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Title: A Summer Idyll
Harlequin Enterprises
Item Number: 9780373027125
Number: 1
Product Description: A Summer Idyll
Universal Product Code (UPC): 9780373027125
WonderClub Stock Keeping Unit (WSKU): 9780373027125
Rating: 4/5 based on 2 Reviews
Image Location: https://wonderclub.com/images/covers/71/25/9780373027125.jpg
Weight: 0.200 kg (0.44 lbs)
Width: 0.000 cm (0.00 inches)
Heigh : 0.000 cm (0.00 inches)
Depth: 0.000 cm (0.00 inches)
Date Added: August 25, 2020, Added By: Ross
Date Last Edited: August 25, 2020, Edited By: Ross
Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
$99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub (9296 total ratings) |
Tanya Estrada
reviewed A Summer Idyll on January 25, 20154 1/2 stars. Phoebe Cresswell is training as a nurse. She is currently being pursued by Basil, whom we know to be a Handsy Houseman. He takes her to a "swinging" party where she feels distinctly out-of-place; he leaves her and goes with friends to a disco. The man of the house gives her a ride back to the hospital and the advice to dump him.
Phoebe has just made up her mind to continue her training at a different hospital when her Aunt Kate calls her PNO and demands Phoebe come care for her. Although Phoebe doesn't much care for Aunt Kate (said feeling is decidedly mutual), she recognizes it as her opportunity to get away.
It's also her destiny calling. Aunt Kate is an old grouch and makes it clear that Phoebe shouldn't expect to inherit any of her money, but she is very ill. Her doctor visits daily. George Pritchard is tall, blond, handsome and very kind. Phoebe feels very comfortable with him.
Very soon, the end comes for Aunt Kate. George sits with Kate at the end, then makes all the arrangements. After the funeral, the solicitor tells Phoebe that all the money has been left to charity; the house is to be sold and the proceeds distributed likewise. He tells Phoebe she can stay on until then.
George has a different idea. He proposes marriage to Phoebe, telling her that he has known dozens of girls, but never met one that really suited him or his lifestyle. Phoebe, after some deliberation, accepts.
He takes her shopping for clothes, which she desperately needs. They plan a very quiet wedding; touchingly, the entire village shows up. Clearly, the village approves of Phoebe for their doctor.
A few days later, George takes Phoebe to meet his family (he's half Dutch). Among the family and friends are Kaspel, the Evil Cousin (although he seems rather innocuous for the title) and Corrina, a former, wishes-she-still-was girlfriend. They go shopping for more clothes. They attend several parties.
Phoebe and Mrs. Pritchard hit it off instantly. Mrs. Pritchard gives a final, grand party before they go back home. Phoebe wears a apricot silk dropped bodice dress with silver embroidery that George chose. There is quite a lovely moment between them where they look into each other's eyes and George kisses her hand. When Phoebe asks why, he says he'll tell her one day.
They return back home to their busy village lives. Phoebe helps George in his practice and helps Mrs. Thirsk around the house. Days off are spent relaxing in the garden. George and Phoebe give a dinner party for friends and when Mrs. Thirsk gets the flu, cooks dinner herself (understandably, she is a little vexed that George takes her for granted.) everything is wonderful. Until Kasper and Corina show up unexpectedly.
Corina makes no secret of trying to attract George's attention and makes catty comments to Phoebe when George isn't around. Phoebe refuses to kowtow to her and will not let Mrs. Thirsk take her breakfast in bed. After a short while (although it doesn't seem short to Phoebe), Corina and Kasper take themselves off to London. George and Phoebe drive up to London and dine and dance with them at the Savoy. Phoebe enjoys dancing with George, but considers the rest of the evening a waste.
Back at home, George starts to tell Phoebe something while she is up on a ladder cleaning the chandelier. He has his arms around her when the French door opens and there is Corina. She says that she has gotten tired of Casper and is back to stay with George and Phoebe. She spends a few days trying to entice George away from his work, which goes about as well as we would expect. She finally gets him to agree to go to Oxford Cambridge on a Saturday and of course George insists that Phoebe go as well. On their way they get a call that four village children have eaten some poisonous flower seeds.
Of course that puts the kibosh on the outing. George rushes back to the village where he and Phoebe have their hands full for a while. Corina sits in the car and yells for George to pay attention to her. To no avail, of course. At the end of the day, Corina has a massive tantrum, having packed her bags, and declares that she is leaving and will never come back. Good riddance!
