Reviews for Ring in a Teacup: Best of Betty Neels

The average rating for Ring in a Teacup: Best of Betty Neels based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-11-23 00:00:00 Michael Haverty 4 1/4 stars. This may be my favorite first meeting in all of Neelsdom (although Lucy herself derides it later as unglamorous). Lucy, a rector's daughter, is a student nurse who, having worked the night shift, is forced to attend a lecture by an eminent Dutch physician. In spite of his having "the good looks so often written about yet so seldom seen, she falls asleep during the lecture. He begins to ask questions of the audience. He sees Lucy asleep in the front row and "a ferocious gleam came into his eyes" and he calls out "the nurse in the center of the first row." "Lucy, dug savagely in the ribs by her nervous friends, opened her eyes wide and look straight at him. She was bemused by sleep and had no idea what he had said or what she was supposed to say herself. She stared up the handsome, bland face above her; she has never seen eyes glitter, but the cold blue ones boring into hers were glittering alright. A wash of bright pink crept slowly over her tired face, but it was a flash of temper rather than hey blush of shame; she was peevish from lack of sleep and her resentment was stronger than anything else just at that moment. She said in a clear, controlled voice: "I didn't hear what you were saying, sir � I was asleep." Afterward, he has her brought to him and he takes her to task, she sasses him back. She tells him, "I would have gone to sleep even if you'd been Michael Caine or Kojak." Mousy hair our girl may have, but she is not a mouse, not with those emerald green eyes! There is a scene at Lucy's home, a Dorset Village. Her father is the spitting image of the Rev. Charles Hemstock. She has four other siblings, all of whom have their mothers good looks. Lucy, however, has her father's plain face, as her father remarks to our RDD, to Lucy's chagrin. Oh yes, the RDD makes sure to meet her family early on, when he takes her home "on his way to Bristol." His name, by the way, is Fraam der Linssen. By coincidence, Lucy's godfather is a Dutch doctor who suddenly shows up and asks Lucy to come to Amsterdam on vacation to visit him and his daughter, Mies, whom Lucy hasn't seen since they were children. Mies is gorgeous, which makes Lucy all the more self-conscious when she meets up again with Fraam, with whom Mies is acquainted. In fact, Mies tell Lucy that she may just marry Fraam. Lucy hasn't quite yet had her Dawning Realization, but she is spending a lot of time thinking about Fraam. She is coerced into attending a hospital dance with Mies. She has nothing to wear, but she ends up wearing a emerald green jersey dress. She meets a young man named Willem who is in love with Mies. Although she is hesitant to dance, being self-conscious of her unfashionable dress, Willem insists. She decides to enjoy herself and everyone can see that she is quite the best dancer there. Fraam dances with her, but only once, although he does take up for her when his date criticizes her old dress. It becomes clear to the reader that Fraam has fallen for Lucy, if reluctantly. He comes to the house and is peeved when Lucy answers the door. Lucy asks if he is going to marry the beautiful girl who was with him at the dance. "He looked so thunderous that she took a step backwards. 'If I do, it will be entirely your fault,' he flung at her, and made for the door." She tells him "you look very put out, if you could spare the time to go home and take a couple of aspirin and lie down for half an hour�". He laughs and goes away. Next is the obligatory cat rescue, which gets Lucy inside Fraam's lovely house. Lucy schemes with Willem - he pretends to be in love with Lucy in hopes of attracting Mies' attention. The 3 of them go out; Willem pretends to get angry at Mies for being spoiled and selfish; it gets her attention as planned, and you know they will soon be engaged. Lucy accompanies Mies to the hospital; she waits in the lobby and is seen by Fraam. They exchange some interesting conversation and he kisses her hard. Lucy's holiday comes to an end and she takes the boat train to the Hoek. Guess who just happens to be there to see her off, although he makes a point of only shaking her hand, saying it's the end of a chapter but not the end of the book. Clever man, knowing he's the hero in a book! There is a poignant note here. "The porter was ahead with her case, so she went through the barrier and didn't look back. A long time ago, when she had been a shy teenager, spending her first evening at a village dance with the doctors son, he and a friend had taken her home at the end of the evening. They had said goodbye at the gate and she had turned around halfway down the short drive to the rectory to wave, and surprise the pair of them laughing at her. She had never turned around sense � not that she had had much chance; she didn't go out all that much. Perhaps Mr. der Linssen was looking at her in that same hateful mocking way; she longs to know, but she wasn't going to take any chances." Awww. . . Next