HaBO: Fudge

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by SB Sarah | by SB Sarah | August 12, 2010 | Thursday at 5:59 pm | 41 Comments

Katy writes:

I read it in about 1988. It was most likely a Harlequin or Harlequin
Presents because that is what my local library stocked.

Scant details. A young woman is pregnant, the older brother of the
“boyfriend” takes responsibility and marries the young lady. Older brother
is a wealthy executive/entrepreneur, something like that. She knows that he
doesn’t love her, but knows that she is better off being married than not,
when she is expecting a baby.

The scene which stuck with me is that she has a craving for fudge one night.
He goes off and returns with fresh fudge. In the morning she thanks the
housekeeper who informs her that her husband made the fudge and dirtied
every pot in the kitchen. She begins referring to her fetus as Fudge.

When she miscarries, she checks herself out of the hospital and disappears.
Husband finally tracks her down and you can guess the rest.

I’ve looked for lists of books from 1988 or 1987, and had no luck so far.
If anyone remembers this book/title/author, I’d be grateful.

Ok, I’m so sure someone will know this one, but, um, this gave me a major case of the squicks. “Fudge?”

Filed: General Bitching, Help a Bitch Out

Tagged: presents, help a bitch out, harlequin, habo, books

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willaful said on 08.12.10 at 06:57 PM • [link]

Aw, I think it sounds adorable. I wanna know what it is.
Natasha R said on 08.12.10 at 07:06 PM • [link]

I wanna know what it is too. You had me at “housekeeper who informs her that her husband made the fudge and dirtied
every pot in the kitchen” :D
Jim said on 08.12.10 at 07:56 PM • [link]

Actually, I can’t guess the rest. What happens?
Anony Miss said on 08.12.10 at 08:21 PM • [link]

Is this the prequel to “Superfudge”? Cause, whoop, there went my whole childhood, right there.
Vi said on 08.12.10 at 08:25 PM • [link]

I want to read this one too. I think “Fudge” is a cute nickname.
Ros said on 08.12.10 at 08:43 PM • [link]

What’s squicky about fudge? Am I missing some transatlantic connotations?
Tara said on 08.12.10 at 08:44 PM • [link]

It couldn’t possibly be “Promise Me Tomorrow” by Leigh Michaels, could it?
Carin said on 08.12.10 at 08:51 PM • [link]

“What’s squicky about fudge?” Didn’t you ever say this childhood rhyme? (it was hilarious when I was 5)

Milk, milk, lemonade,
This is where the fudge is made!

(I’ll let you guess the body parts you point to for each food/drink word.)
Jennifer said on 08.12.10 at 08:57 PM • [link]

Have you tried the database search at http://www.vintageromances.com/

You scroll down, and on the bottom rightside part of the page, you enter in what you can of the categories you do know and it will match them. It has all the harlequin romance and presents titles. You’d need to figure out the number range of books from the late 80s in order for it to be the most helpful.

I successfully found a few books I read back then using this site. It also has the benefit of being hilarious!
Kristin said on 08.12.10 at 09:32 PM • [link]

OMGosh, I had never heard that rhyme. I MUST banish it from my mind. I love fudge too much to think about it that way.
CourtneyLee said on 08.12.10 at 09:44 PM • [link]

I think this book sounds adorable, too. I’m all for unconventional declarations of affection. Midnight fudgemaking in a supposed marraige of convenience definitely counts.

(and that rhyme kind of traumatized me, so thanks, Carin. lol)
Madd said on 08.12.10 at 10:15 PM • [link]

Promise Me Tomorrow has to be it.
FD said on 08.12.10 at 11:14 PM • [link]

I was sat metaphorically scritching my head as well.
I’d never heard that rhyme before, and I’m not sure I wanted to either.

Sounds like a cute book.
Rebecca said on 08.12.10 at 11:19 PM • [link]

I agree the making fudge is cute, and I could see naming the fetus Fudge (lots of fetuses end up with weird pre-names). But the leaving every pot in the kitchen dirty for someone else to clean up…ewww. If this is to prove that he’s really a sweet guy capable of stepping outside of gender roles, why can’t he clean up his own mess? If you’re competent enough to make edible fudge at 3 am, you’re smart enough to scrub the dishes afterward. The blithe “oh, the servants will take care of that” bugs me. To paraphrase Soujourner Truth, “ain’t the housekeeper a woman?” Is the housekeeper less of a woman than the heroine because she’s not young and beautiful? Or because she WORKS for a living as opposed to marrying a rich guy she doesn’t love so he can take care of her? Major squick there, for me. (Also minor squick that the hero marries his brother’s ex-girlfriend. That’s a bit weird.) And unless this is a historical, I don’t see how “oh noes, I must be married and have a man to care for me and my baby [or I could end up like the housekeeper cleaning out other people’s fudge pots]” works. Not in the late 1980s, at least in the US.

