Sarah Mayberry’s Wait For Me is the final novella in the three-part Outback Bachelor Ball series, its events concurrent with those in Joan Kilby’s Win Me and Karina Bliss’s Woo Me. The novellas recount the story of three female friends attending a Bachelor and Spinster Ball in the Australian outback. Ellie, Jen, and Beth bonded at boarding school and remained besties through thick and thin. At 28, they all suffer heartache, coming together at Ellie’s cattle station resolved to heal their wounded hearts by having fun at the local B&S ball. Mayberry’s Wait For Me is Beth Walker’s story. Beth is the one least likely to sow oats at the ball. After three years of marriage, she discovered husband Troy was a cheating cad. Beth had left a music therapist’s career, family and friends, to follow his rising rock-star career to Nashville. Travel, groupies, and a scandal-sheet exclusive about her husband’s betrayal later, a diminished, saddened Beth returns to Australia. Jonah Masters, her husband’s opening act and fellow-Aussie, was the one bright spot from her time in the States. She and Jonah shared a sweet, affectionate friendship. Everything ended when Troy’s infidelities made the front page. Months later, as Beth desultorily sips her drink and awaits the B&S’s opening act, she is surprised to see Jonah Masters and the Rowdy Boys on stage. Jonah’s carried a flaming Beth-torch since he met her and cannot pass up the chance to spend time with her.
(more…)
Tag: Outback Setting
MINI-REVIEW: Karina Bliss’s WOO ME
Karina Bliss’s Woo Me is one-third of a unique three-part novella series. Its events occur concurrently with those in Joan Kilby’s Win Me and Sarah Mayberry’s Wait For Me. The novellas recount the story of three friends, “sisters-of-the-heart,” attending a traditional Bachelor and Spinster Ball in the Australian outback. Ellie, Jen, and Beth forged friendships in a girls boarding school, seeing each other through farce and tragedy. Now, at 28, they’re in various stages of heartbreak. They congregate at Ellie’s father’s cattle station and resolve to heal their broken, neglected hearts by romping through the bacchanalian shenanigans at the local Bachelor and Spinster Ball. Bliss’s Woo Me is Jen Tremaine’s story. Jen was dumped by her slick ex-boyfriend, the one who re-fell-in-love with his ex-wife. While drowning heart-sorrows with drinkie-poos, Jen accepts Ellie and Beth’s dare to wear Ellie’s “Clarabelle” cow costume at the B&S ball. With Dave’s betrayal fresh, Jen isn’t looking to mend her heart with a fling. She’s going to support Ellie in her unrequited love pursuit of her father’s wrangler, Rick, and heal her newly-divorced, fragile friend, Beth. One sexy, funny, and loving security guard later, Jen re-assesses her “man-ban”.
(more…)
MINI-REVIEW: Joan Kilby’s WIN ME
Joan Kilby’s novella, Win Me, is one-third of an interesting rom-concept. Its events occur concurrently with those in Karina Bliss’s Woo Me and Sarah Mayberry’s Wait For Me. Together, the three novellas respectively recount the story of three friends attending a traditional Bachelor and Spinster Ball in the Australian outback. Ellie, Jen, and Beth forged their friendship in boarding school. They saw each other through farce and tragedy. Now, at 28, they’re in various stages of heartbreak. They congregate at Ellie’s father’s cattle farm and resolve to heal their broken, neglected hearts by romping through the bacchanalian shenanigans at the local Bachelor and Spinster Ball. These traditional “balls” are debauched and rowdy; ratafia is nowhere in sight and participants trip the light fantastic only between the flaps of a sleeping bag.
(more…)
REVIEW: Marion Lennox’s FROM CHRISTMAS TO FOREVER, Or Through the Tangle to a Happy Ending
Miss Bates wasn’t enamoured of the first Marion Lennox romance she read, Her Royal Baby. There was something treacly to it, a heroine too good to be believed, a hero so honorable under his gruff exterior, he makes Capt. von Trapp look like a debauché. But something happened when she read Lennox’s latest, From Christmas To Forever. The elements that irritated suddenly charmed, the syrup goo-y sweetness moved. And Miss Bates lost her Lennox side-eye. Sometime it takes a while to “get” a writer (and sometimes, one never does … delegating said to the heap of “I tried, but she doesn’t work for me.”): to learn to appreciate her thematic concerns, understand her choice of narrative threads, her particular take on the classic romance narrative of encounter/attraction-repulsion/consummation/disintegration, and reconciliation. Lennox clicked for Miss Bates when she saw Lennox as a contemporary Carla Kelly, a Kelly transplanted to a contemporary Australian-set romance. Like Kelly, we find the officiously caring hero, slightly broken but eager to do good in the world heroine, and thematic concern with service and love making for the happiest couples. (more…)
Miss Bates Reads Romance 