Showing posts with label Romance novels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Romance novels. Show all posts

20 June 2022

Good Times Never Seemed So Good


Caroline
André Norton and Enid Cushing
New York: Tor, 1983
320 pages


Caroline was published in January 1983, eight months before Enid Cushing's death. Her passing was not recognized by the Montreal Gazette, her hometown's surviving English-language daily, though the family did publish an obituary in the 30 August 1983 edition.


It's no surprise that the Gazette gave Enid Cushing's death no notice; the paper paid little attention to her writing career. Not one of her murder mysteries – Murder’s No Picnic (1953), Murder Without Regret (1954), Blood on My Rug (1956), The Unexpected Corpse (1957), and The Girl Who Bought a Dream (1957) – was reviewed in its pages. The same holds true for the titles she penned in her late-in-life resurrection as a writer of historical romances: Maid-At-Arms (1981) and Caroline (1983).

My interest in Enid Cushing began with the discovery of her 'fifties Montreal mysteries, but I'm much more intrigued by her two romances. Both Maid-At-Arms and Caroline are collaborations with celebrated American science fiction writer Andre Norton (aka André Norton; née Alice Mary Norton). While I've not been able to discover how the two came to work together, I have learned that their friendship dates back to at least 1953, the year Murder's No Picnic was published.


Maid-At-Arms stands with Rosemary Aubert's Firebrand as my very favourite Canadian romance novel. Caroline is a close third. 

The back cover copy is a touch misleading:


Caroline Warwick is indeed young, beautiful, and a free spirit, but she never expresses a wish to study medicine. This is not to suggest that Caroline isn't curious; the earliest scene has her looking to set a kitten's broken leg by consulting medical texts. There are a great many such books in her parents' Montreal home. Caroline's father, one of the city's most respected physicians, lectures at McGill. Elder brother Perry is studying medicine at the university. And then there's Richard: "Richard Harvey (he was not a Warwick at all, although he had lived with them since his mother died when he was born and his father had gone west and died in the wilderness) who seemed to be the truly devoted doctor."

Richard began his education in Canada and furthered it in Scotland. His unanticipated return, pretty new wife in tow, is met with mixed reception in the family's St Gabriel Street home. Doctor Warwick, Mrs Warwick, Caroline, and Perry are happy, but not Priscilla. The fifth member and eldest daughter of the household, Pris had a thing for Richard. It doesn't help that his bride is Lady Amelia, niece of Lord Elgin, the newly installed Governor General of the Province of Canada.

But Pris is something a coquette – "flirting and playacting" is how Irish housemaid Molly puts it – and so she's over it soon enough, turning her attentions of Lord Elgin's aides-de-camp, including Lady Amelia's bounder of a brother Captain Carruthers and dark brute Major Vickers. Before the Governor General's arrival, Pris had time for handsome Corbie Hannacker, the most eligible bachelor in all the province, but she now ignores him, much to the distress of her younger sister. Caroline sees Hannacker as everything Pris should want in a man. Like Richard, he's good, kind, and wonderful, so much so that he continues to visit because he knows how much Caroline, seventeen going on eighteen, admires his horses.

Caroline is a much more conventional romance than the gender-bending Maid-At-Arms. Seasoned readers of the genre will recognize in the early pages that its heroine is destined for Corbie's arms. The question is just how this happy union – there is a wedding – will come to be.

 

Caroline is a well-written, well-crafted novel; the headache-inducing sentence in which Richard is introduced is an anomaly. Given Enid Cushing's awkward mystery novels, one might conclude that Norton's name deserved place of prominence, but I argue otherwise. Norton had no connection with Canada, never mind Montreal – and Caroline is very much a Montreal novel. The action takes place over little more than twelve months in the city's history. Beginning in January 1847 with Lord Elgin's arrival, it incorporates the Summer of Sorrow and the opening of the Montreal & Lachine Railroad, ending in the early months of 1948. Throughout it all, I kept an eye out for historical inaccuracies, yet spotted nothing. I doubt credit goes to Norton, just as I doubt Norton, a science fiction novelist from Cleveland, Ohio, came up with the idea of a historical romance set in mid-nineteenth-century Canada. It's unlikely Caroline will ever be reprinted, but if it is, let's give Enid Cushing equal billing.

Trivia: This Montrealer has memories of a St Gabriel Street, location of the Warwick residence, but I couldn't quite place it. Investigation reveals that it is - unsurprisingly - in the oldest part of the city.

Adolphus Bourne, Map of the City of Montreal, 1843 (detail)
Three short blocks in length, it was once home to the Scotch Presbyterian Church. Its story was recorded by Rev Robert Campbell, "the last pastor," in A History of the Scotch Presbyterian Church, Saint Gabriel Street, Montreal (Montreal: Drysdale, 1887). Amongst the subscribers is a man named Charles Cushing. 

Object and Access: A decaying mass market paperback. The cover illustration is by New Brunswicker Norm Eastman, best known for men's magazine covers like this:

New Man, October 1968

I purchased my copy last year for US$5.79 from an Ohio bookseller. 

As far as I can tell, not one Canadian library holds a copy.

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01 November 2018

A Curious Romance about a Closeted, Corseted, Petticoated Poet and His Masculine Twin Sister



Maid-At-Arms
Enid Cushing [and Andre Norton]
New York: Fawcett, 1981
221 pages

Twins Lady Jennifer and Lord Jonathan Welland are alike in body, but not in mind. Jenny's chief interests are guns, horses, and war. As a little girl she would sneak out of bed to eavesdrop on her grumpy guardian, the Duke of Burghley, as he regaled dinner guests about his fight against Napoleon in the Peninsular War. Jonnie never joined her; his interests lay in poetry, the pianoforte, and petticoats. Throughout their young lives, the twins would secretly trade identities. Jenny, as Jonnie, joined the men on a fox chase, while "a skirted and beruffled Jonathan toyed with tea and cakes and exchanged titters with delicately nurtured maidens at the Manor."


