Touched by Fire

by Jane Donnelly

1 HARDCOVER BOOK

Genres: Harlequin Romance

188 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1977

About the author

Jane Donnelly began earning her living as a writer as a teenage reporter. When she married the editor of the newspaper she freelanced for women's mags for a while. After she was widowed she and her 5 year old daughter moved to Lancashire. She turned to writing fiction to make a living while still caring for her daughter, she sold her first Mills & Boon romance novel as a hard-up singleparent in 1965. She wrote over 60 romance novels for Mills & Boon until 2000. Now she lives in a roses-round-the door cottage near Stratford-upon-Avon, with four dogs and assorted rescued animals. Besides writing she enjoys travelling, swimming, walking and the company of friends.

Reviews

[Naksed]

HAIKU BOOK REVIEW: Touched by Fire, by Jane Donnelly.

She may be touched by fire
But she sure couldn't thaw him,
he is the iceman.

Most of Jane Donnelly's heroines are prideless, stupid, obsessed, walking neuroses and this one, touched by fire as she may be, is no exception.

Ten years ago, the hero, an art-dealer, advised heroine's dad to quit his dead-end job and go away somewhere to paint full-time if he was serious in his wish to become an artist. So the heroine's dad left his wife and his twelve year old daughter for an island far away to devote himself to his art, only to drown in the ocean a year later, not having fulfilled his potential.

The heroine's mom, who had already been distraught for a whole year about being abandoned by her husband, really loses it after becoming a widow. She marches into hero's art gallery and explodes like a volcano accusing him of being responsible for the break up of her family and the death of her husband. It is such an epic Escandalo that ten years later, the people in the small town are still remembering and talking about it.

Heroine, even at the age of twelve, understood her dad's urge to get away from his crazy, clingy, unsupportive wife, abandon his dead-end job, and pursue his dreams. What she can't forgive is that he cut them off so ruthlessly, never writing or calling or returning to them in the year he was away, not even a card for her thirteenth birthday. So although she is not holding a crazy grudge against the hero that he was responsible for her dad's death, she is resentful of what she perceives as his ruthless streak in advising her dad to cut his family off so definitively from his life.

When they meet again ten years after the death of her father, he still owns the art gallery next to her uncle's crafts shop. The uncle is friendly with him and even tries to pimp heroine to him since hero has invested quite a lot of money into his crafts shop and uncle is not sure if he can repay him. Uncle is old, and the shop is not doing very well. He asks the heroine to move in with him and take over, and takes the opportunity to ruthlessly push the two of them together.

The heroine is weary but when the hero makes a real effort to befriend her, she thaws quickly and decides to wipe the slate clean and start over. Soon, the two are dating. Hero is nice and takes her out quite often but he is emotionally distant and definitely does not put any moves on her except for some perfunctory kisses. Heroine, used to men running after her, is intrigued and challenged. I guess playing hard to get to attract the opposite sex works both ways.

There is a slimy, nosey OM who keeps warning the heroine that the hero is an iceman who has no real feelings for her, just passing the time until he marries his equally icy, on-off, tycoon's daughter girlfriend. The OW is very patronizing and insulting but she doesn't appear on the scene too much.

After a few weeks, the heroine and hero have a date at his home where the heroine is determined to set the iceman on fire and make him lose control. Mid-makeout session, the hero stops and asks the heroine if she really knows what she is doing.

The heroine takes this as a rejection. She is immensely embarrassed and insecure so she lashes out, telling him it was all pretense, she isn't into him at all, and she only dated him at her uncle's insistence. He has equally harsh words for her, telling her icily that he dated her because she amused him and he basically couldn't give two F***s about her otherwise.

After their spat, the heroine is miserable and keeps making excuses to see the hero, even though he is back to dating the OW. She really had no pride and it was cringeworthy how she ran after him. The irate OW warns her off her man so the petty heroine lies to her and tells her they spent the night together. The OW i sin a fury and proceeds to tell everyone in town, including the heroine's crazy mom, about the heroine and hero shacking up, leading the heroine's mom to have another huge scene with the hero.

h tries to apologize but H hangs up on her. So she wades through a flooding river and shaky bridge, almost drowning, to confront him at his house. Her logic is that if he sees her in person, he might make some harsh statements to her, but he will then regret them once he cools down and then she will be in a position to demand an apology from him too, making them even. This chick was not touched by fire, she was CRAZY!!!

After heroine's ambush of the hero in his own home, hero pretty much has no other choice but to mutually declare ILYs. He is emotionally distant because he grew up motherless (surprise, surprise, another one with mother issues). He loved the heroine from afar for years, getting to know her vicariously from her loving uncle (wow, pimp uncle was definitely playing the LONG TERM pimping game). He thought he had no chance with her because of his history with her parents. He was resigned to a loveless marriage of convenience with OW.

Heroine tells him she never blamed him for the dad situation and that her crazy mom finally confessed that she intercepted all her dad's letters and cards, including his request that they join him on the island and live the bohemian life with him. So she is in no position to interfere with their marriage.

I suppose heroine got what she wanted but I can't say that this story left me with warm feelings despite all the alleged "fire." :(

[Wafa]

Less trashy than I expected it to be. Quite entertaining!

[Myrna]

A rather sweet vintage.

A young girl meets again the man she finds accountable for her father's disapperance. The man in question (the art gallery's owner) encouraged her artistic father to pursue art. Her father chose art over his family.
The girl feels abandoned and resents the hero.
As she gets to know him, her feelings change. Only to hear the rumour that he has some ulterior motives in courting her.

The heroine's mother is the most interesting character for me.