped her when his ex-dolly bird voluptuous girlfriend came trotting back in a fit of jealousy.
Minerva belatedly realized that the guy had only been using her to make his ex jealous, especially when he remarked on how plain and ordinary in looks Minerva was compared to his ex. Minerva has no desire to be anybody's sloppy seconds and strengthens her will to resist accordingly.
Fortunately Minerva got over it, but the plain-looking self-insecurity, especially when compared to Stella, still lurks in Minerva's mind. We do learn that the slime seducer got dumped for a Rugby player after a few months of tepid reconciliation by the ex-girlfriend, so he got his just deserts.)
Now Minerva has to cope with a big diplomatic dinner and being alone in a house with Nick. There is a gossipy farm lady who comes into help out and a cute cat named Penelope, who oversees all the cooking preparations from the comfort of her kitchen stool throne.
The gossipy farm lady confirms that Stella wasn't happy at Spanish Castle, she cried in the car alone after a visit to the local doctor and there was also the fact that Nick and Stella kept separate bedrooms. Then there was the contribution of Nick's probable affair with the local neighbor's orchid growing daughter.
In fact, when the housekeeper found Stella dead, she called the neighbor's place and when the farm lady eavesdropped on the phone line, it sounded like the neighbor's daughter was in bed with Nick when she handed him the phone.
Minerva doesn't know what to make of all of this, but the dinner goes great and Nick and she have shared some roofie kisses that only serve to stoke the tension and Minerva's passion. Minerva is still resisting the attraction, tho she also has very realistic flashes of envy and jealousy in a complicated mess of her feelings about Stella.
There is a big confrontation with Nick after Minerva gets another long delayed delivery letter, this one is from Stella and it was finally returned to sender after chasing Minerva all around the world. Stella wrote the letter to Minerva right before she died.
It seems that Nick and Stella married, but never consummated the marriage. Stella claimed she loved Nick and wanted to be with him, but some inner demon held her back and she came across as as a trampy, tarty tease to Nick for well over a year. Nick was driven to extremes by Stella's hot/cold provocative behavior and she refused to get any help.
In a fury and really afraid that he might violently attack his own wife, Nick tried to sleep with the neighbor after it was discovered that Stella's priorly promiscuous behavior led to a sterility causing STD and she was infertile. He was unsuccessful and then he got the news of Stella's suicide the next morning.
Nick and the stepmother covered up the prognosis at the inquest for some unclear reasons, probably mostly to protect Stella's memory from being infertile due to disease. Nick's punishment for his contribution to the death of Stella, if he really deserved punishment, was to become impotent.
That problem is quickly resolved after an intense roofie kissing session in the heat of the confrontation with Minerva, where she kinda takes charge of the lurve club experience. But Minerva feels used all over again and wonders if Nick was really impotent at all or just using her to vent some very obvious frustrations and anger about Stella.
Nick, now that manly mojo function is restored, claims that he is going to marry any decent, non-teasing woman for children and Minerva can only speculate as to what her place in the scheme of things is now.
Minerva leaves Spanish Castle and Nick, she goes home to tell her stepmother about the letter. The stepmother has a breakdown, it is finally revealed that the reason her stepmother divorced her first husband was that she found out he had been molesting Stella for over a year.
Rightly or wrongly, the stepmother did not get Stella any mental health treatment, mainly because during the time period it happened Minerva reckoned there probably wasn't any. But there is also the stepmother's refusal, until both Minerva and her father adamantly insist, that the stepmother get some therapy of her own. Which may have contributed to Stella's resistance to mental therapeutic help.
(This was an interesting portion of the book, RD does make it clear that the doctor's told the stepmother Stella would get over things without help, she also makes it clear that Stella was heartrendingly tormented. Yet there is an interesting stream of pragmatism running through the plot too. As RD makes it very clear that Stella is offered help at several points from multiple people, and Stella still refuses to accept it or take a stand for her own recovery--right in keeping with her mother's line of thinking until the woman is forced into treatment.)
Minerva has one more confrontation with Nick, when he shows up at her father's house and the stepmother is in the midst of her breakdown. Minerva explains about Stella and what probably drove her behavior. Nick's reaction is extreme anger towards Stella's now dead in prison father and Minerva figures Nick is too messed up over Stella to sort out any sort of issues with her.
At Minerva's father's encouragement, Minerva leaves to fulfill her contract in the Virgin Islands and a year passes. Minerva returns to New Zealand, thinking more about Antarctica and reunioning with old friends.