The one person not taken in by their masquerade was Lord Rufus Randall; Jonnie aside, he knows Jenny better than anyone alive. Randall first met Jenny when she was a newly orphaned girl of eight – he was eighteen – and they've been jolly good friends ever since. Twelve years have passed, and the first of this novel's twenty-four chapters finds Lady Jennifer in a nostalgic mood:
"Rufus, do you remember the time Sir Peter Davies over at the Lodge had that party three years ago? They all played those forfeit for a kiss games – or maybe you don't remember, because you stayed off in the trophy room with Sir Peter – anyway, Jonathan was the belle of the party and was always being caught on purpose. You must have heard about it"
     "I also recollect that the Jonathan of the evening also made quite a name for himself as well," Lord Rufus said dryly. "Fine pair up to no good – that was the two of you."
     "We used to have fun," Jennifer nodded at the memories of mischief successfully carried through. "Nobody could ever tell the difference."
     "The only noticeable difference was that fair Jonathan displayed a fine sense of more maidenly conduct than his sister appears interested in showing," Lord Rufus pointed out.
     "I should have been a boy," Jennifer sighed, not for the first time.
Jenny gives expression to her desire in midnight rides through the English countryside dressed in male drag: riding boots, black breeches, dark shirt and black jacket. She never forgets to carry a gun.

Does Jenny's twin think he should have been a girl? Jonnie doesn't say, but the Duke of Burghley has long been concerned about interests he associates with women. Fearing his ward is getting to be a "damned sissy," he hunts him down in London. "Gad, do you know where I found this brother of yours, my dear?" the Duke says to Jennie. "At Lady Ashbury's salon, listening to a fop reading poetry. Poetry! And he was ready to spout off verses, too. Imagine that for your brother! I tell you, at that point I had enough. I told him to come with me. I'm not going to have my ward behaving like a pampered pimp, reeling around in ladies' salons and boudoirs, listening to poetry."

The Duke decides to make a man of Jonnie through military service. He purchases a commission in the Rifle Brigade, and makes certain that the newly-minted Captain Jonathan Welland will be posted far from Lady Ashbury's London salon.

Where exactly?

Jonnie tells Jenny:
"Halifax," he said gloomily.
     "Halifax? Where's Halifax? she repeated blankly. "What on earth are you going to do there?"
     He made a sweeping, oddly feminine gesture. "Place's in Canada – I'm for garrison duty."
Jenny manages to convince their guardian – she calls him "Guardie" – to let her accompany her brother; it helps that Lord Bradbury, the Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia, happens to be one of the Duke's old war pals. The very next week, the twins board the Cambria, bound from Liverpool to Halifax. Sadly, predictably, they're not two days out when delicate Jonnie collapses in Jennie's bunk from mal de mer. There he remains for the remainder of the voyage "rolled in one of her dressing gowns." Meanwhile, hardy Jennie dons Jonnie's military uniform – "fortunate, she considered, that padded fronts to an officer's uniform had become a recent military style" – so as to pass as her brother and be allowed on deck in rough weather.

View of Dartmouth and Halifax (c 1850)
L. Crepy
The twins' arrival in Halifax poses a problem in that Jonnie, under guise of Lady Jennifer, remains deathly ill. So as not to arouse suspicion amongst the other passengers, he disembarks in whalebone corset, petticoats, bell-skirted dress, and bonnet, and is whisked away to the Colonial Hotel. Once there, however, he declines to take up his commission. Jennie is annoyed, but at the same time all too willing to take his place as a captain in the Rifle Brigade:
"I'll make a deal with you, Jonathan, and you'll abide by it. Your place for my place; my skirts for your trousers."
     Jonathan fiddled with the arm of his chair. "Jennifer, I don't think..." he began hesitantly, but his sister cut in.
     "You're quite right, Jonnie, you don't think. You make a choice, now. Either you promise to stay in my skirts, most of the time anyway, or you get into this uniform right away. Which will it be? One or the other Jonnie. There's no other choice. You're a Welland, and I don't propose to have to blush for the name."
     "Oh, all right," Jonathan was goaded by beyond his endurance. "I'll be Lady Jennifer and you can go on playing soldier."
What could go wrong? I expected plenty, particularly after Lady Bradbury, wife of the Lieutenant-Governor, insists "Lady Jennifer" reside at Government House.

Government House from the S.W. (1819)
John Elliott Woolford
Surprisingly, things go quite well for the twins. Jenny proves to be an excellent soldier, and is quite popular with the men under her command, and Jonnie has no difficulty in passing as a woman while staying with Lord and Lady Bradbury and their two daughters. This is not to suggest Jonnie is altogether happy; he complains about corsets, but his chief source of frustration lies in not being able to live the life he'd enjoyed in England. "You've always liked the female's role better than the man's," observes Jenny. "Oh yes, I've heard stories of your London exploits – don't worry."

This depiction of Jonnie as someone who has never "flirted with the girls" changes abruptly with the arrival of Lord and Lady Bradbury's English niece, Miss Matilda Markham, at Government House. Jonnie is immediately smitten by her feminine, yet dominant ways, and longs to end his masquerade so that he may court her.

Why the change in Jonnie? I suggest this note appended to the novel's page at Andre-Norton-Books.com may provide an explanation "Andre Norton's name is Not On This Book – however she did complete the story for Enid Cushing when Enid became ill."

Of course, being a romance novel, Maid-At-Arms is more Jenny's story than Jonnie's. She may be the less interesting character, but this is not to suggest that she isn't loved. Remember Rufus Randall? You know, the English Lord who befriended Jenny when she was a girl of eight? Well, Rufus isn't fooled by stories of Lord Jonathan's success in soldiering coming across the pond, and so he sets out for Halifax. I'm sure I spoil nothing in reporting that Rufus rescues Jennie from a situation that she can't handle. In fact, he saves her life.

And then church bells ring.

Jonnie does not serve as maid-of-honour.

About the author(s): Maid-At-Arms marks the beginning of what I've described as Enid Cushing's second act. Her first consisted of five mystery novels, stretching from Murder's No Picnic (1953) to The Girl Who Bought a Dream (1957). What accounts from the twenty-eight-year silence that followed is a real life mystery, as is how she came to collaborate with Andre Norton.

The contract signed by Cushing and Norton can be found here, courtesy of Andre-Norton-Books.com.

In 1983, the year of Cushing's death, she published one last novel. This time, Norton's co-authorship was acknowledged on the cover:


Bloomer: You knew there'd be one. Coming in the very first chapter, it provides a good example of the novel's poor writing and editing:
"Tell me, Jenny, did your guardian ever become aware of the numerous occasions on which you, er, diddled him. I believe such was the term you used – in the past?"
Object: A typical 'eighties mass market paperback, complete with five pages of adverts for other Fawcett titles. Bil Keane's Daddy's Little Helpers"More laughs from the Family Circus Crew" – appears under the header "GREAT ADVENTURES IN READING."


As far as I've been able to determine, there was no second printing.