George wastes no time. He makes his declaration to Phoebe. It's quite a lovely scene. First, Phoebe blurts out that she wishes George were in love with her. George says that he had began to think they were destined to only be good friends and that he couldn't have kept up there pretense much longer. He says he has been in love with her since they met and that he never said so because she would've turned tail and run away.
Lots of hugging and kissing and references to future children.
This book is just delightful. I love George, probably the sweetest, kindest RDD. Phoebe was actually able to continue nursing after her marriage -yay!! I particularly love the descriptions of village life. It's just the kind of life that I prefer myself, although I can quite see that a young woman accustomed to city life would find it a bit dull.
***********
Reread November 26/27, 2016
How Do I Love George? Let me [re]count the
ways:
". . .his chin came in contact with a huge fist and he slithered to the floor, Aunt Kate’s silver falling and tumbling around him in a silvery shower. The doctor stepped over him and plucked Phoebe from the windowsill she had been clinging to, and held her close. ‘My poor girl—I came as fast as I could, but I had to go round the back and through the kitchen window. Has he hurt you?’"
"She began to cry in earnest. ‘Oh, George, suppose you hadn’t come…’ ‘But I did come,’ he said in a comforting voice, ‘and I shall always come when you want me, Phoebe—don’t forget that.’ He bent and kissed her gently."
"‘Get all you want and I’ll come in and pay when you’re ready. At least three of everything,’ he told her gravely with twinkling eyes, ‘and no cheeseparing!’"
"The doctor walked back to his own house, his shoulders shaking with laughter. He had enjoyed his afternoon, he felt sure he was going to enjoy the rest of his life. Patience would be required, of course, but he had plenty of that."
He loves Phoebe just as she is. "‘Your hair is exactly right,’ he told her, ‘and it suits you. Have it washed and so on if you like, but don’t dare have it curled and waved.’"
". . .he had stopped to look at a silvery-grey dress, cast negligently over a gilt chair in a boutique window. ‘Now that,’ he had told her, ‘is just made for you. Let’s get it.’"
"George, she had quickly discovered, was very firm about going to church on a Sunday...the sound of George’s deep voice booming away at the hymns and the way he sat, listening to every word of John Matthews’ sermon."
Turning down the Veronica. "‘I’ll come with you when you do your visits.’ Corina was smiling again. ‘No.’ He looked at Phoebe. ‘Will you pour the coffee, my dear?’"
Scaring off the Veronica. "‘I’ve not had measles. Is it spots? Is it dangerous George?’ ‘Well, hardly fatal, but the rash is nasty and one is liable to get chest infections and bad eyes, hair falling out and so on.’"
Smacking down a drunken Veronica. "‘You’ve had too much champagne,’ said George levelly. ‘You’ve no idea what you’re saying—and a good thing too, because you’re being offensive. I’ve no intention of taking you anywhere; I’m going to dance with my wife and then we shall drive back to “that village of ours’."
And Phoebe might have been a penniless orphan, but she's no meek little doormat!
When facing down a thug with a flick knife.
"Phoebe could feel her knees wobbling, but rage sent her into her bedroom to slam the door in his face and put her head out of the window and screech ‘George!’ at the top of her voice...It gave her an opportunity to kick his shins, something she did with a kind of desperate satisfaction. The slap he gave her sent her head swinging sideways and the tears starting up to her eyes, but she got in another kick before he caught her roughly by the arm and pushed her on to the landing. ‘You asked for it,’ he called her a vile name and she said in a choking voice: ‘Don’t use that kind of language to me. Get out of the house before someone comes!’ Her eyes fell on his loaded pockets. ‘And put everything back on the bed.’ . . . At last she said in a whisper: ‘You’re like something nasty under a stone…’"
She's Got Rhythm. "...although she had never had much chance to dance, instinctively good at it, and when the music changed to pop, she fell to twisting and twirling as though she had done it all her life."
She can cook and run a house and can think fast on her feet. "Phoebe heard the lies tripping off her tongue and she, a truthful girl, felt no shame. ‘Sorry, but the plumbing needs attention—it’s not in use for the moment.’"
Dealing with Veronica's spoiled ways. "...someone can bring me a cup of tea at about four o’clock.’ ‘I’ll let you know when it’s teatime,’ said Phoebe. ‘We have it in the sitting room.’"
She evokes sympathy from long-dead ancestors. "Phoebe, looking at a portrait of one of George’s ancestors, said softly: ‘I’m behaving in the most shocking manner, and I’m not a bit sorry.’ The ancestor gazed back at her from eyes as blue as George’s, and for one bemused moment Phoebe could have sworn that he winked at her."
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