| Title | : | Unbidden Melody (Warrender Saga, #7) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0263714802 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780263714807 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 192 |
| Publication | : | First published April 1, 1973 |
She told herself firmly that she could never really belong in Nicholas's world and that to fall in love with him could only bring her heartbreak. But how could she stop herself?
Unbidden Melody (Warrender Saga, #7) Reviews
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4 1/2 stars - I had a quibble with the grovel at the end.
This is the seventh volume in the Warrender saga. Secretary and opera fan heroine gets a dream job working for a London agent (impresario) to the stars. One of her first duties is to pick up famous tenor hero at the airport and see him to his first rehearsal. Hero is impressed with heroine because she makes him laugh. Seems he hasn't laughed since his wife died in a car accident that occurred while he was driving. He asks her to stay at the rehearsal of Carmen, so she does, and is enthralled by the hero's voice and the Canadian Soprano who is playing the lead and Anthea Warrender. Hero asks heroine to go out to supper with him, much to the Canadian Soprano's displeasure. At dinner he hears about how heroine's boyfriend jilted her for another girl, but now former boyfriend is back and trying to date her. They share a taxi to her home, but get out in the middle of the drive so they can walk because they have so much to talk about. When hero shares his guilt about not loving his wife because of her incessant jealousy, she tells him to "stop playing the melancholy Slav." It's delightful and that's just their first day together.
Unlike some of the other stories in the saga, this story's main focus was on their love affair. The way they fell for each other was very romantic. Burchell stage-managed some wonderful scenes. It felt real that a romantic like the hero would fall in love so quickly and the heroine would have more doubts - and how those feelings would work against them when communication wasn't possible. (Oh, those mis- directed letters) I wanted more grovel from the hero, which kept this from being a full five star review, but it was delightful, nonetheless. Seeing Diva Soprano from book four again was icing on the cake. -
The couple was a complete mismatch, and she will have to tolerate a lot of him walking all over her in the future, and ignoring legitimate reasons for jealousy, and otherwise coaxing him out of bad moods, as part of her HEA. This was surprisingly upsetting to read because it ended so unsatisfactorily with no sign of things ever getting better.
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How can you ever forgive me?” “Very easily. If you can forgive me too.”
(…)
“I want you,” Mary said. “That’s all. It’s quite simple. Like all great truths.”
“I don’t deserve it,” he said humbly. “At least, I don’t think I do,”
You’re wrong girl at the end and he was right about being not to deserve you! -
I really enjoyed this one, but felt a bit cheated with the ending. I would have liked the hero to work harder to get the heroine back.
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My goodness, Miss Bates loves Burchell. Is there a better writer? A more nuanced, interesting one? Unbidden Melody contained elements that Miss Bates and other romance readers scorn: an ingenue heroine; dense, uncaring hero; nasty Other Woman; a capitulation of the heroine’s will to the hero’s “genius”. And yet. By the end, Miss Bates had that heart-clenching-hold-your-breath response the best romance novels elicit.
Here are the plotty particulars. Introduced by one of those older, machinating, wise, charismatic characters, like the mercurial, adorably-arrogant prima donna, Gina Torelli (who makes a compelling, delightful appearance here), impresario Dermot Deane, the romance focuses on his secretary, Mary Barlow, and tenor, Nicholas Brenner. Like most of Burchell’s heroines, Mary is modest, efficient, competent, and a music-lover. She has barely started working for Deane, but loves every moment of it. Indeed, she’s the one who suggests Deane coax Nicholas Brenner to London for a production of Carmen. Deane is delighted with Mary’s idea and soon thereafter, Brenner is rehearsing Don José. Brenner hasn’t performed since his wife died in an automobile accident and a wistful sadness clings to him. He and Mary are immediately attracted, however, and she brings him out of his shell. As he confesses to her, his wife Monica had driven him mad with her jealousy and mistrust and her death brought grief, but mainly guilt-ridden relief. With Mary, he can finally embrace love and life again. At the novel’s half-point, Nicholas proposes; Mary accepts. What follows could be construed as a Big Mis; except in Burchell’s capable hands, it turns into the story of two people, obviously in love, without the acquaintance and comfort that make for commitment and stolidity. Love, says Burchell, must come with trust, understanding, and communication to build a life together.