Access: WorldCat suggests that not one Canadian library holds Maid-At-Arms. The good news is that used copies are plentiful and cheap. Do not be taken in by the Massachusetts bookseller who describes the book as "Very rare," and claims it is by Norton "Writing As Enid Cushing." He's out to make an easy fifty bucks, but is not so bad as the New Hampshire bookseller who asks US$85.97, adding a further US$24.99 for shipping.

I purchased my copy for one American penny.

Well worth it, I think.

Related posts:

09 March 2018

Reviewing W.E.D. Ross



Online mag Book Marks has a new feature, "Secrets of the Book Critic," which takes the form of interviews with American "books journalists." I've begun following, in part, because of its promise to cover "overlooked recent gems." Sometime San Francisco Chronicle critic Alexis Burling kicked things off last month, by recommending Claire-Louise Bennett's Pond, Montpelier Parade by Karl Geary, All the News I Need by Joan Frank, and our own David Chariandry's Brother.

Good suggestions all, I'm betting – I know the Chariandry is – but what really caught my attention was this:
BM: What is the greatest misconception about book critics and criticism? 
AB: How about the idea that everyone can be a book critic? That all it takes to write a worthwhile review is just a quick read of a book and then a dribbling out of your off-the-cuff opinion? Anyone who contributes to this column can tell you that reviewing a book is definitely not an easy, zippy process. There’s research involved – reading an author’s past work(s) to put the current book in context, maybe reading an interview or two to see where the author was coming from when he/she wrote the book, plus keeping on top of what else has been or is being published about the subject. Then there’s the taking notes while reading (well, I do that) and the working and reworking of sentences and paragraphs that hopefully come together into a cohesive and un-stuffy package that will do the book justice. Maybe it sounds a bit like I’m tooting the collective book-critic horn, but as with any profession, the job requires training, humility, and lots of practice 
And, might I add, here’s a newsflash about book critics in general: Just because many of us read all day for work, that doesn’t mean we are always in our pajamas. Because: gross.
I doubt many people think anyone can be a book critic, just as I doubt many critics spend all day reading. Much as I like to picture book reviewers –  some anyway – in pyjamas and other sleepwear, I was troubled by Ms Burling's assertion that other works are always read. It got me wondering if my recent CNQ review of W.E.D. Ross's Lust Planet had been unfair, in that it had been written without my reading so much as one of the author's 357 other novels.


This question hung over me as I read Backstage Nurse, which Ross wrote under his Judith Rossiter pseudonym. Published in 1963, the year after Lust Planet, it was a transitional novel, written with some coaching from the author's second wife, nurse Marilyn Ross (née Clark). Backstage Nurse is important as Ross's entry into the nurse romance sub-genre. It was followed by fifty-seven more, ending two decades later with Nurse Marsha's Wish.

My review of Backstage Nurse has just been posted on the Canadian Notes & Queries website. Here's a small taste:
Dying American theatre legend Oliver Craft wants to spend his few remaining days touring a production of a new play, The Cardinal, a Cold War tragedy in which he plays the lead. Tall, imperious Doctor Trask of Boston’s Eastern Memorial Hospital looks to make it possible by casting about for a nurse to accompany the ailing actor. 
The role falls to beautiful Shirley Grant for no other reason than she had once pursued a stage career herself. At eighteen, she’d attended theatre school, and by nineteen was performing on Broadway. But then her father, a medical doctor, died in a plane crash, leaving her an orphan. “And so, although she still loved the theatre, she had decided to become a nurse. In this vocation, she could follow in the footsteps of her father in being of service, and find fulfillment she knew now the theater could never give her.” 
I suggest that another reason Shirley Grant seems a good fit for the role is that she has no social life.
The complete review can be read here.

Backstage Nurse hasn't change my mind about Lust Planet.

I recognize that I still have 356 W.E.D. Ross novels to go.

Related posts:

19 February 2018

Wither the Nurse Novel?



Much of this past weekend was spent reading Backstage Nurse, a W.E.D. Ross novel published in 1963 under his "Judith Rossiter" pseudonym. The book is 220 pages long, the print is of good size, and yet I'm nowhere near finished. I'm taking time to pause and consider because Backstage Nurse is my first nurse novel. By great coincidence, it was also the author's first nurse novel. He went on to write fifty-six more.


Rightly or wrongly, I've always associated the subgenre with Harlequin. However, if the back cover of Backstage Nurse is anything to go by, it had some pretty significant competition.


Must say, Jane Corby's Staff Nurse doesn't do much for me, but doesn't Dr. Jeffrey's Awakening sound interesting? And what about Jane Arden, Space Nurse?

Sadly, Avalon is no more; Amazon bought it for its backlist in 2012. Its last nurse novels – Everglades Nurse and Nurse Misty's Magic – were published in 1987, by which point the Harlequin nurse novel was long a thing of the past.

The rise and fall of the Harlequin nurse novel is reflected in this bar graph I put together over the weekend:

cliquez pour agrandir
I do like a good bar graph – "an understatement," says my eye-rolling wife – but this one doesn't give a complete picture. As with Avalon's "NURSE STORIES" – Susan Lennox's Doctor's Choice, for example – not all nurse novels published by Harlequin had "Nurse" in the title. "Hospital" featured frequently, and "Surgeon" sometimes, but the most prominent after "Nurse" was "Doctor."

As I've discovered, more often than not, doctors are the object of a nurses longing.

Interestingly, the first doctor to appear in a book published by Harlequin was a woman; the beautifully-named Serenity Parrish, heroine of Joseph McCord's His Wife the Doctor (1949), the publisher's thirteenth title. No longing nurse in this one, sadly.

The first nurse as heroine doesn't appear until Registered Nurse by Carl Sturdy (Charles Stanley Strong), which was published in 1950 as Harlequin's forty-seventh book.

As far as I've been able to determine, the heyday came in 1961, which saw forty-eight Harlequins featuring nurses as the main character.

The last new Harlequin to feature "Nurse" in the title was Roumelia Lane's Nurse at Noongwalla, which hit the racks in January 1974:
Alex had always been fascinated by Australia and went out there from England to get a job as a nurse. 
There she met the autocratic boss of a logging camp, Grant Mitchell, who told her, "There's no padding around in this job, Miss Leighton. Just dust and drought and a twenty-four-hour day." 
She would show him she wasn't scared of hard work, or of him!
And she did. She showed him.