She and Nick meet again at a local business party and Nick happens to have the orchid growing neighbor's daughter OW in tow. The OW tries to makes some put down comments to Minerva and Minerva cleverly serves them right back. Nick looks a bit angry about this and Minerva's amusing thought is if he doesn't want his toys to be scuffed up, he should teach them better manners.
Minerva's own jealousy is riled when the stepmother indicates that the OW and Nick are considering marriage. Minerva knows Nick probably isn't in love with the woman, more that she fits he image of a complaisant wife who will provide heirs and no trouble.
There is a small encounter with Nick later that night as the h takes a midnight undie swim, then Nick drops the bombshell that everyone will be going to Spanish Castle for Christmas, as Stella's family is the only family he has left in New Zealand, his mum remarried after his father died and now lives in Singapore.
Minerva isn't happy about this, but decides to bury herself in the kitchen under the guise of giving Nick's housekeeper a chance to visit with her family. So it is back to Spanish Castle we go. We get some more of the wonderful Northland scenery and meet Penelope and Demon and Rusty again.
Nick and Minerva have some outings together and we meet up with Tegan and Kieran from Pagan Surrender, Nick is shown to be a doting godfather and Tegan has a gadzillion kids with an utterly devoted Kieran.
Finally on an outing to see a waterfall enhanced by all the local rainfall, where Rusty does a dog thing and falls in and Nick has to take a rope into a fast running flooded creek to rescue him, Minerva can't contain her emotions anymore and confesses that she loves Nick.
Nick says he has been in love with her since he met her, but he had unresolved Stella issues to work out and he did not think Minerva was interested. She only wrote to let him know she wasn't preggers after she left for the Virgin islands and he had to manipulate like mad to get her there for Christmas.
The only barrier left is to banish the ghost of Stella from their physical relationship and Minerva and Nick accomplish that very successfully. Nick wins bonus points when Minerva taunts him that he only wants a woman who will follow him around the earth naked and Nick tells her she would never be following naked cause he would give her his own clothes and he would carry her.
The matchmaking stepmother, who lied about the OW to Minerva to make her jealous, is now delighted that the two of them are marrying. (Minerva had priorly taken the woman to task quite firmly for her meddling.)
Minerva and Nick are all lurved up and happy, mainly cause Nick had kidnapping plans for Minerva if she did not accept his love and now he has successfully avoided serious jail time and can spend all his time gazing into the h's midnight colored eyes.
We leave the two of them happy in their own version of a Spanish Castle, able to achieve their own airy dreams, even tho both have survivor regrets over the past. There is no doubt that Minerva is nowhere close to a sloppy second and Nick has recovered enough from his failure to help Stella to ensure a really believable HEA and pink sparkly ending to a most intense HPlandia outing.
This book is low key on the action and quite intense on the emotions. Nick isn't mean at all, but his understandable distance over the spectacular failure of his marriage is enough to keep the HP voyager guessing about his true intentions.
Stella and her abuse and her death are big issues, but this is NOT a treatise on the aftereffects of molestation. This is a thoughtful look at survivor's guilt in the aftermath of someone taking their own life. RD shows that every single character, in one way or another contributed to Stella's eventual demise.
If Minerva hadn't been so willing to cover Stella's teenaged transgressions, if Stella's mother hadn't been so sure that a man is necessary to every woman to make her complete and if she had bucked the common theories of the past and gotten her daughter into counseling without a sense of shame, or if Nick had been willing to put his male ego and virility aside and really push Stella about what was going on with her, this book would have been completely different.
For all of the above tho, in the end RD comes to the very correct conclusion that Stella had to try and help herself and she did not and it is a tragedy, but ultimately it is a tragedy that Stella ended herself and the living have to find a way to come to terms and move on.
RD shows that futile angsting over another's actions is no way to live one's life, you have to accept that there will be regrets and sorrow over failed actions, but it is also up to you to build a better monument to the loved one's memory than a life wasted over useless remorse and should have done's. It is really a testament to the sheer talent RD has that she can take such sensitive tropes and turn the story into an HP keeper.
It seems kinda callous on the surface, which is why I don't give the book five stars, but I did understand RD's point, you have to live the best life you can, to the best of your ability. Nick and Minerva manage to do that and provide a really good story in the process, so that makes this book a really, really well done HPlandia outing and well worth the time spent reading it.
(This is the start of two separate HP mini-lines within the HP line up, the next book in the January 1995 line starts the other.)
The book opens with the h, Minerva, a personal chef on holiday, traveling to the Northland of New Zealand to seek out a place called Spanish Castle. The Spanish Castle refers to the local rock formation that a big farming estate is named after.
