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Then She Fled Me
Sarah Riordan had one passionate aim in life: to keep the house and lands of Dun Rury in the family - no easy task for a young and inexperienced girl, but one she was determined to carry through. Adrian Flint, who came to Dun Rury as a paying guest, had also one aim: to escape from his broken career, his frustrated ambitions and his bitter disappointment. Perhaps, therefore, it was inevitable that these two people, so different in character but so alike in singleness of mind, should begin to interest each other.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1950
28 people want to read
About the author
Sara Seale
71 books23 followersSara Seale was the pseudonym used by Mary Jane MacPherson (d. 11 March 1974) and/or A.D.L. MacPherson (d. 30 October 1978), a British writing team who published over 45 romance novels from 1932 to 1971. Seale was one of the first Mills & Boon's authors published in Germany and the Netherlands, and reached the pinnacle of her career in the 1940s and 1950s, when they earning over £3,000/year. Many of Seale's novels revisited a theme of an orphaned heroine who finds happiness, and also employed blind or disfigured (but still handsome) heroes as standard characters.
Mary Jane MacPherson began writing at an early age while still in her convent school. Besides being a writer, MacPherson was also a leading authority on Alsatian dogs, and was a judge at Crufts.
Mary Jane MacPherson began writing at an early age while still in her convent school. Besides being a writer, MacPherson was also a leading authority on Alsatian dogs, and was a judge at Crufts.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 8, 2019
So much Sara Seale weirdness, but in a good way. As always, the relationship between the MC's is likely to make you cringe: for example, the h comments several times that the H reminds her of her deceased father; the H is pleased by that, and says that eventually she'll understand why that is.
The h's family are prize idiots and her sister is a spiteful, but harmless, parasite. Everyone dotes on the sister because of her beauty and lets her get away with murder, but the H has little use for it, although he does pay her some compliments because the sister expects them as her due. The h is a long-suffering workhorse who has major daddy issues, and it's rather tragic.
I'm not going to consider this summary to be a spoiler because it's Sara Seale and anyone who read her books know that the uncomfortable age gap and ridiculously naive h are her stock-in-trade.
The h's family are prize idiots and her sister is a spiteful, but harmless, parasite. Everyone dotes on the sister because of her beauty and lets her get away with murder, but the H has little use for it, although he does pay her some compliments because the sister expects them as her due. The h is a long-suffering workhorse who has major daddy issues, and it's rather tragic.
I'm not going to consider this summary to be a spoiler because it's Sara Seale and anyone who read her books know that the uncomfortable age gap and ridiculously naive h are her stock-in-trade.
January 6, 2021
Typical Sara Seale. The girl is a vibrant, smart but level headed 18 year old Irish village girl. Tight financial situation, forces her to open out her family home into a boarding house.
Hero is her first lodger, a reputed pianist with a bitter past. He is 34. He cant play anymore because of an accident, so he is looking for a hiding place to lick his wounds.
How the hero first struggles and then smoothly blends into the Irish household is the majority of the story. Vivid, realistic portrayal.
Sara Seale has the unique talent of spinning a zillion stories with the exact same premise !! A lively teenage heroine with a 30 something world weary hero. But she manages to bridge their age gap quite beautifully in most of her stories. You don't get the feeling that the heroine is cradle snatching !
In her household, the heroine has an elder sister, a younger brother, a good for nothing but affectionate aunt and a motherly cook. But the dead parents have left the family legacy in the heroine's name not the elder one. Simply because she is the most responsible person around !
The hero notices that right away, and admires her tenacity and earnest outlook towards life. Her matter of fact approach to life helps him heal his own wounds. And just when the heroine starts to sag with the family burden, the hero is there to lend a hand.
The elder sis is the OW, a pretty but empty headed damsel. She has her own boy friend, the village beau, but fancies the hero. That's because she feels some vague musical connection with him.
Part of the charm in the book is the 'out of the real world' scene setting - an idyllic Irish country side with charming and unworldly people. And our gritty but sweet and naïve heroine. The hero is enchanted by it all. And so are we...
Hero is her first lodger, a reputed pianist with a bitter past. He is 34. He cant play anymore because of an accident, so he is looking for a hiding place to lick his wounds.
How the hero first struggles and then smoothly blends into the Irish household is the majority of the story. Vivid, realistic portrayal.
Sara Seale has the unique talent of spinning a zillion stories with the exact same premise !! A lively teenage heroine with a 30 something world weary hero. But she manages to bridge their age gap quite beautifully in most of her stories. You don't get the feeling that the heroine is cradle snatching !
