Judith (Best of Betty Neels) (ISBN 0373198698)

Another wonderful story by Neels:
I am a steadfast Neels fan and own ALL of her books, even the anthologies. This is one of my favorites which I've read many time, and my heart still aches at certain places, as well as, soars with glee in other places. I love how Judith and her eminent writer dislike each other at the start, but his mother, who is not well, recognizes that they would be good for each other and sets the stage for their ultimate happy ending. Their journey towards discovering how much they care for one another is a fun read peppered with Neels' style of tender care for an ailing person, hero/heroine's pride and stubbornness clashing, misunderstandings, and ultimately, the realization of love.

Two stubborn people:
Back Cover description: After the hurly-burly of the big London hospital where she had been working, Judith found it a very pleasant change to be offered a private job looking after a charming patient, Lady Cresswell, in the Lake District. Her patient gave her no trouble at all-which was more than could be said for her son, the disagreeable Professor Charles Cresswell. He seemed to have taken a dislike to Judith on sight-a dislike which, it must be confessed, Judith returned with interest. And now he was turning up to spoil their pleasant holiday in Portugal as well! Fine Betty Neels story. In this one, Judith is attractive and has a family. Charles in not a doctor, but a professor. He does have money though. Ms. Neels' stories always have that edge to them--someone is sick or dying. It gives her plots that extra dimension, an edge, that make them so readable. She might be writing a fairy tale that has a happy ending, but reality is always there.

Mental Indigestion:
This fifth book I have read by Betty Neels sets a record for the number of Harlequin romances I have read in a row. Even though I have read them over a week long period, I've got the same feeling I get when I eat too much angelfood cake-- stuffed but not satisfied. This is one of those I-feel-mental-unrest-around-you-and-because-you-are-rude-it-must-be-dislike books. Of course it's not dislike, it's lust-- however don't expect any Betty Neels heroine worth her salt to think about sex. And the only source of plot conflict she has used in any of the five books is the Big Misunderstanding. Of course it is usually something that could be cleared up in a few minutes of conversation. This one also includes a disease of the week. One of the ways Neels brings her heroine and hero back together after one of their spats is by having the hero's mother develops leukemia and be admitted to the same hospital where Judith Golightly works. What a coincidence! She also almost immediately goes into spontaneous remission after leaving the hospital then has a relapse when it's most convenience for the plot. Although the book was published in 1980, the patient is wealthy, and bone marrow transplants as a treatment for leukemia were being done the mid 70's (so it was a radical but not untested idea) no one even mentions the possibility. Instead the patient, with hero and heroine in tow, leaves the hospital and goes to Protugal. (I would like to know if the author wrote her vacations to foreign climes off on her taxes as reseach.) Germaine Greer in her early feminist work The Female Eunuch, decries the existence of books like those published by Harlequin Romance (Mills & Boon in UK). She argued that the kiss in such books was a chaste appearing substitute for an orgasm and that the young women who read these books were being prepared for seducers (someone who could talk the romantic talk) not lovers. Love does not come neatly packaged in 188 pages in real life. I think that Ms. Greer was giving the books too much credit and the young women of Britain too little. The only possible reason that I can think of for reading essentially the same story over and over is a need for the emotions elicited. Anyone with any sense is not going to live on a steady intellectual diet of these type of books.