The h wants to use her credentials from the LaToya Jackson Online Detective School to find out what drove her stepsister Stella to commit suicide the previous year. The h has been off on various worldwide assignments to the wealthy ever since her widowed father remarried and the h acquired a nice, but fluttery stepmother and beautiful, but promiscuous stepsister in Stella.
The h loves her new step relations, but after getting the older Stella out of various scrapes and spats as teens, the h was ready to exercise her wanderlust and see a bit of the world. Minerva is amazingly well traveled, along with being extremely capable and pragmatic and she is fearless in her wanderings.
She only takes short term one year chef contracts, tho she recently completed a two year one because the billionaire she worked for needed her skillz on his yacht and she has been cruising the Caribbean and he only spent about three weeks on his yacht the whole time.
Now she is back home in NZ, thinking about applying as a chef on an Antarctic research station after her next contract and then opening a restaurant in NZ, but first she needs to find out what drove her stepsister to suicide.
The first the h knew of the whole situation was a delayed delivery letter two years earlier, advising Minerva that Stella had met the love of her life, Nick, a Northland businessman and farmer, and was marrying him.
Minerva got the letter too late and missed the wedding, then came several letters from Stella, but they were distant, newsy sorts of notes without a lot of personal substance and the next thing Minerva heard was that Stella had taken an overdose of pills and committed suicide.
Minerva comes home a year later on a vacation before she takes up a Virgin Island's chef contract and it is obvious that the ghost of Stella and why she killed herself is hovering over everyone, but most especially the flittery, mostly kind stepmother. Minerva isn't letting sleeping dogs lie, everyone seems too damaged and Minerva wants to understand.
If she can get some answers for the stepmother, she can, by extension, relieve her beloved father of some of the strain that seems to be showing up more strongly on his face and everyone can find some closure and move on.
So Minerva goes to Spanish Castle and over a broken sign post showing the correct path through the Kauri Forest to the farm, Nick rises up out of the gloom like the Duke of Avon from that Heyer classic These Old Shades, he even has the appropriately named horse called Demon to enhance the parallels.
(There is also a cute little farm dog named Rusty, and RD makes a point of remarking how Rusty doesn't quite fit the Devilish Lord and Master image, Nick is carrying a paw hurt Rusty over his saddle bow.)
Soon Minerva is ensconced at Spanish Castle and taking over a Brazilian Diplomat dinner for Nick's housekeeper, who has a pregnant daughter in labor complications and the h remarks that as 'family' to Nick, it is her duty to help out.
Nick is very enigmatic and the h is struck by the HP Lurve Force Mojo attraction - she is trying hard to deny it, but she knows she is wildly attracted to the dead Stella's husband and it is causing a lot of inner turmoil.
(Minerva has had one prior love affair, with a man as strongly magnetically attractive as Nick. After the guy seduced her, he dumped her when his ex-dolly bird voluptuous girlfriend came trotting back in a fit of jealousy.
Minerva belatedly realized that the guy had only been using her to make his ex jealous, especially when he remarked on how plain and ordinary in looks Minerva was compared to his ex. Minerva has no desire to be anybody's sloppy seconds and strengthens her will to resist accordingly.
Fortunately Minerva got over it, but the plain-looking self-insecurity, especially when compared to Stella, still lurks in Minerva's mind. We do learn that the slime seducer got dumped for a Rugby player after a few months of tepid reconciliation by the ex-girlfriend, so he got his just deserts.)
Now Minerva has to cope with a big diplomatic dinner and being alone in a house with Nick. There is a gossipy farm lady who comes into help out and a cute cat named Penelope, who oversees all the cooking preparations from the comfort of her kitchen stool throne.
The gossipy farm lady confirms that Stella wasn't happy at Spanish Castle, she cried in the car alone after a visit to the local doctor and there was also the fact that Nick and Stella kept separate bedrooms. Then there was the contribution of Nick's probable affair with the local neighbor's orchid growing daughter.
In fact, when the housekeeper found Stella dead, she called the neighbor's place and when the farm lady eavesdropped on the phone line, it sounded like the neighbor's daughter was in bed with Nick when she handed him the phone.
Minerva doesn't know what to make of all of this, but the dinner goes great and Nick and she have shared some roofie kisses that only serve to stoke the tension and Minerva's passion. Minerva is still resisting the attraction, tho she also has very realistic flashes of envy and jealousy in a complicated mess of her feelings about Stella.
There is a big confrontation with Nick after Minerva gets another long delayed delivery letter, this one is from Stella and it was finally returned to sender after chasing Minerva all around the world. Stella wrote the letter to Minerva right before she died.