In her household, the heroine has an elder sister, a younger brother, a good for nothing but affectionate aunt and a motherly cook. But the dead parents have left the family legacy in the heroine's name not the elder one. Simply because she is the most responsible person around !
The hero notices that right away, and admires her tenacity and earnest outlook towards life. Her matter of fact approach to life helps him heal his own wounds. And just when the heroine starts to sag with the family burden, the hero is there to lend a hand.
The elder sis is the OW, a pretty but empty headed damsel. She has her own boy friend, the village beau, but fancies the hero. That's because she feels some vague musical connection with him.
Part of the charm in the book is the 'out of the real world' scene setting - an idyllic Irish country side with charming and unworldly people. And our gritty but sweet and naïve heroine. The hero is enchanted by it all. And so are we...
August 14, 2019
I can read these stories over and over again. Sara, you've done an amazing job. I adored this light-hearted tale because of the contradictory characters. A deep and strong love between Sarah and Adrian that starts with a little animosity really reeled me in and I could not put this book down. I really do miss the old Mills and Boon stories.
May 27, 2021
This is a beautiful old-fashioned story. I love that it takes a different turn from the run-of-the-mill romance stories. I love the independent heroine. I love that she wasn't the most beautiful person in the room. I love that she was hard-working and confident and strong. I love that the hero's strength lay in his ability to grow beyond his great tragedy. I like that he wasn't an obnoxious jerk. I enjoyed the love blooming between the lovers in the story. In too many of these books the HEA comes as quite a shock at the end and is none too convincing. I love that there were no misunderstanding between the lovers. They talk and clear things up. There is actually a scene where the H actually enumerates the points he wants cleared up! So refreshing.
Also the author has a great sense of mise en scene. I live as far from mid 20th century rural Ireland as one can get but I want to be snuggled up in eider-down in a snow storm in a breaking down house! I want to be rowing a tiny boat across a lake in the snow. Crazy!!
Also the author has a great sense of mise en scene. I live as far from mid 20th century rural Ireland as one can get but I want to be snuggled up in eider-down in a snow storm in a breaking down house! I want to be rowing a tiny boat across a lake in the snow. Crazy!!
August 23, 2023
Oh my goodness, after the truly horrible The Truant Bride I was ready to give up on Sara Seale entirely, but this one is great! Why was she so into Ireland, though, was she Irish? It's so hard to find information about who actually wrote under this name, although I did go down a fairly satisfying rabbit hole around it recently and have come up with my own conclusions.
Anyway, this book! It reminds me strongly of Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle -- there's an Irish family consisting of vague-but-kind aunt, beautiful-and-dreamy older sister (Kathy), hypercompetent second sister (Sarah) who actually runs the family, and the younger brother (Danny) who is sweet and calm — really he’s just furniture but a side character comments on how he isn’t rough and loud like a boy should be. There was a beautiful feminine dreamy mother who died, and a father who adored the mom and adored Kathy for being just like the mom, but never really cared for Sarah, but they're both dead, and Sarah is determined to keep the family home & farm going just like she is sure her father would've wanted. All well and good, but there's absolutely no money to run the house, and every time Sarah manages to save a little, her vague aunt is spending it at estate sales on things they don't really need -- although it's not one of those 'wealthy and luxurious' things, it's that the aunt is so absent-minded she can't keep an idea in her head for more than ten seconds. What it all means, though, is that there's no money and Sarah is running herself ragged trying to get people to act like reasonable adults instead of impulsive toddlers, so she finally decides that what might work is to take in lodgers who will appreciate the family atmosphere and pay to live in remote beautiful Ireland.
(Before I forget, there's also a family friend attorney and his kind son who is hopelessly in love with Kathy, but she isn't sure she wants him because what if she can do better?)
So how hard can it be to take in lodgers? Hard, of course, and very funny as well -- the only one who stays is the typical twee lady of interwar novels who writes children's books and talks about the lovely little fairies and cunning little elves and drives the family absolutely insane. Then at last another lodger comes and he is a handsome dark man (Adrian) in his early 30s who turns out to be a pianist who had some kind of breakdown and is hiding out in deepest darkest Ireland to write a book because he Can Never Play Again. It's a recipe for melodrama, but here is one place Seale seems to consistently shine -- his struggles are handled realistically and to my surprise we get not just Sarah's POV but lots of his as well, and some of the side characters too, which might be some of what makes it feel like a Dodie Smith novel. The fun tropey family story stays strong even after Adrian arrives, but the focus gradually shifts to his & Sarah's mutual growth & falling in love; Adrian had terrible parents and dealt with his misery by hyper-focusing on his career as a pianist, so now that his career is over he's having to learn how to be a person. Meanwhile Sarah is obsessed with her family home because it is standing in for all the love her father never gave her and so she has to learn how to give that up so SHE can be a person — but I really liked that it isn’t giving up the thing itself, but giving up making it the priority, letting go of the past. Thankfully Adrian doesn't have a miraculous physical recovery, instead he realises he can still be involved with music even if he can’t be a concert pianist, and Sarah learns to put her energy into the future rather than the past and to accept that her father didn’t love her the way he should have, but that other love is still possible. It definitely has that of-the-times paternalistic bent where the man helps the woman to mature so she can be a partner to him, which I absolutely object to in the real world, but in THIS BOOK it worked for me, in part because Sarah (just by being herself) is helping Adrian recover too.
