Harlequin Presents #8: The Sanchez Tradition by Anne Mather
I’m having trouble making this cover illustration out — are those scenes of local color in the heroine’s hair? Quite beautiful otherwise, though. I don’t know if it always looked so delicate and romantically faded, but like the book itself, it’s worn pretty well.
Most Memorable Line:
“There was a refrigerated cabinet for drinks, hi-fi equipment, and a portable Japanese television set.”
The world depicted in Harlequin Presents usually bears no resemblance to any I ever knew, but this actually brought up a sense of zeitgeist. 🙂
I was a little surprised that the recent digitizing of Anne Mather’s backlist went this far back… but aside from a touch of casual racism, and Andre yanking Rachel by her hair, (!) this hasn’t aged badly at all. Its primary difference from more recent HPs is the closed bedroom door, the large cast of characters, and the heroine’s constanting smoking. (Don’t worry, she cuts back when pregnant!)
The romance is one of those tumultuous relationships in which the hero is controlling and the heroine is childish, and they never really work out their problems, but there’s a sense of underlying passion that keeps it interesting.
I’ve had such difficulty with 21st Century Mather that I have yet to venture into retro reading her. I have my original copy (not first edition) of Leopard in the Snow. I wonder if that has aged well.
What I can’t stand is when she writes Old Skool plots that are totally ridiculous in today’s world, i.e. one that includes paternity tests.
Yes! She wrote one earlier this year whose premise was kinda cool actually (ghost of dead wife haunts the hero) but the execution was painfully awful. I suspect that some of the books are manuscripts that were rejected in the 70s/80s that they are revamping. My thought is that if it didn’t get published during the more exacting editorial days of the 20thC then just put it away!
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