up is work at the hospital and then on her days off at home, a blizzard in which Lucy is called out to deliver a baby which turns out to be breech and twins. Fortunately, Fraam reappears just in time to save the day, after which he reveals his purpose for being there - to ask Lucy to come back to Holland and nurse Dr. de Groot following surgery for Reynaud's. Of course it's only a ploy to get Lucy back to Holland. Fraam baldly tells Lucy, "I'm going to marry you," and tells her to think about that. No "I love you" for quite some time, which causes a great deal of doubt in Lucy's mind, exacerbated first by Fraam's Tante Sophie and then an ex-girlfriend Adilia the Awful. Lucy flings off her ring and standard runaway without money scene ensues. She gets a room at an upscale hotel and she has to call Jaap to bring her purse; meanwhile, hotel staff lock her in the room. Of course Fraam arrives and FINALLY says all the things he should and we have our HEA. As I said, I adore the beginning of this book; the middle has some nice parts; and I hate the first "proposal" although it eventually wraps up satisfactorily.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-12-01 00:00:00 Thomas Etheridge From 1978, Ring in a Teacup is cute and very funny in parts, but delivers some angst as well, as our plain-but-not-really heroine with the captivating emerald eyes tries really hard not to fall for the urbane and lady-killing RDD. (Re: BN�s so-called �plain� wide-eyed heroines, I�m convinced anyone other than Betty would have called them CUTE.) Heroine Lucy Prendergast is SNIPPY! Definitely no mouse, despite the abundance of mousy hair and small stature. She�s more than a match for RDD Fraam der Linssen, who does his best �not to see� the student nurse who keeps turning up in his life and variously amusing and annoying him with her outspokenness and unexpected and irresistible appeal. They first meet when Lucy, a third-year nursing student (23 to Fraam's 39) falls asleep in the front row during his lecture. With a �ferocious gleam� in his eye, he purposely calls on her, but she forthrightly says she fell asleep and apologizes, and he moves on (and tells her later, when Sister Tutor makes her apologize, that he doesn�t hold grudges and she already apologized�he�s MUCH nicer about it than Litrick was to Francesca during a similar (past but never forgiven or forgotten) incident in The Secret Pool). Lucy is pretty hostile to our RDD much of the time but it�s clear that she�s trying desperately not to fall for him (she admits to her mother from the start that she really does like him). He pulls the typical RDD hot-and-cold treatment for a while too, but it�s obvious he�s smitten early on, and once he stops resisting his feelings, Fraam is pretty swoonworthy (as all the young ladies in Amsterdam can attest). He has the usual RDD liking for pretty ladies and its rare that Lucy doesn�t see him escorting one or another of them (including her bratty friend Mies) in his flashy Panther De Ville or Rolls, but for him all the girls he�s known before didn�t so much as scratch the surface, and what he feels for Lucy is the real deal. It takes a while for him to convince her of his feelings and desire to marry her, because she's so used to being the �plain� one in a good-looking family and not at all confident in her ability to attract men, let alone such a superior being as our hero. All the usual BN elements are here: an old-fashioned (parson�s daughter) and modest heroine who second-guesses the hero�s feelings for her; a smitten hero who doesn�t say ILY nearly early enough (but otherwise is really sweet when he�s wooing her�more than most BN heroes even!); OW drama (in multiples); not one but two trips to Holland; the hero and heroine working together to save people; some misunderstandings based on OW and vile auntie lies; a runaway heroine; and a lovely HEA in the end. Pamela Shropshire has all the details in her wonderful review on GR (and check out the Uncrushable Jersey Dress review as well�really funny and spot on). I liked this one a lot�Lucy was a little OTT with her snottiness at times but it fits her defensiveness and need to protect herself from heartbreak. Fraam was dreamy overall, one of BN�s best heroes, although I think Betty should have made him younger than 39 since he seemed much younger in a lot of ways. The scenes at the hospital dance (where Lucy and Fraam strut their stuff) and in the farmhouse during a blizzard were great, and the nursing scenes and the changes in location gave the story a well-drawn frame. Some really funny moments too (the bits about "speed-demon" family friend's driving skills, in particular, were hilarious--Betty had a real talent for writing funny scenes). While not quite a 5 star BN read for me, I�d probably place it among my unofficial Top 25 BN reads so far. So much car porn in this one! A rather flashy Panther De Ville: A rather more stately and RDD-appropriate Rolls Royce Camargue: A �silly little Mini� that�s �handy for town�: A Range Rover, kept in England and very useful for delivering babies in blizzards: And a bicycle to �keep old age at bay�: