Reviews for The Daughter of the Manor

The average rating for The Daughter of the Manor based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-12-23 00:00:00 Ronad Bitner [The romance between the doctor and Leonora develops slowly in the last third of the book. Before that, they are acquaintances or friends depending on the moment. He falls in love first. As is customary with Betty�s Hs, James doesn�t immediately tell Leonora he loves her. (hide spoiler)]

Review # 2 was written on 2020-11-29 00:00:00 Philip Rushton DotM combines some of my LEAST favorite BN tropes: a Cinderella heroine in need of rescue; an unlikable OM/fiance to be rid of (why do BN heroines get involved with such shallow jerks?); a paternalistic hero who solves all her problems. But my main issue with this one is how DULL it is. There's no real conflict to be overcome--not even a Big Misunderstanding or OW drama, which I think BN relied on too much in many of her books but which would have given this story some focus and tension at least. As it is, we spend way too much time hearing about the pernicious fiance's mercenary reasons in pursuing the heroine until she finally comes to her senses and kicks him to the curb. That made me like her a little--but she has to be rescued by the hero in every subsequent scene in which she encounters her ex, which irked me. She has to be rescued by the hero in order to patch up her crumbling family home. She has to be rescued by the hero in order to finally shed herself (somewhat at least) of her ridiculous, idle, idiotic parents (one has to wonder how BN's sensible and selfless heroines spring from such unsavory stock time and again). He even tells her, when she wonders what to do about her family after the ILYs and proposals, not to worry--he'll take care of everything. Perhaps that is, in part, Neels' appeal: the concept of a godlike hero who will take care of everything. But the greater part of Neels' appeal for me was always that her earlier heroines really didn't need saving--particularly her hardworking nurses who, no matter what life threw at them, always had the confident belief that they would work and make a go of it (however unhappy and lonely an existence it might be). They were fully capable of saving themselves from the direst situations. But with her later heroines, Neels often trapped them in such unhappy circumstances with no way out that the hero's intervention seems more like pity than love. From 1997, so one of Betty's later books when she seemed mainly to be writing anachronistic Cinderella stories, with old-fashioned heroines who had as little sense of and liking for modern sensibilities as Betty herself apparently had. Some nice details, as we might expect from Betty; an amusing moment when the hero thinks that the heroine looks as nice going as coming, heee; the usual solid, clean writing that Betty always delivered... but still, the plusses in this one don't quite make up for the minuses.