Curiously, in the early 'eighties, Harlequin revived several of it's old nurse titles – General Duty NurseQueen's NurseResident NurseNurse BarloweNurse TemplarNurse AideNurse in WhiteNurse of All WorkA Nurse is BornNurses Are People, The Nurse Most Likely, and Staff Nurse (not Avalon's Jane Corby classic) – in its short-lived Harlequin Classics Library and even shorter-lived Harlequin Celebrates series.

Meanwhile, across the pond, the nurse novel continued on without a hiccup in Harlequin's Mill & Boon imprint. It does to this day in M&B's Medical Romance series. Released just last year, my favourite title is Kate Hardy's Mummy, Nurse... Duchess?:
The duke and the single mom! 
Nurse Rosie Hobbes knows charming men cannot be trusted. Visiting pediatrician and sexy Italian duke Dr. Leo Marchetti is surely no exception! Her toddler twins are now the centre of her life, and she expects Leo to run a mile when he meets them. Instead his warmth leaves her breathless!
Not just a doctor, but a duke. Sexy to boot! Looks like he showed her!

Are we on the cusp seeing a nurse novel revival? I ask because select titles in the Medical Romance series have begun appearing in Canada, though only in bastardized "LARGER PRINT" editions.

Yes, bastardized.

Look what they've done to Mummy, Nurse... Duchess?


Mommy?

I blame Rupert Murdoch.

Commercial break:


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24 January 2018

May Agnes Fleming's Very Worst Marriage?



The Heiress of Castle Cliffe; Or, Off With the Old Love
     [Victoria; Or, The Heiress of Castle Cliffe]
May Agnes Fleming
New York: Street & Smith, [c. 1917]
289 pages


The Heiress of Castle Cliffe, the most reprinted work by Canada’s first bestselling writer, May Agnes Fleming, appeared under many titles, but none so intriguing as Wedded for Pique, the one slapped on the 1878 edition. 
Wedded for pique? I couldn’t imagine what sort of slight would lead to matrimony. 
The affront is revealed in the last third of novel, just before an angry, malicious walk down the aisle. It follows a series of great misfortunes and misadventures, and leads to even more, resulting in a murder, a drowning, and a hanging. 
To think it all begins with a pleasant evening at the theatre.

My first book review of the year! The rest can be read – gratishere at the Canadian Notes & Queries website.

Pique your interest?

Sorry.

As recompense, I offer a visual treat comprised of three other editions. Interested readers are advised not to look too closely at the scribblings on the first, which give away the novel's twist:

Victoria; Or, The Heiress of Castle Cliffe
New York: Brady, 1864
Heiress of Castle Cliff [sic]
New York: Hurst, [1880?]
Wedded for Pique
New York: Dillingham, [1889]

Related posts:

18 August 2017

Soldiering On with Edith Percival



Caught in the Snare: The Sequel to Edith Percival
May Agnes Fleming
New York: Street & Smith, [c. 1917]
215 pages

Describing Caught in the Snare as the sequel to Edith Percival is like saying that the last twenty chapters of Two Solitudes is Two Solitudes Two. Really, Caught in the Snare is just the second half of Edith Percival, a novel publisher Street & Smith divided in two because the length didn't fit its New Eagle Series format. It begins where Street & Smith's Edith Percival (reviewed here last week) left off, with virtuous Edith the captive of Ralph de Lisle. If all goes according to the villain's devious plan, she will soon be forced to marry him with fellow captive Frederic Stanley, her one true love, as witness. The publisher provides a helpful synopsis for those new to the story:


To be frank, I didn't much care to continue with Edith's story, though I did want to know what mysterious words were whispered by the Hermit of the Cliffs in saving Fred Stanley from execution. I made something of this when I wrote my review, adding that I thought the hermit "the most interesting character in Edith Percival."

I've changed my mind.

The hermit is hardly seen in the first half of the novel, but is here, there and everywhere in the second, used as a rudder to steer both characters and plot from a premature end. Depicted here in this cover detail from the 1890 Upton edition, he appears at the Percival family home with information as to where the kidnapped Edith is being held. The hermit next appears as Fred again faces execution – this time as our hero is in the process of being burned at the stake by de Lisle and a tribe of "savages." Once again, Fred's life is spared; once again Fred is in awe:
''Your power extends over more than superstitious savages,'' said Fred, "my father, stern and haughty as he is, quails before you as he has never done before any other living man. Would I knew the secret of your mysterious power!"
     A shadow passed over the face of the hermit, and when he spoke again his voice was unusually low and solemn:
     "Some day, ere long perhaps, you will learn all. Until that time, rest in peace, and believe this mystery is all for the best. I go now to my home on the cliffs, but something tells me we will soon meet again."
The chance that Fred – and, presumably, the reader – would one day "learn all" didn't provide much incentive, and still I tramped onward.

I'm glad I did, because the second half of Caught in the Snare is a wild ride, complete with crossdressing, attempted murder, arson, suicide, a trial, a marriage, more crossdressing, and another marriage. As one character remarks, "this sems [sic] so strange – so improbable – so like an Eastern romance." On the final page, the author manages to slide in one final marriage before the concluding paragraph:
And now, reader, farewell We have journeyed together long; but nothing can last forever. All things must have a close, and the characters who have passed before you must disappear from your view at last. I, too, must go from your sight, for the daylight is dying out of the sky, and my task is ended. I trust, however, we may, ere long, meet again.
We will, May Agnes Fleming, we will.


Object: A 218-page book (adverts included) printed on cheap paper and bound in thin glossy wraps. The cover model is not the same as that used on Street & Smith's Edith Percival. She bears no closer resemblance to the heroine described in the novel. On the other hand, it is possible that the woman on the cover is meant to be Elva Snowe (whom I've not mentioned for fear of spoiling the plot).

I won my copy for one American dollar in an eBay auction last summer. There were no other bidders.

Access: The University of Toronto, the University of Alberta, and the University of Victoria hold copies of Caught in the Snare, but not one has Street & Smith's Edith Percival. This leads me to wonder whether those in charge of acquisitions were taken in by the publisher's claim that it is a sequel.

At the time of this writing, one copy of Caught in the Snare was being offered for sale online. Price: US$25.00. It can be read for free through this link thanks to the good folks at the Internet Archive.

