This HaBO request is from KB, who is looking for a category romance set in Australia that she read long ago:
First of all thank you so much for this web site. I follow a few other blogs about romance books and books in general, but somehow at Smart Bitches, I feel like I’m home.
So. I am looking for help identifying a book. It was one of the first romances that I ever read and may not have even been particularly good. But I feel like reading it again will bring me comfort. It will be like the macaroni and cheese of books.
I can remember very few details about the book so I wonder if it is any good for a HaBO, but here goes–it is a category romance, most likely Harlequin Presents because that was (and still is) my jam. I would have read it sometime in the late 80’s/early 90’s but it would have come from the library so it could have been published well before that.
As a side note, the town where I grew up had the most amazing library building which was originally donated to the town by Andrew Carnegie. It was this beautiful, ornate old building with high ceilings and huge w indows. A wonderful place to discover books. The romance novels, however, were relegated to the upstairs stacks, which for some very strange reason had a floor that was made out of glass. And the lights were never on.
ANYWAY sorry for the digression. So this book was one of a number of romances that I read with heroes who lived on huge farms (cattle? sheep? who knows?) in the Australian outback. In this particular book, the heroine lives in Brisbane and somehow ends up going to nanny for the hero on his ginormous farm that is near Darwin (maybe).
She is of course the Best. Nanny. Ever. and falls in love with the hero despite being specifically warned not to do this because he has been hurt and will never love again, etc. etc. (in my head it is like the Australian Sound of Music). Eventually the curmudgeon-ly hero figures out that he loves her, and some/all of the love realization takes place while they are on a boat somewhere. I remember she gets sunburned.
The only real detail I remember is that at the end they are in bed after sexytimes and he tells her to call her family (?) in Brisbane and she says oh no, that will cost the earth! And he says “Relax, we have a little bit of earth to play around with” because he is all suave and super rich and all that. I’d be so happy if you could help me figure out the name of this book. Thank you so much!!
First, thank you for the compliment, KB – that makes me grin like you have no idea. I’m so glad you feel at home here.
Second, am I alone in writing metaphor-filled bad sex scenes in my mind about playing with a little earth? Yeah? Ok.
So, do you recognize this book?
It sounds like several Margaret Way books, but I can’t remember if she ever wrote for Presents. Another possibility would be Kerry Allyn.
I was going to say to look for Margaret Way and Kerry Allyn, too — but maybe also Victoria Gordon (who has republished a LOT of her category romances with new, truly terrible covers, so you might not recognize it just by looking at them).
I’ll third Kerry Allyne or Margaret Way.
On a related note, Kerry Allyne has released her backlist in e format. I’ve only found it at Amazon, but I couldn’t resist my fave, Summer Rainfall.
Something by Emma Darcy, maybe?
Emma Darcy wrote a ton of Australian Outback books for Harlequin.
Thanks you guys! I had thought of Margaret Way because I did read some of her books as a younger teen–I would have been around 15ish when I read this one. But I couldn’t find one that seemed quite right. I thought I remembered the HP “circle” on the front cover with a girl with long straight blonde hair. But, it’s entirely possible that I could be remembering that wrong. Kerry Allyne seems like another great possibility. I did not know Emma Darcy wrote Australian Outback books–I thought she was like secret-baby-office-mistress kind of thing, but I will check those out as well. During my search I did discover another one of my favorite old-school Margaret Way books, Temple of Fire, and also I discovered that Kerry Allyne wrote a book called Tuesday’s Jillaroo, which might be my favorite title for a romance ever.
Oh my gosh Lisa J- Summer Rainfall was one of my favorites too! I think I still have the original paperback after all these years. I must get the e- version and re-read it.
It’s not really a romance but has strong romantic elements, and it’s set in Australia. It’s Alice Springs. I read it when I was in my teens.
Michelle – I know I still have my paper version, too. But, I had to have it in e and I reread it the day I got it.
I couldn’t find many nannies in Australia-set Presents but some possibilities:
Heat Of The Moment by Lindsay Armstrong
Wildfire Encounter by Helen Bianchin
Ring Of Fire by Margaret Way
What about Joyce Dingwell? She wrote a lot of Harlequins set in the Australian Outback and I remember several of them were about nannies or women pretending to be nannies. Sister Pussycat ( I know! ) was one of them, and my cover has a girl with straight ,blonde hair on it. My favorite, Nurse Smith, Cook had an awesome heroine, who lied and said she was a cook in order to be near her nephew. LMAO over her cooking disasters. I got these from my grandmother when I was like, twelve, so not sure how they’ll stand the test of time. I vaguely remember some cringeworthy racisim in some of the books.
I’m afraid that I can’t help with the title, but I have read this book as well! When I was an early teen my grandmother bought a stack of bright blue covered books that were all set in australia or New Zealand. I still remember many of the plot points, including the ones that you remember. Wasn’t there a cook from Asia who always made “delectable” dishes that the heroine couldn’t describe because they were so exotic?
Lucy Walker wrote some wonderful books set in Australia. I suspect they’re too early for this one, but I suppose it’s possible one was re-printed.
I don’t know this one, but it’s put me in mind of the Aussie-outback romances (probably also Harlequin) that I read back in the early- to mid-1980’s. My strongest memories of those books (I read about a dozen of them, as I recall) is a gruff sheep-station-owning hero who ate steak and eggs for pretty much every meal, and couldn’t understand why the heroine might like a little variety. Apart from that? I got nothing. No names, no plot points, nothing. Just the steak. And the eggs.
Just wanted to add that although I have still not found “the” book, this whole discussion has sent me on a really fascinating treasure hunt through Aussie-set Harlequins of the 80’s. I managed to download two older books by Margaret Way, neither of which were the one I’m looking for but both of which contained some seriously cringeworthy material. Angry heroes who went way beyond alpha into just plain ol’ jerk territory, heroines who cry all the time and faint at appropriate intervals, and one that ended without any actual declaration of love on the hero’s part but after being an a-hole for the entire book he thought she looked hot in her wedding dress so it’s all good. And don’t even get me started on the racial overtones, yikes. I wanted to go back and ask my teenage self what the hell she found so romantic about this! But it was all very dramatic which I guess is enticing to a kid growing up in a sleepy small town. It also made for a very interesting Thanksgiving weekend of reading. Whitney I totally think you are right about the exotic food! I am cracking up about the steak and eggs. When I would picture them eating, it always involved a lot of red meat. Jan–I checked out Joyce Dingwell and those are maybe a little bit early to be the one I’m searching for but seriously…Sister Pussycat?!?! That might have replaced Tuesday’s Jillaroo as my new favorite title ever.
Ha, okay put in a list of links to books, but I guess it was thought to be spam. None of these quite fit, but you never know
“The Golden Mask” Robyn Donald
“Temptations Flame Heartfire” Garda Parker
“The Australia Best of the Best” Diana Palmer
“Bauhinia Junction” by Margaret Way
“When You Leave Me” Lindsay Armstrong
“Man from the Kimberleys” Margaret Pargeter
Found a list of all Margaret Way’s books, only one with nanny and cattle ranch (although newer one with exactly that “Promoted: Nanny to Wife”) is “Hunter’s Moon”.
http://www.fictiondb.com/author/margaret-way~hunters-moon~38716~b.htm
Complete list is here:
http://allromancewriters.com/graphicalbooklist.cfm?expand=Yes&authorID=3089&title=yes