Spamword: Thinking84: As in “I was thinking that in 1984 single parenthood was already pretty normal.”
Marianne McA said on 08.13.10 at 12:17 AM • [link]

@Jennifer - that’s a useful site. I’d compltely forgotten about Amanda Carpenter until I saw her listed there. She was good: I wonder what happened to her…
ashley said on 08.13.10 at 12:39 AM • [link]

omg carin trhat’s gross lol so something that a bunch of wierd little gradeschoolers would sing
Bridget said on 08.13.10 at 01:07 AM • [link]

The Amazon description for Promise Me Tomorrow doesn’t sound too promising:

Five years before, Reid Cavanaugh had rescued Cassidy from a bad situation—and made it worse. So rising reporter Cassidy Adams doesn’t want to go after the tycoon’s story and once more enter his life. But the choice isn’t up to her.

Unless there is a big gap between when she miscarries and when he finds her? I hope someone can tell us, I’m curious now!
Tara said on 08.13.10 at 01:12 AM • [link]

I know it doesn’t, but go to the Google Books page for Promise Me Tomorrow (it’s at http://books.google.com/books?id=hub4NQKp1OwC ) and search for “dried fudge”.

I’ve never read the book—I found it using Google Fu this morning when I needed a mental exercise break from work—but snippet searches seem to indicate a match.

If it’s not, then there are two romances with dried fudge plot points, which is AWESOME.
sweetsiouxsie said on 08.13.10 at 01:14 AM • [link]

I heard that little poem from another kid at school. I was about 9 at the time. My mother always told us that we were such sweet, innocent little kids until we started associating with other kids in school. LOL ;oP
I have no idea about the Fudge book. I am still waiting for someone to identify that book with the pot roast in it. Now that would be worth reading! :D
Brianna said on 08.13.10 at 02:15 AM • [link]

I remember hearing that poem when I was in Infants School (kindergarten to year 2), but ours was slightly different and had a few more lines…

Milk, Milk,
Lemonade,
‘Round the corner, Chocolate’s made.
If it’s sticky,
Pull the dicky,
Out will come a chocolate bicky!

NB: bicky = biscuit in the Australian sense, ie cookie.
TaraL said on 08.13.10 at 03:10 AM • [link]

I know it doesn’t, but go to the Google Books page for Promise Me Tomorrow (it’s at http://books.google.com/books?id=hub4NQKp1OwC ) and search for “dried fudge”.

If you just search on “fudge” it sounds even more like the book she describes. If you search on “hospital” you get a bit about her losing the baby. We may have a winnah…
Bridget said on 08.13.10 at 04:10 AM • [link]

Does the original boyfriend die and that’s why his brother marries the heroine? Because snippet searches seem to indicate that that is what happens.
Susan said on 08.13.10 at 05:07 AM • [link]

Does this sound sort of biblical to anybody? As in, Old Testament requirement for man to marry his brother’s widow? Of course, another part of the OT forbids it…not that I’m a biblical scholar.

Just goes to show, it’s hard to come up with a really new plot.
Kilian Metcalf said on 08.13.10 at 06:31 AM • [link]

Karin wrote:

Milk, milk, lemonade,
This is where the fudge is made!

In early 1950’s I learned the third line as

“Around the corner, fudge is made.”

Interesting that children as young as three could grasp the meaning of the passive voice. We pick up language quickly, don’t we?

days38 - it would take me longer than 38 days, maybe 38 months, to begin to understand the passive voice in another language.
Jules said on 08.13.10 at 07:02 AM • [link]

My great-grandfather married his brother’s widow…and thus my grandmother was born, both cousin and sister to her older siblings. It was considered customary. They were Cuban.
Danielle Smith said on 08.13.10 at 08:01 AM • [link]

Wow! That’s a wonderful story and nobody knows what happen next.
Diane/Anonym2857 said on 08.13.10 at 08:23 AM • [link]

Hmn… I vaguely remember a book like that… possibly the Michaels book (haven’t read it in forever). I want to say it started a trend where every kid was nicknamed after the cravings she had while carrying them. Had another child named Muffin, for example.

Hmn. I’m looking forward to confirmation on this title. I want to dig it up and find out.

Diane :o)
Ros said on 08.13.10 at 09:09 AM • [link]

Okay, now I am officially squicked. Thanks, everyone. And no, I’ve never heard any of the variants of that rhyme before.
AgTigress said on 08.13.10 at 12:42 PM • [link]

I am horrified by all those ghastly little rhymes featuring fudge. I am happy to say that I had never heard any of them—but then, sweets were practically unobtainable when I was a small child, and anyway, I didn’t speak English at the time.

