Wayside Flower

by Wynne May

The island cast a spell over her
When Meredith fell head over heels in love with Marc, a handsome attentive Frenchman, she forgot for a brief time why she had come to Mauritius.

Unfortunately Marc de Chavagneux was the same man Meredith had been sent to spy on.

She believed her intentions to be the best, but by lying to the man she loved, she made the problem worse. Should she ignore her principles - or ignore her heart?

Genres: Harlequin Romance

189 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Wynne May was born in South Africa, ten miles from Johannesburg. Shortly after graduation from college, she began working for the South African Broadcasting Corporation, and it was while on holiday from the S.A.B.C. that she met her husband.

How did it happen? Let Wynne tell it. It's pure Harlequin Romance:

"I had gone to the home of my mother's parents - in Ardeer, on the south coast of Natal. This was the place for surfing and swimming. Claude, recently wounded in the Battle of El Alamein, was on leave.

"The scene was set: a blustery day with the sea bounding in and the sand whipping up to sting the face and limbs. Apart from Claude, the beach was utterly deserted. Claude was lounging near the shallow end of a pool.

"Taking the greatest care not to pass in front of the handsome stranger, I took the long way around the pool . . . and promptly slipped on the cement and splashed into the water. It is not surprising, therefore, that the young man with the mocking green eyes spoke to me."

Three months later, Claude slipped a diamond ring onto Wynne's finger as they stood under the stars in an exotic garden.

When their son Gregory was eight and Wynne was pregnant with Julian, she decided to write. She completed her first novel just before she went into the hospital.

Before long, Wynne May was looking after two sons, running a home - and writing romances.

Reviews

[Naksed · Rating 1 out of 5]

Our South African heroine is sent by her boss to the island of Mauritius to spy on his daughter's former lover, who has supposedly kidnapped their child and now refuses custody/visitation rights to the child’s mother and grandfather. As soon as the heroine reaches the island, she falls in love with her target’s brother, an arrogant playboy French sugar plantation owner who seems to zero in on the heroine as his next conquest. Apparently, she completely knocked his socks off with her "chic columnist" glamor look consisting of a chiffon gown hand-painted with large butterflies the color of melon and emeralds, which she naturally matches with emerald tights.

The heroine struggles with her double identity because she has the hots for hero and wants to come clean about her spying mission on his brother and his niece. However, she still does not confess, even when the hero proposes marriage (oh so romantically, over the telephone, and he doesn't so much ask her as command her to pack up her bags so they can have a quickie civil ceremony and finally give way to their mutual lust lol). Once they are married, she finally gets the nerve to admit to her role in aiding her boss to spy on and potentially kidnap hero’s niece back to South Africa. She figures that now he is locked into matrimony, he will eventually have to forgive her!

The surprise is on her though because once they are legally hitched, the hero tells her he knew all along who she was and married her out of revenge to keep her prisoner on his island. To underline his point of view about "deceitful, wanton wives," he gifts her with a coral bracelet shaped like a snake with emerald eyes (no doubt to match those glamorous emerald tights of hers).

The rest is a comical but tediously repetitive series of bickerfests where the hero and heroine constantly hurl insults at each other about each other's deceitfulness. The rest of the time, they engage in sexual games, trying to entice the other to the breaking point before suddenly pulling back at the last minute then taunting the other about it. There is just endless bickering and it got so boooooorrrrrrring. Eventually, the heroine orchestrates a reconciliation between hero's brother and her boss' daughter. Her own marriage is resolved when the hero finally admits that he has been in love with her along, despite her deceitfulness and wantonness, ever since she showed up on his island wearing the glam butterfly dress which made her look like a goddess.

The writing in this one was so tedious and repetitive, the dialogues weirdly wooden, and the whole plot meandering without any logic even in the context of a ridiculous Harlequin caper. For epic trainwrecks that are also compelling, better to stick to Old Skool Doyennes like Yvonne Whittal and Charlotte Lamb.

[RomLibrary]

The island cast a spell over her
When Meredith fell head over heels in love with Marc, a handsome attentive Frenchman, she forgot for a brief time why she had come to Mauritius.

Unfortunately Marc de Chavagneux was the same man Meredith had been sent to spy on.

She believed her intentions to be the best, but by lying to the man she loved, she made the problem worse. Should she ignore her principles - or ignore her heart?