One of the romance’s greatest strengths, indeed across all of Burchell’s books, and now sadly missing from so much romance, is her ability to build the heroine and hero unit on courtship. Romance doesn’t do the grace of the shared meal, the coat held, the door opened, and the seeing to the door like it used to. And maybe that’s for the better, cue feminism, and maybe it’s because Miss Bates is quaint and old that she really enjoys this aspect of vintage romance writers like Burchell and Neels. Here is a stunning sampling from Unbidden Melody. What has Burchell wrought? What has she developped and gained?
Over the choice of the meal he consulted her meticulously, but over the wines hardly at all, for which she was glad since her knowledge of wines was sketchy in the extreme. When this was done, he sat back with an air of genuine relaxation and asked, as though it really interested him to know her opinion, “How did you enjoy the rehearsal?”
… “Tell me something about yourself.”
“About me? There’s really nothing much to tell” …
… “And in your out-of-office hours?” he wanted to know.
“I’m primarily an opera and concert fan” …
“But you don’t go to these performances all on your own, surely?”
“Oh, no! There are quite a crowd of us. Friends, acquaintances, even a few enemies when it comes to fighting about rival favourites,” she conceded with a laugh.
“But no one special person?” he pursued, apparently with genuine curiosity.
“You mean — am I engaged or anything?”
“I suppose I did. But perhaps that’s inexcusably inquisitive?”
“No.”
“Tell me, all the same.”
After the initial introductions, obvious attraction, Nicholas, as evident above, takes Mary to dinner. What is there not to love here, thought Miss Bates? Who needs a love scene, when you have a hero who is “meticulous” about the heroine’s likes and dislikes, but takes the wine-selection in hand. And what about the conversation that follows: his interest, curiosity, and boyfriend-sussing? “Tell me,” Nicholas says and begins the cementing of their relationship. In turn, he confides in Mary, about his marriage, his dead wife, his love of music. The dance of courtship has to stand in for what today are one too many love scenes. The shorthand of meal and conversation are layered over the subtle interplay of desire and curiosity that are the bases of any nascent romance.
The meal’s culmination is in vintage, kisses-only romance, The Kiss. Nicholas and Mary’s is magnificent:
And he tipped her chin up and kissed her firmly on her lips.
“How about that?”
“A splendid stage exit,” she retorted.
The gentle humour on Mary’s part is an indication of her growing confidence in being with Nicholas. Though the previous scene could be misconstrued as an unequal relationship, worldly man to ingenue young woman, Mary’s clever riposte elevates her in wit and knowingness and makes her Nicholas’s equal.
What the romance writer has wrought, it must come to follow, the betrayal scene puts asunder. Burchell brings Nicholas and Mary so lovingly and beautifully together: the kiss, the ring, the exchange of “I-love-you’s”, the sheer rightness of these two. It is obvious to Deane and Torelli, and with some help from Anthea Warrender, these two belong together. They complete each other and truly make each other happy, BUT they also make assumptions and fail to communicate. Burchell’s acute understanding of these ruptures is beautifully expressed in this passage:
They were like people talking different languages. Or like people walking along parallel paths which could never meet. “It doesn’t matter,” she said hopelessly at last. “There’s nothing either of us could say that would reach the other, in this mood. I’m so tired — and stupid. And you look all in too. We’d be talking in circles.”
It is as perfect a phrase to describe the emotional betrayal and chasm that results as any Miss Bates has read. The source, you will inquire, dear reader? The usual: a writer at the height of her craft, with a deep understanding of her characters’ flaws, using her knowledge to show where understanding, commitment, communication, and self-examination are as important to a couple’s harmony as desire and affection. Nicholas and Mary’s HEA is, at the last, having been to hell and back, so much more convincing. Which is why, your romance will only be as good as is your courtship, betrayal, and reconciliation, not in the number of your love scenes, unless they too are endemic to these truths.
With her reading companion, Miss Austen, Miss Bates says of Mary Burchell’s Unbidden Melody, “a mind lively and at ease,” Emma.
Mary Burchell’s Unbidden Melody was originally published in 1973 by Mills and Boon. It was reissued by Endeavour Press on May 5th, 2017. Miss Bates received an e-ARC from Endeavour Press, via Netgalley. -
The weakest of the lot for me, the misunderstandings in this one did not lend themselves to a credulous resolution. Both the leads issues totally made sense, but it was a thin papering over and just didn't work for me.