It seems that Nick and Stella married, but never consummated the marriage. Stella claimed she loved Nick and wanted to be with him, but some inner demon held her back and she came across as as a trampy, tarty tease to Nick for well over a year. Nick was driven to extremes by Stella's hot/cold provocative behavior and she refused to get any help.
In a fury and really afraid that he might violently attack his own wife, Nick tried to sleep with the neighbor after it was discovered that Stella's priorly promiscuous behavior led to a sterility causing STD and she was infertile. He was unsuccessful and then he got the news of Stella's suicide the next morning.
Nick and the stepmother covered up the prognosis at the inquest for some unclear reasons, probably mostly to protect Stella's memory from being infertile due to disease. Nick's punishment for his contribution to the death of Stella, if he really deserved punishment, was to become impotent.
That problem is quickly resolved after an intense roofie kissing session in the heat of the confrontation with Minerva, where she kinda takes charge of the lurve club experience. But Minerva feels used all over again and wonders if Nick was really impotent at all or just using her to vent some very obvious frustrations and anger about Stella.
Nick, now that manly mojo function is restored, claims that he is going to marry any decent, non-teasing woman for children and Minerva can only speculate as to what her place in the scheme of things is now.
Minerva leaves Spanish Castle and Nick, she goes home to tell her stepmother about the letter. The stepmother has a breakdown, it is finally revealed that the reason her stepmother divorced her first husband was that she found out he had been molesting Stella for over a year.
Rightly or wrongly, the stepmother did not get Stella any mental health treatment, mainly because during the time period it happened Minerva reckoned there probably wasn't any. But there is also the stepmother's refusal, until both Minerva and her father adamantly insist, that the stepmother get some therapy of her own. Which may have contributed to Stella's resistance to mental therapeutic help.
(This was an interesting portion of the book, RD does make it clear that the doctor's told the stepmother Stella would get over things without help, she also makes it clear that Stella was heartrendingly tormented. Yet there is an interesting stream of pragmatism running through the plot too. As RD makes it very clear that Stella is offered help at several points from multiple people, and Stella still refuses to accept it or take a stand for her own recovery--right in keeping with her mother's line of thinking until the woman is forced into treatment.)
Minerva has one more confrontation with Nick, when he shows up at her father's house and the stepmother is in the midst of her breakdown. Minerva explains about Stella and what probably drove her behavior. Nick's reaction is extreme anger towards Stella's now dead in prison father and Minerva figures Nick is too messed up over Stella to sort out any sort of issues with her.
At Minerva's father's encouragement, Minerva leaves to fulfill her contract in the Virgin Islands and a year passes. Minerva returns to New Zealand, thinking more about Antarctica and reunioning with old friends.
She and Nick meet again at a local business party and Nick happens to have the orchid growing neighbor's daughter OW in tow. The OW tries to makes some put down comments to Minerva and Minerva cleverly serves them right back. Nick looks a bit angry about this and Minerva's amusing thought is if he doesn't want his toys to be scuffed up, he should teach them better manners.
Minerva's own jealousy is riled when the stepmother indicates that the OW and Nick are considering marriage. Minerva knows Nick probably isn't in love with the woman, more that she fits he image of a complaisant wife who will provide heirs and no trouble.
There is a small encounter with Nick later that night as the h takes a midnight undie swim, then Nick drops the bombshell that everyone will be going to Spanish Castle for Christmas, as Stella's family is the only family he has left in New Zealand, his mum remarried after his father died and now lives in Singapore.
Minerva isn't happy about this, but decides to bury herself in the kitchen under the guise of giving Nick's housekeeper a chance to visit with her family. So it is back to Spanish Castle we go. We get some more of the wonderful Northland scenery and meet Penelope and Demon and Rusty again.
Nick and Minerva have some outings together and we meet up with Tegan and Kieran from Pagan Surrender, Nick is shown to be a doting godfather and Tegan has a gadzillion kids with an utterly devoted Kieran.
Finally on an outing to see a waterfall enhanced by all the local rainfall, where Rusty does a dog thing and falls in and Nick has to take a rope into a fast running flooded creek to rescue him, Minerva can't contain her emotions anymore and confesses that she loves Nick.
Nick says he has been in love with her since he met her, but he had unresolved Stella issues to work out and he did not think Minerva was interested. She only wrote to let him know she wasn't preggers after she left for the Virgin islands and he had to manipulate like mad to get her there for Christmas.
The only barrier left is to banish the ghost of Stella from their physical relationship and Minerva and Nick accomplish that very successfully. Nick wins bonus points when Minerva taunts him that he only wants a woman who will follow him around the earth naked and Nick tells her she would never be following naked cause he would give her his own clothes and he would carry her.
