New Boss at Birchfields

by Henrietta Reid

When her fiancee left her, Briony had a lot to contend with. She had followed him to Scotland and had lost her job. So she considered herself lucky when she was taken on as an instructress at the Lennox Riding School. Until she crossed swords with the difficult boss, Blane Lennox, and began to wonder whether she had been so lucky after all.

Genres: Harlequin Romance

190 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1982

Reviews

[Margo]

This is a cute one. The h leaves town after her fiance dumps her in a way that shatters her self-confidence. Interestingly, though, the h, who has always been a doormat, gets mad and vows no one is going to walk all over her again. She goes to live with an elderly relative and ends up working at a riding school owned by a crabby but super-masculine H. They clash because the h has opinions on her job and doesn't mince words (she's got a new attitude, ladies). The H is involved to some degree with an employee of the nearby school where the riding school gets most of its students, so the H, the h, and the OW are all thrown together frequently.

There is a fair amount of plot related to the operation of the riding school, including a reluctant student who eventually becomes brave when the h persuades the H to buy a donkey so the girl can become more comfortable. It kept my interest, but I like books where the h and H work alongside each other to solve a problem.

The h, the strong, silent, type, sometimes shows a lot of interest in her love life (and he's not subtle about these fishing expeditions -- I almost feel bad for him). He still spends a fair amount of time with the OW, but it's not clear how serious this relationship is. The OM (ex fiance) shows up to complicate things, but all in all, it's a very nice little HEA.

[Sophie]

This author seems to have had a curious idea of what constitutes romantic behavior. The hero Blane is rude and short-tempered and a demanding boss, which is probably not too far off course for your average Harlequin man. But his behavior never changes throughout the story and sometimes borders on the schizophrenic. When he—out of the blue—makes a pass at the heroine and she rejects him, he retaliates at work by taking away her favorite tasks and assigning all the drudgery to her. Now I understand that this book was published in 1982, a time when sexual harassment was not a familiar concept, but legal considerations aside did the author really imagine this petty, spiteful behavior would make the hero attractive to the reader? Sadly, it seems to work on the heroine. The more contemptuously he treats her, the more she falls in love with him, culminating in a stalking episode that leads her to fall into his arms at last. Good lord.