Hilltop Tryst (Reader's Choice)

Rating:
Summary: Same as every other Betty Neels book
Review: I realise that romance novels are supposed to be formulaic. But it does help when the formula is varied from time to time. In Betty Neels' stories the pattern is invariably the same: nicely-brought-up but plain young woman falls on hard times, has no training or qualifications so has to take menial job or train to be a nurse. Meets older and very much aloof man, who secretly falls in love with her, but fails to give her any evidence of his regard for her, except perhaps one kiss when she least expects it and which she assumes was intended just to tease, especially since there's always a far more glamorous woman hanging around. And just when nice girl realises that she's in love with aloof older man, he sends her away and she thinks she'll never see him again. Then he comes to find her, out of the blue, and tells her that she's going to marry him. End of story.

(There is a slight variation, in which nice girl marries aloof older man early in the book, as a marriage of convenience, but he was secretly in love with her all along and just never told her).

This book follows the same old formula: Beatrice meets Dr Oliver Latimer, who treats her in exactly the same casual, almost dismissive manner which all Neels' heroes use on their heroines. Somehow, we're supposed to understand that this means he loves her. I have to admit that I found the book patronising in this respect: women *do* have the right to make their own choices in live, and yet Latimer, like most of Neels' heroes, has a tendency to ride roughshod over Beatrice's wishes.

Neels' books seem increasingly anachronistic these days, for several reasons. First, she writes men and women as they were perhaps in the 1950s or 1960s, right down to dress, manner, way of speaking and so on. Second, when her books are set in a hospital, as this is, it becomes clear that she has not set foot in a hospital for at least twenty years. Hospitals are run very differently nowadays. Nurse training (in the UK, where her books are set) bears no resemblance to the depiction in Neels' books. Frankly, her publishers would do better to market her books as historical fiction, which is what they actually are.

Rating:
Summary: A pleasant read.
Review: This is a re-issue, originally published in paperback in 1990. Another very pleasant tale from Betty Neels where a nice girl, Beatrice, meets a handsome doctor. It takes her the whole book to realize that she is in love with Dr.Oliver Latimer. I sometimes find it frustrating that the hero always waits so long to show his intentions, while leaving the heroine feeling all at sea. I do find that it is refreshing to occasionally read one of Betty Neels' books in contrast to the more sensual books out there today.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: Wonderful book, Betty Neels has a knack for creating believable characters that aren't fussy and just seem more like real woman in the real world!! She has also proven that a good romance book doesn't have to be trashy and doesn't have to have every other word be a vulgur profanity! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK Betty!!!!