The matchmaking stepmother, who lied about the OW to Minerva to make her jealous, is now delighted that the two of them are marrying. (Minerva had priorly taken the woman to task quite firmly for her meddling.)
Minerva and Nick are all lurved up and happy, mainly cause Nick had kidnapping plans for Minerva if she did not accept his love and now he has successfully avoided serious jail time and can spend all his time gazing into the h's midnight colored eyes.
We leave the two of them happy in their own version of a Spanish Castle, able to achieve their own airy dreams, even tho both have survivor regrets over the past. There is no doubt that Minerva is nowhere close to a sloppy second and Nick has recovered enough from his failure to help Stella to ensure a really believable HEA and pink sparkly ending to a most intense HPlandia outing.
This book is low key on the action and quite intense on the emotions. Nick isn't mean at all, but his understandable distance over the spectacular failure of his marriage is enough to keep the HP voyager guessing about his true intentions.
Stella and her abuse and her death are big issues, but this is NOT a treatise on the aftereffects of molestation. This is a thoughtful look at survivor's guilt in the aftermath of someone taking their own life. RD shows that every single character, in one way or another contributed to Stella's eventual demise.
If Minerva hadn't been so willing to cover Stella's teenaged transgressions, if Stella's mother hadn't been so sure that a man is necessary to every woman to make her complete and if she had bucked the common theories of the past and gotten her daughter into counseling without a sense of shame, or if Nick had been willing to put his male ego and virility aside and really push Stella about what was going on with her, this book would have been completely different.
For all of the above tho, in the end RD comes to the very correct conclusion that Stella had to try and help herself and she did not and it is a tragedy, but ultimately it is a tragedy that Stella ended herself and the living have to find a way to come to terms and move on.
RD shows that futile angsting over another's actions is no way to live one's life, you have to accept that there will be regrets and sorrow over failed actions, but it is also up to you to build a better monument to the loved one's memory than a life wasted over useless remorse and should have done's. It is really a testament to the sheer talent RD has that she can take such sensitive tropes and turn the story into an HP keeper.
It seems kinda callous on the surface, which is why I don't give the book five stars, but I did understand RD's point, you have to live the best life you can, to the best of your ability. Nick and Minerva manage to do that and provide a really good story in the process, so that makes this book a really, really well done HPlandia outing and well worth the time spent reading it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 17, 2016
I swear that I have read this before at one point or another. However reading it again just made my thoughts and review that much better because this book was FRICKEN AWESOME. I loved the hero and heroine, the emotional bond they had. They grieved, loved and cherished together. It was a pretty beautiful book. However the whole impotent thing was a little fucked up, just sayin!
July 12, 2011
In reality, there were four protagonists here: the hero Nick, the heroine Minerva, Stella the dead wife of the hero who also happened to be the heroine’s stepsister, and New Zealand.
The suicide of Stella was the story arc that spanned the whole 8 chapters. It compelled Minerva to visit the hero and quietly investigate the cause of death. It defined the confrontation in the story – when Nick confessed his (pseudo)impotence and Minerva cured his problem through (seduction)therapy. It delayed reconciliation between Nick and Minerva until they were sufficiently recovered from Stella’s death. So, though Stella was an absentee character, the story revolved around the impact of her death among the survivors.
The flora and fauna of New Zealand were also made much of in the story that, at several points, I felt it needed only some slides to turn this romance into a travelogue. Sometimes, scenery could enhance the plot. But in this instance, the minutiae of kauri trees, kokako birds, trumpet flowers and possums detracted from the emotional tension building between the H/h.
Given these excess baggage then, I could not empathize with the H/h's growing love for each other. The story was too clinical and too overdone to be romantic.
Perhaps, one last good example is the title: the Colour of Midnight. This phrase first appeared in the plot when Nick tricked Minerva to gaze at him by asking what color were her eyes. They were blue. But according to him, they were the color of midnight, “so dark and so deep you can lose yourself in it. As distant as the outer reaches of space, as dense and intense as the sea beneath a tropical sky. A rare, exquisite color.”
Really?! A beautiful girl stares at him and he has time to wax lyrical on the color blue? As Sebastian said to the Prince Eric in the The Little Mermaid, go on just kiss the girl!
The suicide of Stella was the story arc that spanned the whole 8 chapters. It compelled Minerva to visit the hero and quietly investigate the cause of death. It defined the confrontation in the story – when Nick confessed his (pseudo)impotence and Minerva cured his problem through (seduction)therapy. It delayed reconciliation between Nick and Minerva until they were sufficiently recovered from Stella’s death. So, though Stella was an absentee character, the story revolved around the impact of her death among the survivors.