Related posts:

08 August 2017

The Parents of the Children of the Revolution



Edith Percival; Or, Her Heart or Her Hand
May Agnes Fleming
New York: Street & Smith [c. 1917]
215 pages

Published not long after the United States entered the Great War, my copy of Edith Percival features a request from the publishers. It seems Street & Smith were struggling with unspecified wartime conditions – paper shortages most probably – but were bravely soldiering on in trying to supply titles by bestsellers Bertha Clay, Charles Garvier, Nicholas Carter, Mary J. Holmes, Harriet Lewis, Horatio Alger, and New Brunswick's own May Agnes Fleming. And so, the request: "In short, we are asking you to take what your dealer can supply, rather than to insist upon just what you want. You won't lose anything by such substitution, because the books by the authors named are very uniform in quality."


I won't say that one May Agnes Fleming book is as as good as the next because Edith Percival pales beside The Midnight Queen, the only other I've read.

On the surface, the two are similar: historical novels with action, romance and a touch of the supernatural. The Midnight Queen takes place over the course of a particularly eventful evening in 1666 London; though a much shorter book, Edith Percival, spans many months, perhaps years, during the American Revolution. It begins with two handsome young men, good friends Fred Stanley and Gus Elliott, on the deck the Mermaid, a schooner bound from Paris to Boston. "Well, Fred," says Gus, in the novel's first line of dialogue, "since, as you say, you neither have a lady-love in America nor expect a legacy there, I confess it puzzles me to know what inducement could have been strong enough to make you quit Paris."

Clearly, Gus doesn't know all that much about his pal. Happily, Fred's response brings Gus and the reader up to speed. He and we learn that Fred is the son of Sir William Stanley, a bigamist with wives in both the Old and New Worlds. Though born in the Thirteen Colonies, he was raised and educated in England. The young man is now returning to the New World so as to confront his father, who expects his help in quelling disent. Fred's is an extreme case of nature over nurture: "Am I not an American by birth – an American in heart and soul – a thousand times prouder of the glorious land in which I was born than of my father's broad acres in merrie England?"

I don't know. Are you, Fred? After all, you've spent nearly all of your life in merrie England. Might your feelings have something to do with the way your father treated your late mother? As an orphan, friend Gus doesn't have mommy and daddy issues, though he does tend to go on about about the feelings he has for his cousin.

Enter Edith Percival!

No, wait. Before this happens the Mermaid goes down in an terrible storm. All hands are lost save Fred, Gus, and the ship's captain. The trio endure days of agony aboard a raft crafted in the maelstrom before being rescued by American privateers. "Yours was a narrow escape, Mr. Stanley," says Captain Dale, the commander of the privateer.

Indeed, it was! No sooner has Dale uttered the words than a burning ship is spotted on the horizon. Fred leads a team of men intent on saving souls – and then breaks away from the group, risking his life to rescue the only woman aboard.

Enter Edith Percival!

The Midnight Queen has an evil dwarf, whores playing at being aristocrats, and a seductive masked woman who at the end of the novel is revealed to have nothing but a skull for a head. Edith Percival is more restrained. Fred falls in love with Edith, but has a rival in Ralph De Lisle, to whom Edith has been betrothed since childhood. There
are uncomfortable encounters and things are left unsaid. After thirty pages of this, I had all but lost interest, until Nell, Edith's cheeky little sister, suggests a visit to the Hermit of the Cliffs.

Dismissed by Nugent, Edith's brother, as "some unfortunate, whom the cares of the world have made an idiot," the hermit is something of a mystic. Not only is he aware of the last meeting between Fred and his father, which ended with Sir William disowning his rebel son, he has can see something of the challenges the young man must meet in the future. The hermit is the most interesting character in Edith Percival – as recognized in the title publisher F.M. Upton gave its edition (c. 1865). Though we don't see much of the man, he plays a pivotal role in saving Fred's life. Mere seconds before our hero is to be executed as a traitor at the hands of his terrible father, the mystic man appears and whispers something in Sir William's ear:
The effect was appalling. Sir William staggered back, with ghastly face and straining eye-balls, then with one wild cry: "Oh, Great Heaven!" the strong man fell stricken to the ground.
All were bewildered, amazed, terrified! Several rushed forward to raise the prostrate man, whilst the others surrounded Fred, who had risen to his feet, under the vague impression that he was in some way about to escape. The hermit, as he passed him, whispered "Fear not, you are safe!" And a moment after he was gone.
What did the hermit whisper to Sir William? I couldn't wait to find out! But in reading the remaining eighty-six pages I became increasingly concerned. I recognized the story arc, and so came to wonder where all this was leading. The trajectory was ever upward:
  • Fred angers Major Percival by telling him that he's in love with Edith;
  • Edith declares her love for Fred and refuses to marry De Lisle;
  • De Lisle kidnaps Edith so as to force her into matrimony;
  • Fred, Gus, and Nugent attempt to rescue Edith, and are captured in the process;
  • De Lisle delays killing Fred because he wants him to witness his marriage to Edith.  
Things become dark, and darker still. I was riveted right up to the very last until sentence:
In No. 1036 of the NEW EAGLE LIBRARY, there will be found a sequel to "Edith Percival," under the title "Caught in the Snare."

Fortunately, my dealer was able to supply a copy.


To be continued, I guess.

About the cover: The work of an unknown artist who seems to have been unfamiliar with the text. Edith is described as a woman with "golden hair."

"That cover is gorgeous," writes a friend. "But why are her cheeks so red? Must be a food allergy."

Object: A fragile 215-page novel printed on cheap newsprint, bulked up by eight pages of adverts for other Street & Smith books. Mrs Fleming is well represented with thirty-three titles. It is one of the very oldest paperbacks in my collection.

Access: Edith Percival first appeared in 1861 editions of the New York Mercury. As The Hermit of the Cliffs, the Upton edition appears to mark its earliest appearance in book form. In 1893, New York publisher G.W. Dillingham issued the novel under its original title. I believe Street & Smith's Edith Percival and Caught in the Snare editions are the only to divide the novel in two. In whole or in part, it would seem that the novel has been out of print ever since.

Whether whole or divided in two, the only copies of Edith Percival listed for sale online are products of print on demand vultures. Prices range from US$13.01 to US$66.20. I won my century-old copy on eBay last summer for US$2.24.

The novel is held by twelve of out university libraries, but not in the Street & Smith edition. Library and Archives Canada fails entirely.

It can be read online here – gratis, in its entirety – thanks to the good folks at the Internet Archive.

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24 May 2016

Worst. Dialogue. Ever.