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The whole story is structured around a classic big misunderstanding: Nicholas's deceased wife was controlling and jealous, and so Mary can only be with him if she agrees to be the 'cool' wife, no insecurities or boundaries around jealously allowed. Of course, people cannot logic away their feelings, even if they can control what they do about them. Mary is rather decent about the whole thing, but suppressing her concerns naturally leads to a feelings-explosion, which then allows Nicholas to be an entitled holier-than-thou ass. They are both a bit immature, but the ending left me with hope they would communicate better in the future. B for effort.
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Unusually, heroine was a bit too much of a doormat to the alpha dude. Burchell usually allowed her girls to set the hero straight on what an arrogant, impossible individual he was, but here girl is a bit too meek and pliable.
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Warrender #7 really enjoyed this but ending was a bit unsatisfying.
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Another immensely frustrating ending, and it caps another decent setup. Here’s cool, logical Mary suddenly in a difficult public place, in competition, almost, with a difficult dead woman… And she becomes someone emotional and unrecognizable whose conflicts are solved by I-love-yous and “I’ll never be jealous again”. For someone with legitimate complaints - for someone pretty clear-eyed who is given excellent advice by her mother (a conversation which leaps off the page in its stark common sense) - the lack of communication and real resolution is unforgivable.
There are smaller points about artists in relationships which are raised and unresolved: how much is acting; to what degree the job overrides all; temperament as an excuse. These are major questions! And yet they’re dwarfed by the infuriating Mary-as-satellite positioning. It even infects Mary’s mother: “I’ll probably like her,” two famous people say. Is that supposed to be validating?
And the story is so rushed, and they don’t talk about anything constructive after their first bracing conversation, and Mary needs more friends. Anthea had friends. Where’s Mary’s Vicki? -
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley.
Mary Barlow is delighted to land a job with a famous impresario dealing with the leading lights of the world of opera and music. When she is asked to meet the famous tenor Nicholas Brenner off a plane and escort him to his hotel she is delighted. Mary loves opera and Nicholas is one of her favourite performers so when she finds they get on well together she is totally delighted.
I remember reading books by this author, including this one, more than forty years ago and it has lost none of its charm in the intervening period. I enjoyed the musical background and the way the relationship between the main characters is developed. If you enjoy reading gentle romances with interesting backgrounds then you will enjoy books by this author.
It is good to see these older authors back in 'print' as e-books. Sometimes all you want is a romance which doesn't take the reader beyond the bedroom door. -
Ugh!
I started out liking this book. Mary and Nicholas were both sympathetic and likeable characters.
Finally, I thought I'd found one of this author's books where the h is not presented as the problematic one.
Unfortunately not only was wrong but this was worse than usual because Mary turns into a doormat h, gaslighted by the H into believing that she was wrong to feel insecure about another famous, beautiful singer chasing him and that him kissing the OW is totally acceptable because, and I quote "It didn't mean anything".
A sentiment that is echoed by Torelli as well, which encourages the h to forgive the H, who is her fiancé at the time.
On top of this, the H doesn't even go to her after their fight because he believes that she's a jealous, stalking shrew like his first wife.
The only reason they get back together is because Anthea Warrender arranges it without their knowledge. -
Not one of her best. The hero is charming and finds the heroine a welcome change from his jealous dead wife, but his anger and unwillingness to listen to her or give her the benefit of the doubt at the end of the book was very offputting. I predict a tumultuous relationship for these two unless she alters her personality to suit him. Bleh. I did like that her heroine had normal parents and a normal relationship with them.
As always with the Warrender Saga books, if you love music this book may speak to you more. -
Lovely first half with a very sweet romance blossoming between our two - but then the *big misunderstandings* begin, along with a heavy dose of OM/OW (which I haaaate) so I spent the second half of the book feeling irritated and impatient to wrap things up.
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3.5 ⭐
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Oh, another ones of the good ones! The relationship in this one progresses more quickly than the rest of the series, which was a fun change!
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Meh. Annoying hero who jumps to conclusions too quickly.
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The end was disappointing; he could or should have done more to gain her back!
