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This HaBO is from Lori, who wants to find this romance:
I read this book in the late 70s or 80s and I’m thinking it was a Harlequin.
A man is on the run (maybe from the FBI) and he kidnaps a woman who suffers from ulcers. Milk toast is the only thing that settles her stomach.
He escapes with the woman by rafting through the Grand Canyon, where she has a change of heart.
These are quite the specific details!
Willing Hostage
by
Marlys Millhiser
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hahaha this plot sounds like it was created via MadLibs!
unfortunately, milk toast is probably not the best food for gastric ulcers. that’s how you know this is old-school.
I don’t even know what milk toast is, so I’m fascinated here especially as a Grand Canyon river rafting experience doesn’t seem like it will help with the ulcers either. 🙂
Marlys Millihiser’s “Willing Hostage” (1977) has a woman with ulcers kidnapped by a fugitive. I don’t remember rafting thru the Grand Canyon, however, but then it’s been a really long time since I read it.
I’m often surprised at how a plot description that sounds entirely, uniquely bananapants, conjures up about fifty-eight books that could fit the bill.
This one, though. Surely there can only be one book featuring a gastrically-distressed kidnappee being strong-armed through North America’s geological landmarks (now expecting a slew of books called things like ‘Milk-toast Canyon Blues’ or ‘Night of the Antacids’.
@Bennett has to be correct–I found the Kindle of “Willing Hostage” and within the first two pages of the sample read, the heroine is chugging Maalox from a bottle she pulls out of her bag. And it says she’s in Colorado (and the copy mentions the guy running from the FBI) so not exactly Grand Canyon but they could end up there or there are plenty of raging rivers in CO too. I totally can’t tell though if it’s supposed to be a suspense that ends in romance (via Stockholm Syndrome–see title) or what just suspense or what…considering I’m the same age as the book who knows.
Seeing the title of this post, I thought that there might be a character who was a milquetoast. That made me curious as to the origin of the term and I learned that “the character Caspar Milquetoast of the comic strip The Timid Soul, created by American cartoonist Harold Tucker Webster (1885–1952) and first published in 1924; the character was named after the American dish milk toast (“a food consisting of toasted bread in warm milk”).”
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/milquetoast
I also immediately thought of Willing Hostage.
I don’t know why I hadn’t worked out that milktoast is toast actually soaked in milk. If that was all I could eat, I would be so sad because the mere idea of soggy bread makes me gip.
I learned about milk toast as a kid, when I read some book where the heroine had to make milk toast (maybe in home ec class?). I asked my mom what it was and younger me was SO DISGUSTED to learn that soaking toast in milk was a thing that people did in the past. Plus, how hard could it be to make? Why did they have to make it in class?
Toast bread. Butter it. Sprinkle on sugar. Pour warm milk over the whole thing. My mom used to make it when I didn’t feel well. Pure comfort food.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen it mentioned in a romance novel.
Now I am imagining the kidnapper MC trying to kidnap someone while visiting every National Park in a year, like those folks on the internet…
@Susan T, that description gives a whole different vibe! Sounds like it would taste a bit like warm bread pudding. Yum
Thank you! “Willing Hostage” is it!