The flora and fauna of New Zealand were also made much of in the story that, at several points, I felt it needed only some slides to turn this romance into a travelogue. Sometimes, scenery could enhance the plot. But in this instance, the minutiae of kauri trees, kokako birds, trumpet flowers and possums detracted from the emotional tension building between the H/h.
Given these excess baggage then, I could not empathize with the H/h's growing love for each other. The story was too clinical and too overdone to be romantic.
Perhaps, one last good example is the title: the Colour of Midnight. This phrase first appeared in the plot when Nick tricked Minerva to gaze at him by asking what color were her eyes. They were blue. But according to him, they were the color of midnight, “so dark and so deep you can lose yourself in it. As distant as the outer reaches of space, as dense and intense as the sea beneath a tropical sky. A rare, exquisite color.”
Really?! A beautiful girl stares at him and he has time to wax lyrical on the color blue? As Sebastian said to the Prince Eric in the The Little Mermaid, go on just kiss the girl!
September 10, 2012
4.5 stars. This was an intense and interesting story -- I really enjoyed it. The only reason I knocked off 1/2 a star is that it was a little slow at times, a little too focused on things like making dinner or going to bed, not enough romance. But, when the romance got going, it was great. At times the married-to-her-sister thing was a little creepy (especially because he did apparently love her sister), but overall I liked all the emotional angst.
April 19, 2022
The couple: Nick and Minerva
Romance genre: contemporary
Series: Secrets
Length: 192 pages
Plot: Minerva is a travelling chef, going where the job leads her. Because of that, she missed all the signs that her stepsister was unhappy, and now it's too late: Stella is dead, at her own hand. The one person who might have the answers is Stella's husband, Nick. So Minerva goes out to his station (ranch) to get to know him and find out what happened. He's exactly what she thought he would be, and not at all what she thought he's be. He's gruff, cold, unemotional, impossibly charismatic, passionate. But Minerva doesn't understand her own appeal and Nick doesn't understand how to share himself with her, so they are at an impasse. And overshadowing everything in their lives is the spectre of Stella.
Commentary: It kind of cracked me up, the idea that Minerva was supposed to know how Nick felt - he never told her, never so much as cracked a smile!
However, I was fully invested in the story. I was waiting for that moment when they realized who they were to each other; I was waiting for all of the little reveals about what was going on with the dead wife; I was waiting for that conclusion. I wanted them to get together and have a million little Kiwi babies out in the country.
On a serious note, I did appreciate the author's treatment of the late wife. Stella was very representative of survivors of child sexual abuse - hypersexual at times, avoidant at others, manipulative sometimes childlike sometimes. But of course, Minerva would not have known any of that, and Nick probably wouldn't have until it was too late. My heart broke for Stella who was acting out of her own pain and wasn't given a fair chance in life (nothing to do with Nick, just in general).
Next book in the series: Original Sin
Romance genre: contemporary
Series: Secrets
Length: 192 pages
Plot: Minerva is a travelling chef, going where the job leads her. Because of that, she missed all the signs that her stepsister was unhappy, and now it's too late: Stella is dead, at her own hand. The one person who might have the answers is Stella's husband, Nick. So Minerva goes out to his station (ranch) to get to know him and find out what happened. He's exactly what she thought he would be, and not at all what she thought he's be. He's gruff, cold, unemotional, impossibly charismatic, passionate. But Minerva doesn't understand her own appeal and Nick doesn't understand how to share himself with her, so they are at an impasse. And overshadowing everything in their lives is the spectre of Stella.
Commentary: It kind of cracked me up, the idea that Minerva was supposed to know how Nick felt - he never told her, never so much as cracked a smile!
However, I was fully invested in the story. I was waiting for that moment when they realized who they were to each other; I was waiting for all of the little reveals about what was going on with the dead wife; I was waiting for that conclusion. I wanted them to get together and have a million little Kiwi babies out in the country.
On a serious note, I did appreciate the author's treatment of the late wife. Stella was very representative of survivors of child sexual abuse - hypersexual at times, avoidant at others, manipulative sometimes childlike sometimes. But of course, Minerva would not have known any of that, and Nick probably wouldn't have until it was too late. My heart broke for Stella who was acting out of her own pain and wasn't given a fair chance in life (nothing to do with Nick, just in general).
Next book in the series: Original Sin
March 14, 2018
Ugh. Reviewed the wrong book! Will update.
November 23, 2014
If you want a husband to love, as Minerva declares, you can't be hankering after your one-year-dead sisters husband. A sister who you allegedly loved and cared about. Minerva falls instantly in love with the husband and becomes jealous of her dead sister, needless to say I could not stand Minerva. She only knows the man a few days, but is prepared to destroy what could be vital proof of why Stella killed herself. Because it might reveal something she doesn't want to know about Nick.