I don’t see why anyone needs to dirty a lot of pots and pans while making fudge: ONE pan, one wooden spoon, a sugar-thermometer if you must, and a jug to measure the milk, if you are not confident enough to guess it. Oh, and a knife if you need to cut the necessary amount of butter off the half-pound / 250 g. block. The pan(s) you put the fudge in to set won’t need washing till the fudge has been eaten. Admittedly, that might not be very long. But in any case, it comes to fewer utensils than you need for making a cake, for example.

I think I’ll go and make some vanilla fudge now.
Sally said on 08.13.10 at 02:07 PM • [link]

I think Tara has got it! I’ve never read Promise Me Tomorrow before, but I do have a copy, and after doing some super-awesome skimming, the info looks about right.

The details mentioned all happened in the past. The heroine and the hero’s brother were living together and were engaged despite his mother’s opposition. Then he died in a motorcycle accident. Heroine then found out she was pregnant. Hero wanted the baby and married her. *cue the fudge scene*

I probably missed the hospital and disappearing part, but the heroine did indeed miscarried. Then four years later is where the books starts.

Fudge is even mentioned in the back cover: “Cassidy Adams, rising reporter, didn’t intend to let her heart rule her head again. All she had to do was try not to think of little Fudge….”

P.S. Thanks Jennifer for sharing the vintage romance site!
Darlene Marshall said on 08.13.10 at 02:33 PM • [link]

@Jim—Best comment yet in this HaBO thread. Thanks for making me laugh out loud.
BH said on 08.13.10 at 03:31 PM • [link]

Gross on the rhyme.
Leigh Michaels said on 08.13.10 at 03:55 PM • [link]

Yes, the book is Promise Me Tomorrow, I wrote it, and it’s now available as an ebook and on Kindle (there’s a link on my website, and you can read the first chapter there as well).

Good point about cleaning up the pans—if I was writing it today, he’d do the dishes—but he was anxious to get her what she was craving.

Leigh Michaels
http://www.leighmichaels.com
watch for new historicals coming in 2011!
Tara said on 08.13.10 at 03:58 PM • [link]

Woot! Three cheers for Google’s fake proximity search!

Tara
Heller said on 08.13.10 at 06:50 PM • [link]

Jennifer, I love you for posting the Vintage Romance site. I know I’m going to spend a lot of time there.

Promise Me Tomorrow sounds good. I’m definitely going to check it out. Leigh Michaels thanks for the heads up on its ebook availability.
BlueBow said on 08.13.10 at 09:03 PM • [link]

I have to comment to add that there’s something I enjoy about the original cover for the book (Seen here: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/m/leigh-michaels/promise-me-tomorrow.htm )

I think it might be that something about the Hero’s face makes me think he’d talk like a mob boss from some cheesy old movie.
JoAnn said on 08.14.10 at 07:52 AM • [link]

While my practical mom self is agreeing that any pots and pans could have been cleaned while the fudge was cooling, my heart is saying he made fudge in the wee hours of the morning. It is just wrong to get all nit-picky about this kind of wonderfulness.

Also, as I recall the early 80’s in this corner of the U.S., yes, people did have babies “out-of-wedlock,” but it was not what I would call “normal.” “Grudgingly accepted” might be a better description.
Katy said on 08.14.10 at 05:09 PM • [link]

You ladies are great!

Promise me Tomorrow it is. Thank you for solving this puzzle for me. It’s on my next used book order, unless I get some kind of e-reader first.
BlueBow said on 08.15.10 at 11:28 PM • [link]

Just ordered a copy for myself off Amazon. <3 I’m pretty excited about it.
Liviania said on 08.16.10 at 06:19 AM • [link]

@AgTigress: I assumed he messed up all the pans because he had no clue what he was doing. As you pointed out, fudge is super-easy.

@Rebecca: Most people use ‘housekeeper’ nowadays to mean ‘maid.’ He didn’t clean the dishes because he pays her to clean them. There’s a huge difference between assuming the woman will clean the dishes and paying her to clean them.
Rebecca said on 08.16.10 at 08:29 PM • [link]

@Livainia

I understand the romantic impulse. But whether the maid/housekeeper is a man or a woman presumably the paid employee has a routine, and unless her employer cooks regularly, an extra half hour cleaning a bunch of dirty dishes is not part of it. Forgive me for being super-sensitized to this, but I’m coming from a background as a teacher. I have had students react with indignation when I tell them to pick up a piece of paper (or candy wrapper, or other garbage) and put it in the trash because “Miss, that’s the custodian’s job.” I ask them if they throw trash on the floor in their houses, and they say “but Miss, he’s PAID to clean it.” They’ve even told me that I shouldn’t pick up garbage because “that’s not your job, Miss.” I am always stunned that people raise their children with this lack of basic courtesy. If I read this, I’d worry about little Fudge the Fetus (or its successor, since the poor woman miscarries) being raised as a rich spoiled brat. (Then again, my fantasies have never involved a guy with lots of money. This could be why.)