Oooh boy, a new Betts! This one features an English doctor, for a change. Better still, it features my favorite plot - the ungrateful family plot. In this case, poor Araminta works through an agency, earning bits of money to help support her extravagant father and her anemic sister Alice. Alice lounges around all day, because she's anemic. Araminta needs a new pair of shoes, while Alice gets a new dressing gown as a treat. Over-the-top, I know! But that's the fun of this plot.
Anyway, Araminta winds up getting a last-minute job through her agency: taking care of a ten-year-old and a thirteen-year-old, the nephew and niece of Jason Lister, a doctor. She fetches them from their home, because their mother has to go to Chile to see their sick father, and takes them to Jason's house. She'll take care of them during their half-term holiday, though so far they are spoiled brats.
Araminta isn't much to look at, but Jason is, of course. Betts heroes always are. I'd forgotten that Bachelor's Wedding is the book (one of several, I think), where the hero has a rare moment of leisure. Typically, he chooses to spend it "with the poems of Horace - in the original Latin, of course." (p. 9)
We don't get a very detailed description of Jason's house; it's quite large, though, with at least four good-sized bedrooms. He also has a cook, whose husband works for the doctor as well.
Showing posts with label ungrateful family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ungrateful family. Show all posts
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Friday, August 24, 2007
Always and Forever, chapter 1
I'm looking forward to this book! All Else Confusion made me cranky, so this will be a nice change. I have a "larger print" version of this book - it's not a trade paperback, as older large-print Bettses are, but a mass market paperback with slightly larger type. Most of the people I know who like Bettses (aside from me, I mean) are over 60, so I shouldn't be surprised by the larger print.
Amabel, our heroine, runs a B&B with her mother, who is visiting Amabel's sister in Canada. Amabel isn't happy about being left at home alone, but puts a brave face on it. She's a jolie laide - "with a face which, while not pretty, was redeemed by fine brown eyes" and long, pale brown hair (p. 5). She has a dog, Cyril, and a cat named Oscar.
One day, during a storm, Dr. Oliver Fforde and his mother knock on the door, asking to stay because the weather's awful for driving. He drives a Rolls Royce, by the way, which is a nice change from Bentleys. Of course Amabel is a good cook and a good host, and it's not surprising that Oliver and Amabel get along well. In the days that follow the Ffordes' departure, Amabel proves to be a capable B&B manager. Oliver stops by one day to see how she's doing, and takes her out to lunch.
At the end of the chapter, Amabel receives a letter from her mother, explaining the delay in her return from Canada: she has met a market gardener, and after they marry they will convert the B&B into a working garden, so Amabel should feel free (that's a strong hint, there!) to go find a career. Amabel assesses her skills (p. 30: "She could cook - not quite cordon bleu, perhaps, but to a high standard - she could housekeep, change plugs, cope with basic plumbing. She could tend a garden... Her pen faltered. There was nothing else."). Of course she has A levels, but she decides that working as a waitress, or for the National Trust (as a house guide, or in a teashop) would be a better fit.
I was delighted by her mother's letter, because I didn't know how to categorize this book before I read it. Her mother's cool assumption that Amabel will keep the B&B running until her mother's return several months hence, and the strong hint that she won't be wanted after that, make this book an ungrateful family title. Yippee!
Amabel, our heroine, runs a B&B with her mother, who is visiting Amabel's sister in Canada. Amabel isn't happy about being left at home alone, but puts a brave face on it. She's a jolie laide - "with a face which, while not pretty, was redeemed by fine brown eyes" and long, pale brown hair (p. 5). She has a dog, Cyril, and a cat named Oscar.
One day, during a storm, Dr. Oliver Fforde and his mother knock on the door, asking to stay because the weather's awful for driving. He drives a Rolls Royce, by the way, which is a nice change from Bentleys. Of course Amabel is a good cook and a good host, and it's not surprising that Oliver and Amabel get along well. In the days that follow the Ffordes' departure, Amabel proves to be a capable B&B manager. Oliver stops by one day to see how she's doing, and takes her out to lunch.
At the end of the chapter, Amabel receives a letter from her mother, explaining the delay in her return from Canada: she has met a market gardener, and after they marry they will convert the B&B into a working garden, so Amabel should feel free (that's a strong hint, there!) to go find a career. Amabel assesses her skills (p. 30: "She could cook - not quite cordon bleu, perhaps, but to a high standard - she could housekeep, change plugs, cope with basic plumbing. She could tend a garden... Her pen faltered. There was nothing else."). Of course she has A levels, but she decides that working as a waitress, or for the National Trust (as a house guide, or in a teashop) would be a better fit.