This book should of been about Stella and Nick, but you can't have a heroine like that, so she had to be killed off...sad.
This book should of been about Stella and Nick, but you can't have a heroine like that, so she had to be killed off...sad.
February 20, 2018
Minerva is a cook who was away when her stepsister fell in love and got married to Nick Peveril so She didn't get the chance to be acquainted with him. Unfortunately, when she came back, her stepsister had already committed suicide and Minerva had the urge to know the circumstances behind her death which led her to visit Nick, and from this point the novel starts.
I guess it was okay as a harlequin novel, but a little bit extreme at times.
I guess it was okay as a harlequin novel, but a little bit extreme at times.
July 29, 2021
This was a tame RD in the way of angst. The back story of the first wife, h’s step-sister was very sad! The first half of the book felt like a gothic mystery but the second half frittered out to an anti-climax. 😢
July 26, 2018
قرأتها مترجمة للعربية بعنوان
239 - لون منتصف الليل ـ روبين دونالد ـ مكتبة مدبولي ( كاملة )
239 - لون منتصف الليل ـ روبين دونالد ـ مكتبة مدبولي ( كاملة )
April 14, 2022
Boogenhagen, Stmargarets, and AnneE all give excellent reviews for this one. There are triggers in this book and it would be wise to know what they are(Stmargarets spells them out in her first sentence) IMO this story is best read without spoilers, as it has lots of layers to it.
Surprisingly with all that goes on the romance ends up working. Our hero is troubled(understatement) but is not a usual RD cruel hero. The heroine has her own issues. The most tragic person in this story is the dead stepsister who was married to the hero. She was harmed and needed professional help and her actions caused a lot of the angst in the book.
The story from when the h and H meet takes over a year, as the h leaves for a year for work and to get space between her and the H.
I think the heroine’s wonderings says it best. What if her stepsister had still been alive and married to the Hero. The attraction between the hero and heroine was very strong(love at first sight). Would that attraction been there? Or would the knowledge that they should not be attracted to each other be tamped down? Or was the hero so in love with his first wife he wouldn’t had noticed the h? It is best not to delve too much into the what ifs, because it really does feel like these 2 were meant to be together. The h is not 2nd best. I would read this again even knowing all the secrets!
I really wish there was an epilogue. RD often has people from other books show up but I doubt these 2 do. There was a quick visit to Tegan and Kieran from Pagan Surrender I loved that!!!
Surprisingly with all that goes on the romance ends up working. Our hero is troubled(understatement) but is not a usual RD cruel hero. The heroine has her own issues. The most tragic person in this story is the dead stepsister who was married to the hero. She was harmed and needed professional help and her actions caused a lot of the angst in the book.
The story from when the h and H meet takes over a year, as the h leaves for a year for work and to get space between her and the H.
I think the heroine’s wonderings says it best. What if her stepsister had still been alive and married to the Hero. The attraction between the hero and heroine was very strong(love at first sight). Would that attraction been there? Or would the knowledge that they should not be attracted to each other be tamped down? Or was the hero so in love with his first wife he wouldn’t had noticed the h? It is best not to delve too much into the what ifs, because it really does feel like these 2 were meant to be together. The h is not 2nd best. I would read this again even knowing all the secrets!
I really wish there was an epilogue. RD often has people from other books show up but I doubt these 2 do. There was a quick visit to Tegan and Kieran from Pagan Surrender I loved that!!!
February 14, 2023
There is a zingy plot in here, but it's so threadbare it probably makes up a scant 30% of the book. The vast majority of this book is we the reader being told how the h positively throbs with sexual need every time she catches a whiff of the H's overpowering male musk. The purple prose is off the charts: she humms, she seethes, she writhes and moans and bites onto her first to suppress her burgeoning sexual desire and all because the manlyest man to have ever manned mans into the room and stands about being all man. And how! That virility, he's like a wild beast, a panther, a cheetah, a stallion in heat - prowling and snarling and growling and... urgh it's so cringeworthy I honestly couldn't take it.
There is also a bit where he beats a possum to death with a tire iron, and even though it's back is broken and it's organs smashed it still manages to savage his hand. I just... I dunno. Also suicide and SA story. It's effing bonkers.
There is also a bit where he beats a possum to death with a tire iron, and even though it's back is broken and it's organs smashed it still manages to savage his hand. I just... I dunno. Also suicide and SA story. It's effing bonkers.
