Saturday's Child

The second installment of my "Reading Betty in Holland" project. This has long been at the top of my favorites list of her books and it holds up to rereading every time. It's longer than the average category (a throwback to when word counts varied and the print copies adjusted by changing the font to stay within the 192 page limit).

Abigail Trent is a private nurse who takes cases that lets her earn enough to survive and to help out her friend and former family retainer, Bollinger. She is sent by the agency to a case in Amsterdam, where she meets Dutch Doctor Dominic van Wijkelen. DDD is grumpy and condescending to Abigail, but he's kind and loving to his patients. Their paths keep crossing and Abigail slowly comes to admire and then show more love him. DDD, much against his will, realizes that Abigail is restoring his faith in women (he had a very bad, short marriage in his youth). DDD keeps finding ways to keep Abby in Holland, but he fights his attraction to her at every step. Watching him fall for Abigail and watching Abby hold on to her independence and self-respect while admitting how much she loves him is everything we read romances for.

Neels introduces a wonderful cast of characters, from children to very old people, and she embeds the story in Amsterdam in such a way that you can walk the streets with Abigail, even getting to spend time in the wonderful Begijnhof. But this being a Betty Neels romance, you also get side trips to Friesland and even a road trip to northern Spain. The story is also noteworthy because Abigail and Bolly are really, really poor. Abigail has to watch every penny, especially when DDD continually fails to remember to pay her. Neels portrays this is a matter-of-fact, unsentimental way that is highly unusual for any book, let alone a category romance.

The romance is slow, sweet, and very very satisfying. DDD may be her best Grump But Kind Vast Dutch Doctor of the lot. And Abigail is every bit his match. They thoroughly earn and deserve their HEA and it's impossible not to believe in it. When I re-encountered them in their Stars Through the Mist cameo I gave a very happy sigh. show less

Saturday's Child by Betty Neels; (5*)

I loved this bit of women's fiction. Neels does an excellent job of describing human nature, the locale of her story and her characters. This would be a wonderful choice for a go-to book in times of stress.
I so enjoyed her back burner characters, some of whom could not help but to sneak to the forefront. Her protagonist, Abigail, was believable if very naive. My only possible complaint would be that I just wanted to give the main dude, a doctor of course, a head-slap every now and again and tell him to just "Snap out of it!" (Moonstruck quote....lol)

I really enjoyed this one. It gave a plausible reason for the male to act so badly towards the female. As always with these books the build up is wonderful and the end is always so rushed. The happy ending after 185 pages is crammed into 2 pages.

Betty Neels Collection - Book 13