I was delighted by her mother's letter, because I didn't know how to categorize this book before I read it. Her mother's cool assumption that Amabel will keep the B&B running until her mother's return several months hence, and the strong hint that she won't be wanted after that, make this book an ungrateful family title. Yippee!
Thursday, August 23, 2007
plots
So. I've just finished blogging about the first Betts on my list, so now it's time for me to work out names for the various plots. All Else Confusion is certainly the basic marriage of convenience. There's the slight twist that Jake doesn't realize he's in love with Annis straight away, and Annis has at least a chance of happiness with Matt, but that's it. The marriage of convenience nearly always has at least one of them in love from the get-go, it always features a shopping spree (though there's one book, which I might be misremembering, in which the hero pretends he's poor. It sounds so unlikely for a Betts that I'll assume I'm wrong for the moment).
There's also the helpless woman plot, in which the hero finds the heroine a series of jobs - or, occasionally, she finds them herself - and despite living almost hand-to-mouth, she spends most of her surplus income on jersey dresses and two-piece outfits. That comes in handy when the hero falls in love with her, of course, but it's hardly a sound financial strategy. Of course, because she's of good family, she rarely takes a job as a maid - though that does happen. And she never goes off to get training, or live on the dole for a while until she is trained for a career. Or go to university - Betts heroines are never, ever university girls. Occasionally, the heroine has her own business - I'm reminded of a Betts heroine who owns a teashop and never makes any money, which makes her a suitable candidate for rescue by the hero.
Sometimes the helpless woman plot is combined with the marriage of convenience, or with the fabulously over-the-top ungrateful family (exemplified in the book where her selfish sister doses some babies with sleeping pills so she can go to a fashion show, if memory serves me correctly). The ungrateful family plot is where one is most likely to find a Betts heroine doing work that's "below her station", such as cleaning houses, because she works and works just so her family can buy chocolates. Extravagantly. More rarely, the Betts heroine is the older sister and caretaker of her siblings.
The inappropriate fiancee plot is a favorite as well. The heroines rarely have interesting fiancees (they tend to be dull but worthy), but the hero's fiancee is nearly always thin, attractively dressed, selfish and mean. They make for interesting reading - I'm speaking on the Betts scale of interesting, of course. Funnily enough, the Betts heroines can be just as catty as the mean fiancees when provoked, but the hero always realizes the sterling worth of the heroine and persuades the fiancee to break the engagement. Often, she finds solace in the arms of an American - rich Americans, or overly friendly ones, are the only people from the States who ever show up in the books.
The medical plot can be combined with the inappropriate fiancee plot or the ungrateful family plot (as in the example with the sleeping pills above), but basically it's your doctor-nurse cliche. They work in the same medical setting, and through a series of dramatic events they realize they're right for each other,
There's also the helpless woman plot, in which the hero finds the heroine a series of jobs - or, occasionally, she finds them herself - and despite living almost hand-to-mouth, she spends most of her surplus income on jersey dresses and two-piece outfits. That comes in handy when the hero falls in love with her, of course, but it's hardly a sound financial strategy. Of course, because she's of good family, she rarely takes a job as a maid - though that does happen. And she never goes off to get training, or live on the dole for a while until she is trained for a career. Or go to university - Betts heroines are never, ever university girls. Occasionally, the heroine has her own business - I'm reminded of a Betts heroine who owns a teashop and never makes any money, which makes her a suitable candidate for rescue by the hero.
Sometimes the helpless woman plot is combined with the marriage of convenience, or with the fabulously over-the-top ungrateful family (exemplified in the book where her selfish sister doses some babies with sleeping pills so she can go to a fashion show, if memory serves me correctly). The ungrateful family plot is where one is most likely to find a Betts heroine doing work that's "below her station", such as cleaning houses, because she works and works just so her family can buy chocolates. Extravagantly. More rarely, the Betts heroine is the older sister and caretaker of her siblings.
The inappropriate fiancee plot is a favorite as well. The heroines rarely have interesting fiancees (they tend to be dull but worthy), but the hero's fiancee is nearly always thin, attractively dressed, selfish and mean. They make for interesting reading - I'm speaking on the Betts scale of interesting, of course. Funnily enough, the Betts heroines can be just as catty as the mean fiancees when provoked, but the hero always realizes the sterling worth of the heroine and persuades the fiancee to break the engagement. Often, she finds solace in the arms of an American - rich Americans, or overly friendly ones, are the only people from the States who ever show up in the books.
The medical plot can be combined with the inappropriate fiancee plot or the ungrateful family plot (as in the example with the sleeping pills above), but basically it's your doctor-nurse cliche. They work in the same medical setting, and through a series of dramatic events they realize they're right for each other,
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