April 21, 2024
"The Colour of Midnight" is the story of Minerva and Nick.
Now this might be icky for some, but it has its moments.
Heroine goes to visit her family, and comes across her step sister's ex, who has unfortunately committed suicide. Circumstances lead her to working for the hero, until the secrets unravel.
Quite a lot of different things in this book- the hero loving his wife, the heroine's morbid sexual attraction and utter desire for the hero, his sexual inhibitions, loads of back and forth where the couple jump each other's bones, drama before a happy ending.
I struggled in the first half but second half was pretty enjoyable.
Safe
3/5
Now this might be icky for some, but it has its moments.
Heroine goes to visit her family, and comes across her step sister's ex, who has unfortunately committed suicide. Circumstances lead her to working for the hero, until the secrets unravel.
Quite a lot of different things in this book- the hero loving his wife, the heroine's morbid sexual attraction and utter desire for the hero, his sexual inhibitions, loads of back and forth where the couple jump each other's bones, drama before a happy ending.
I struggled in the first half but second half was pretty enjoyable.
Safe
3/5
September 4, 2020
It is a sweet story about loving second time and the need to express your true feelings to your partner.I loved how the H/h were given chance to realise their feelings in time.Overall a very intense read for me....
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 17, 2024
Uhhh sure. Boring. Skip.
July 23, 2013
Say what you want about Harlequin novels, but like all books or series sometimes you run into a gem of a story that goes beyond expectations.
This is a well thought-out story with human characters that take on a sensitive subject and explores the grey areas of what it means to be in a relationship. Everything from sweet moments to heavy-hitting with the ordeal of Stella's (wife/stepsister) death.
I will not give away the spoiler of why Stella died as the build-up to it is handled so well, before and after it is revealed. Let me just say that it wasn't a plot point and then dropped. It was tastefully done how these characters reacted to the truth and how they each dealt with it.
As much as there is angst, there is heat. A good romance needs heat, even if it doesn't land in bodice-ripping sexathon that is expected most of the time from romance (Pervs!). Yes, there is heat between these two that one doesn't always get in these books. There is believable chemistry and that makes everything so much sexier.
So, confused by my review? Well, a story like this is a journey. You need to stay with it and you will be rewarded handsomely.
Enjoy!
This is a well thought-out story with human characters that take on a sensitive subject and explores the grey areas of what it means to be in a relationship. Everything from sweet moments to heavy-hitting with the ordeal of Stella's (wife/stepsister) death.
I will not give away the spoiler of why Stella died as the build-up to it is handled so well, before and after it is revealed. Let me just say that it wasn't a plot point and then dropped. It was tastefully done how these characters reacted to the truth and how they each dealt with it.
As much as there is angst, there is heat. A good romance needs heat, even if it doesn't land in bodice-ripping sexathon that is expected most of the time from romance (Pervs!). Yes, there is heat between these two that one doesn't always get in these books. There is believable chemistry and that makes everything so much sexier.
So, confused by my review? Well, a story like this is a journey. You need to stay with it and you will be rewarded handsomely.
Enjoy!
October 20, 2014
A good read. To uncover the reason for stepsister's death, Minerva travels to the Spanish Castle and meet's a cold and controlled widower Nick. Minerva blames Nick for Stella's suicide because of his lack of emotions and rumors that she has heard make her believe he is uncaring man. But there is more going on here than it seems and she ends up fighting her attraction to him instead. Finding out the truth of Stella's death is an unbearable hearthache for all involved.
A very intense and emotional read: such hidden intense passion, guilt, and heartache. Not a lot of action leave some parts dull but wonderful details of the area make up for it, somewhat.
A very intense and emotional read: such hidden intense passion, guilt, and heartache. Not a lot of action leave some parts dull but wonderful details of the area make up for it, somewhat.
May 18, 2015
The story references sexual abuse and suicide which is unusual for a romance.This was written in the 1990's/
December 7, 2016
Star Rating: ★★½☆☆
Read
August 2, 2017I will not rate this one due to my respect to other much better works from this author.
Read
June 18, 2018"I'm Stella's sister..."
And Minerva Robertson wanted to know why, with everything to live for, Stella had chosen to die. The only person who might be able to give her an answer was wickedly attractive Nick Peveril, Stella's husband. But he wasn't the conventional grieving widower. What was Minerva to make of him? And should she fight the passion she felt for him?
And Minerva Robertson wanted to know why, with everything to live for, Stella had chosen to die. The only person who might be able to give her an answer was wickedly attractive Nick Peveril, Stella's husband. But he wasn't the conventional grieving widower. What was Minerva to make of him? And should she fight the passion she felt for him?
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