Over the past week, more than a couple of readers – three, in fact – have admired my ability to get through He Will Return, Helen Dickson Reynolds' 1959 girl-meets-boy, girl-loses-boy, girl-buys-boy-return-ticket novel. In truth, it wasn't such a slog. True, He Will Return spans a quarter-century – and encompasses such events as the Great Depression, the Second World War and the opening of the Vancouver Art Gallery – but it isn't so long a novel. Time moves quickly from the start, picks up momentum, begins skipping over years, then comes to a dead stop on page 256.

My pace in reading He Will Return was more measured: a chapter or two a night until the thing was done. The plot didn't interest much; what kept me going was the dialogue, which I'm certain is the very worst of the 185 novels I've read from The Dusty Bookcase. This exchange, in which girl Constance is introduced to boy Ivor, is so very bad that I can't help but repeat it:
"You know, Ivor, this pretty little girl has just been given a diploma by the Vancouver Art School. I'm afraid you're going to find this city a poor market for pictures, Connie, and this Depression doesn't help."
     "Don't be such a crape hanger [sic], John," his wife reproved.
     "Our new Art Gallery will give young artists a place to exhibit and sell their paintings."
     "Oh sure,"the doctor agreed amiably. "We're a young city, you know, Ivor. It's only forty-six years since this town was completely wiped out by fire."
     "Great Scott! It's inconceivable. The houses and gardens look so well established."
Expository dialogue, right? So much of it is, and yet for all the talking a lot is left unsaid... or isn't said until long after one would've expected. Consider this exchange, which takes place on the first Sunday after Constance and Ivor's honeymoon:
"Darling," said Constance, "you're Methodist and I'm Anglican. Shall we take turns going to each other's churches? I believe the United Church has swallowed the Methodist in North Vancouver, anyway."
     Ivor looked gloomy and stirred his coffee. Constance bit her lip.
     "Dearest, you'd probably like to sing in the choir. I'll go to eight o'clock Communion after this, and to the morning Service to your church with you."
     A deep flush mounted to Ivor's eyes. "I said I was brought up in a strict Methodist family. I didn't say I adhered to the faith. I... I regard Christ as the greatest teacher of ethics, but I have no use for organized religion.
     Constance turned white.
Whiter, anyway.

Constance gets to the church on time despite the shock, and is a regular congregant throughout the novel. Project Bookmark Canada will want to consider a plaque at the former site of Vancouver's St John's Anglican Church.


The young marrieds have barely settled into their first home when even younger marrieds Dick and Evelyn Burnett move in next door. One afternoon, between clotheslines, Evelyn tells Constance that Dick will be asking her husband to join his glee club. Just the thing to raise one's spirits in this Depression!
"A glee club sounds rather jolly," Ivor said, rolling a cigarette. He had cut down his smoking to a cigarette after lunch and one after dinner. "If I get a definite invitation from Burnett, I'll accept it."
     The words were hardly out of his mouth before the doorbell rang. Ivor jumped up eagerly to open the door and welcomed Dick Burnett in.
     "By jove, it's good to meet another man who sings, as I hear you do. Will you have this chair? D'you smoke? Afraid I have no tailormades now to offer you. I roll my own."
     "No, thanks." Dick Burnett sat down, glancing at the piano. "I only smoke mentholated cigarettes and not many of them, because of my voice. I dare say it's a superstition."
And I dare say, it isn't.

Never mind. I'm not such a prick about our forebearers as James Cameron. I quote this passage only because it points to the most curious aspect of Reynolds' dialogue. Shall, shouldn't, oughtn't, whether Canadian, Welshman, Irishman or Englishman, every character but one speaks like a proper Etonian schoolboy. The very same Etonian schoolboy. The exception is... well, I'll let him introduce himself:
"Good evening, Mrs. Owen-Jones. I'm your neighbor, Malcolm Macrae. I thought as I was passing I would just look in and see if you could use a wee bunch of radishes. They grow awfully early on my south slope. You'll maybe no care for radishes?"
     "I'm just crazy about radishes. Do come in. Mr. Macrae. It's very kind of you to call and bring us these delicious radishes. Won't you sit down? My husband will be out in a second; he's shaving."
     "I doubt I've come at the wrong time. You and your good man are going out?"
     "Oh, no, we're not thinking of going out. We have two small children, and we never leave them alone."
     "I've seen your two wee boys; they're bonnie laddies. I obsairved your vegetables coming along nicely. I have more tomato plants and cabbage and cauliflower in my hotbed than I can use; I'd be glad if you could take a few off my hands; I'm fashed to throw them away."
Whilst on the subject of hotbeds, those who made it through last week's post will remember the name Stephen Cochrane. A pipe-smoking widower, Stephen spends a chaste summer in Constance's company, only to discover that the woman he thought was a widow is actually an abandoned wife:
"Constance, I knew the children were all away and I came over with the firm intention of asking you to marry me. Now that is shot to pieces. Do you know where your husband is?"
     Her voice shook. "I haven't known for seven years and some months. You are the first person that I have told, and I am telling you because you have paid me the greatest compliment that a man can pay a woman."
     He sat very quiet for a while. "You could have him presumed dead," he said slowly, "or you could have him traced and make sure. You and I are Anglicans and we couldn't marry even if you were to get a divorce."
     "Stephen, I am sorry, I firmly believe that Ivor is alive and that in the course of time he will come back to me."
And, of course, he does... just a matter of waiting another decade, tracking him down in England, writing a pleading letter, and then paying his way back. It's somehow appropriate that the novel's final words belong to Ivor; after all, for most of the book he's not heard from. After Ivor returns, the poor man barely has a chance to speak before Constance loads him in the car for a second honeymoon on Vancouver Island:
"Oh, Ivor, we forgot that you need a driver's license. Now I'm afraid I'll have to keep the wheel."
     "You're the one to have the wheel," Ivor said humbly. "And, Connie, my sweet, from this day on Thy people shall be my people and thy God my God." 
FIN
Ivor quotes Ruth 1:16, but has he found religion? I think not. He knows the passage because he was "brought up in a strict Methodist family." What Ivor has found is a woman who will feed and keep him in neckties and socks. Constance couldn't afford to do that when they first met, but she can now, hence his return.

Ah, romance.

One last thing:

He Will Return? Shouldn't it be, oughtn't it be He Shall Return?


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16 May 2016

But Why Would You Want Him To?: The Very Strange Story of a Delusional Abandoned Wife



He Will Return
Helen Dickson Reynolds
Toronto: Ryerson, 1959

Newly-minted art school graduate Constance Manning faces the challenge of making a living as a portrait painter in Depression-era Vancouver, as detailed on the second page of this, Helen Dickson Reynolds' twenty-third novel:
"You know, Ivor, this pretty little girl has just been given a diploma by the Vancouver Art School. I'm afraid you're going to find this city a poor market for pictures, Connie, and this Depression doesn't help."
     "Don't be such a crape hanger [sic], John," his wife reproved. "Our new Art Gallery will give young artists a place to exhibit and sell their paintings."
     "Oh sure,"the doctor agreed amiably. "We're a young city, you know, Ivor. It's only forty-six years since this town was completely wiped out by fire."
     "Great Scott! It's inconceivable. The houses and gardens look so well established."
Pay no attention to crape hanger John and wife – this is their only scene – focus instead on Ivor. He of the title, Ivor Owen-Jones is a thin young Welshman with "jet -black hair brushed back from a good forehead, a well-shaped nose and sensitive, mobile mouth." This is the moment of their meeting... by which I mean the meeting of Constance and Ivor, not nose and mobile mouth.


In the months that follow they play tennis in Stanley Park, swim at Second Beach, visit the Pauline Johnson Memorial and take in cricket matches at Brockton Point. One afternoon by rustic Lumberman's Arch Ivor says something about maybe one day visiting Wales together. For a reason I cannot fathom, Constance interprets this a marriage proposal. Ivor seems equally dumfounded, but goes with the flow just the same. In the second chapter the young couple marry and move into a small bungalow in North Vancouver.

Life isn't easy for the Owen-Joneses – this is the Depression, you'll remember. Ivor has an indescript office job with a firm called Western Imports, while Constance gives art lessons and receives the occasional commission to do a child's portrait. Things would be a whole lot easier if only the groom would make use of his God-given talents. Ivor has a voice like Devonshire cream and an extensive repertory of traditional Welsh songs. Fussy Shaughnessey matrons look to hire him to perform at their soirées – "a refreshing change from the usual ballads and arias" – but Ivor takes offence in not being permitted to mingle with the guests. "Honestly, it was like the Middle Ages, when musicians ranked with scullions," he tells his bride.

The pair live frugally, affording poor Constance precious few opportunities to don her trousseau dresses. Things go from bad to worse when Ivor is fired on the very day Constance announces that she is pregnant. Her father gets him another job, but the firm goes bust just after the baby is born. Constance becomes pregnant again, and Ivor struggles to make ends meet as a door-to-door washing machine salesman. Must've been hell on the back. When the couple fall behind on their bills, losing their electricity, Ivor decides to apply for public relief:
He stared at the window curtained with raindrops. "I'll wait till the mail comes. I've made applications to firms with box numbers... there may be something. Anyway, it's a filthy day."
     The postman came with letters held under his glistening raincoat. He shoved one legal-looking envelope through the slot in the door. Ivor snatched it up.
     "It's from a legal firm in Wales." His fingers shook as he tore the stiff paper of the envelope. "My God, it's a will... Great-aunt Gladys has died... and left me a thousand pounds. I can't believe it."
I could believe it. I'd been waiting for Great-aunt Gladys to kick off ever since Constance had sent the old girl sketches of her babies.

Ivor races to the bank, leaving Constance in the dark with pencil stub and paper figuring out just how to make the inheritance stretch. He returns holding the deed to a farm outside Nelson. "I bought it at a tremendous bargain because the owner, quite an old man, has died recently, and the heirs want to wind up the estate."

Oh, dear.

The farm isn't quite as described. The Owen-Joneses manage to stave off poverty just long enough for Constance to give birth to a third child. When Great-aunt Gladys's money runs out, Ivor runs off, leaving behind a note promising that he'll return once he's found work. Constance carries on for several seasons, all the while expecting Ivor to walk through the door at any minute. If only he'd write. She eventually sells the farm, moves with her children back to Vancouver, and secures a position as an public school art teacher.

"The war years passed..." Yes, they did – and still no word from Ivor. Constance, cautious, manages to clothe and feed and her three children. No occasions now to dip into her trousseau. Straight-laced next-door neighbour Stephen Cochrane expresses interest, but is shot down: "Stephen, I am sorry, but I firmly believe that Ivor is alive and that in the course of time he will come back to me."

It was at this point I began to think Constance had become unhinged. After all, it had been more than eight years since Ivor had gone off in search of a job and he hadn't so much as sent a letter. In the fact of this, Constance's love and faith remain constant; she looks forward to the day he too will laugh at their children's antics.

Where once time crawled, then passed, it now flies. "Life went on fairly quietly until David's twenty-first birthday," begins the twenty-first chapter. What happens is this: David, her eldest, announces that he is going to marry a mousy pianist named Mona. The news brings on a dizzy spell. A few weeks later, daughter Faith earns a scholarship to study ballet in far off New York City. Another dizzy spell. Constance, who had demonstrated such fortitude in raising three young children, alone, is suddenly frail. When number two son Robert gets a job as pilot up north, Constance suddenly faces long evenings alone in a house that "echoes with emptiness." She fills her leisure time with visits to her elderly parents and taking shut-ins for drives. One particularly lonely night she decides to go to the cinema. There Constance takes in a bland feature, followed by a cartoon, followed by a travelogue in which she spots Ivor walking in Trafalgar Square.

You caught that, right? Ivor walking in Trafalgar  Square? I nearly missed it myself because I'd pretty much given up on his return. After all, he disappeared in the first half of the novel and hadn't been heard from since. Oh, there were times I thought he might turn up, like in the odd, overly-detailed description of  the VJ-Day crowd in chapter 18, but with just nine pages to go his reappearance was a real surprise.

On the next page, Constance manages to get a letter to her husband:


Come back and take care of me? When did Ivor ever take care of you, Constance? You were better off without him. That Welshman is a leach. The good folks at Western Imports will attest that he has absolutely no work ethic. Besides, what kind of husband buys a farm – sight unseen – without consulting his wife? For that matter, what kind of idiot buys a farm when he knows nothing about farming. For goodness sake, what kind of father refuses to sing for his baby's supper?

Ivor does indeed return. Before he does, "happy as a young bride," Constance shops for his favourite foods, a new tie and new socks. She picks him up at the airport. They embrace. All is forgiven. The next day they go off on what Constance describes as their "second honeymoon."

The ending is so very sudden and so very strange that I began to wonder whether it was all in Constance's head. Could it be that the omniscient narrator isn't? Might it be that this story is told by Constance herself? Is it all an abandoned wife's fantasy?

Nothing so interesting, I'm afraid. The sad truth is that He Will Return is just a very bad novel.

He will return? Sure, but only if you pay his way.

Note: Did not win the Ryerson Fiction Award.

Object: A 256-page novel in unattractive brown boards. The dust jacket illustration is by art school graduate Jon Nielsen. The back of the jacket takes the form of an advertisement for recent Ryerson titles by Will Bird, Ada Pierce Chambers, E.M. Granger Bennett, Gaie Taylor and Myron David Orr. Reynolds' previous novel, McBain's Brier Rose (1957), leads the list.

Access: Though the author's most common book, He Will Return is found in just fourteen of our university libraries. Library and Archives Canada doesn't have it, but the Calgary Public Library does.

The Canadian edition enjoyed one lone printing. The novel was published in the United States by Thomas Bouregy. Copies listed for sale online run between US$10 and US$30. I found mine six years ago at a London Goodwill. Price: $2.99.


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27 October 2014

Loving the Mayor of Toronto



Firebrand
Rosemary Aubert
Toronto: Harlequin, 1986
Breathless, she couldn't say anything, and taking her silence as acquiescence, he kissed her again, whispering, "I'll call you tomorrow."
     Then he was gone. Before she went in, Jenn took a good look at the spot on her front porch where she'd just been kissed – twice – by His Worship, the mayor of Toronto.
 
Municipal elections take place across Ontario today, meaning Rob Ford's time as Toronto's mayor is nearly over. Given the man's current health struggles, it may be unseemly to feel good about this, but I do. Ford did considerable harm to Toronto. Barring the election of his brother, which is unlikely, the city will be better off.

Fifteen years ago, when I was living in Toronto, a clownish figure named Mel Lastman was its mayor. Come election time I cast my vote for transgender rights advocate Enza Anderson. She came in third.

Enza Anderson and Mel Lastman, Toronto, 1999
Toronto politics seems to swing wildly between the conventional and unconventional  – or maybe that's just me. In 1986, the year Firebrand was published, the city's mayor was Art Eggleton. Then in the third of his four terms of office, he'd go on to Ottawa, where he served as President of the Treasury Board, Minister of Infrastructure, Minister of International Trade and Minister of National Defence.

When he was through, Lastman returned to his Bad Boy furniture stores.


Michael Massey, the hunk at the centre of this novel is more like Eggleton than Lastman, though I'm betting on John Sewell as the model. Like Sewell, Mike starts out as an activist politician, gets his face smacked by a fellow alderman, and rises to become mayor of our largest city.

The Globe & Mail, 14 March 1972
We first meet Mike in a police van after he's been picked up for disrupting the demolition of an old house (see: Sewell, John). Seated across from him is tearful Jenn MacDonald. Mike got himself arrested on purpose – something to do with bringing attention to the cause, I think – but Jenn is along for the ride only through a misunderstanding. Whatever will husband Bobby think? Fast friends, Mike and Jenn spend the night in neighbouring cells, are freed in the wee hours, and part on the Gerrard Street Bridge. It's not that Mike isn't attracted, but that Jenn is a married woman.

The second chapter begins fifteen years later. Jenn has split from Bobby, and is now working as a librarian at Toronto City Hall. After all this time, her thoughts drift back to the innocent evening spent with Mike. It wasn't that she wasn't attracted, but that she was married.

Mike got married himself – to a Rosedale ice queen – but is recently divorced. Now mayor of Toronto, Jenn sees him from time to time walking through the lobby, but he never sees her. Then, one day, they happen to stand next to each other while watching skaters on Nathan Phillips Square.  


Firebrand being my first Harlequin Superromance, I had no idea what to expect. Still, these things surprised:
  • Elizabeth II as a character.
  • Ribaldry.
  • A debate over whether the Toronto Police Service should be armed with Uzis.
  • A rally against arts cut-backs (with allusion to the cancellation of The Friendly Giant).
  • A sex scene that takes place in the mayor's office.
Yes, a sex scene in the mayor's office. What's more, it takes place before expansive windows overlooking the city:
Suddenly the room behind her was plunged into darkness, and the square outside seemed to spring into full vibrant light. The fountain in the middle gleamed beneath its lighted arches. Queen Street and Bay Street glowed from Saturday night traffic. The clock tower of Old City Hall shone the hour with benign dignity, while all around, office buildings, banks, insurance companies and hotels cast glitter from myriad windows into the night. And above it all shone the full moon, golden, warm, familiar, seductive.
Firebrand is as much a novel about the love between Jenn and Mike as it is the author's love for her hometown. This is no brilliant observation on my part.


The couple stroll through Chinatown, drive along the Danforth, and sneak out of a ball at the King Edward Hotel. There are times it's all a bit forced, though I'm ready to blame an editor's heavy hand for sentences such as this: "She was in The Room, the most exclusive boutique in Simpsons, a huge department store on Yonge Street not far from City Hall."


"I love you, you big heap of brick and concrete," Jenn cries out one morning as she gazes upon the city. The greatest threat to the budding romance between mayor and librarian is found in their disagreement over the future of the Leslie Street Spit. That obstacle evaporates unresolved; others, promised by cover copy, prove no more intrusive than Timothy Eaton's left toe, and things move along toward the usual conclusion. Like City Hall itself, Firebrand alternates between the conventional and the unconventional. Or maybe not. It's my first Superromance.

Note to cleaning staff:
Before her, all six-foot-four of him glowing in the soft window light, stood Mike, fully and gloriously a man. Hungry for her with a hunger that was obvious in every part of his huge body. She dropped her eyes, suddenly shy.
     That gesture of shyness pushed him right over the edge of longing. He wanted her so much. He took a single step closer.
     And she fairly ran into his arms. Sweet, wise, willing Jenn. She had his heart, his soul, his body and his love.
     Tenderly he lowered her onto the deep, soft rug.
Dedication:


Trivia: The man who slapped John Sewell was Alderman Horace Brown, author of The Corpse was a BlondeThe Penthouse Killings, Murder in the Rough and Whispering City.


Object: A 306-page mass market paperback with and additional four pages of advertising. Today's bibliophiles will regret having missed out on this exciting offer:


My copy was given to me by Amy Lavender Harris, author of the acclaimed Imagining Toronto. I have Amy to thank for bringing this novel to my attention.

Access: Published in April 1986 – and never again – it's held only by Library and Archives Canada. There are plenty of used copies available online, ranging in price from 1¢ to US$44.60. Pay no more than one dollar.

The only translation of which I'm aware is Um homem inatingível [An Unattainable Man], published in 1986 by Brazil's Editora Nova Cultural.

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