Rachel Lindsay (1)

I remember reading years ago. On this reread after receiving it in a box of books from ebay, I liked it well enough. She is his secretary who has always loved him. He falls in love with a gold digger and right before the wedding, falls and becomes wheelchair bound at which point the gold digger leaves him. When it is discovered he only has 2 years to live, the gold digger comes back and wants to marry him so she can be a rich widow. Even though he still loves her, the hero resists the gold digger, not being a total fool, just most of one. He marries the heroine to keep the gold digger at bay. Eventually love ensues.

There is not a whole lot of indication of the hero falling in love with the heroine until he explains his actions in the last scene. But there is plenty of angst on the part of the heroine. Still I did enjoy it this second time around. Different enough to be interesting.… (more)

Quite the strange little book. I bought this for the cover. I love the covers from the 70s. Here are some different elements.

Hero - Short. She is 5'7" and barely has to look up at him. In heels they are eye level. So 5'9" or 10". And he has bad eye sight and glasses so thick she can't seen his eyes behind them. And his name is Alvin. So hot, NOT. Still it doesn't matter much because he's hardly in the book at all. I can't imagine how she could have fallen in love with him considering she never saw him.

Heroine, Carolyn, was also odd. She mostly stood up for herself although there were instances concerning the care ofthe boy, Piotr, where she totally was a sightless trusting ninny. Also there was an evil other woman. What did she do that was so evil? She had the effrontery to be the hero's mistress before the heroine even arrived on the scene and for a short while after. She never said even 'boo' to the heroine and yet Carolyn continually reviled her to everyone, calling her a slut and a cheap tart and a manipulative bitch etc. And I'm thinking exactly who is the nasty one here? The heroine continually said Hell. Like "Hell, let's get it over with." Pretty racy for 1969. And seriously even now when books are full of cursing, that one doesn't seem to be used much.

The boys Grandmother was so nasty at first that even such a veteran HP reader as I was taken aback. Did she really say that?

Most of the story concerned Carolyn's relationship with the boy's family and she spent way more time with the "other man" than she did with the hero.

Mostly this was interesting in a "time capsule" way but it didn't stink and held my interest - so 3 stars.… (more)