So, so so good, excellent all the way through -- why can’t all Seale be like this?
Anyway, this book! It reminds me strongly of Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle -- there's an Irish family consisting of vague-but-kind aunt, beautiful-and-dreamy older sister (Kathy), hypercompetent second sister (Sarah) who actually runs the family, and the younger brother (Danny) who is sweet and calm — really he’s just furniture but a side character comments on how he isn’t rough and loud like a boy should be. There was a beautiful feminine dreamy mother who died, and a father who adored the mom and adored Kathy for being just like the mom, but never really cared for Sarah, but they're both dead, and Sarah is determined to keep the family home & farm going just like she is sure her father would've wanted. All well and good, but there's absolutely no money to run the house, and every time Sarah manages to save a little, her vague aunt is spending it at estate sales on things they don't really need -- although it's not one of those 'wealthy and luxurious' things, it's that the aunt is so absent-minded she can't keep an idea in her head for more than ten seconds. What it all means, though, is that there's no money and Sarah is running herself ragged trying to get people to act like reasonable adults instead of impulsive toddlers, so she finally decides that what might work is to take in lodgers who will appreciate the family atmosphere and pay to live in remote beautiful Ireland.
(Before I forget, there's also a family friend attorney and his kind son who is hopelessly in love with Kathy, but she isn't sure she wants him because what if she can do better?)
So how hard can it be to take in lodgers? Hard, of course, and very funny as well -- the only one who stays is the typical twee lady of interwar novels who writes children's books and talks about the lovely little fairies and cunning little elves and drives the family absolutely insane. Then at last another lodger comes and he is a handsome dark man (Adrian) in his early 30s who turns out to be a pianist who had some kind of breakdown and is hiding out in deepest darkest Ireland to write a book because he Can Never Play Again. It's a recipe for melodrama, but here is one place Seale seems to consistently shine -- his struggles are handled realistically and to my surprise we get not just Sarah's POV but lots of his as well, and some of the side characters too, which might be some of what makes it feel like a Dodie Smith novel. The fun tropey family story stays strong even after Adrian arrives, but the focus gradually shifts to his & Sarah's mutual growth & falling in love; Adrian had terrible parents and dealt with his misery by hyper-focusing on his career as a pianist, so now that his career is over he's having to learn how to be a person. Meanwhile Sarah is obsessed with her family home because it is standing in for all the love her father never gave her and so she has to learn how to give that up so SHE can be a person — but I really liked that it isn’t giving up the thing itself, but giving up making it the priority, letting go of the past. Thankfully Adrian doesn't have a miraculous physical recovery, instead he realises he can still be involved with music even if he can’t be a concert pianist, and Sarah learns to put her energy into the future rather than the past and to accept that her father didn’t love her the way he should have, but that other love is still possible. It definitely has that of-the-times paternalistic bent where the man helps the woman to mature so she can be a partner to him, which I absolutely object to in the real world, but in THIS BOOK it worked for me, in part because Sarah (just by being herself) is helping Adrian recover too.
So, so so good, excellent all the way through -- why can’t all Seale be like this?
March 9, 2025
Sarah Riordan had one passionate aim in life: to keep the house and lands of Dun Rury in the family - no easy task for a young and inexperienced girl, but one she was determined to carry through. Adrian Flint, who came to Dun Rury as a paying guest, had also one aim: to escape from his broken career, his frustrated ambitions and his bitter disappointment. Perhaps, therefore, it was inevitable that these two people, so different in character but so alike in singleness of mind, should begin to interest each other.
August 4, 2024
It kept me interested, but I did not think it was great. The sister is really quite annoying, I got a little fed up of the homage to her beauty - to the extent they celebrate it at Christmas. So many hurtful deeds and comments to the heroine and although she braved them, it annoyed me. Even when the hero said he found the sister annoying/silly I don't think she got a comeuppance for her lazy and entitled behaviour and ended up with such a nice man.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews