by Betty Neels

I’d like to be a surgeon,’ said Jane shyly.
‘And why not? But I wonder what happens when you get married—I mean, could you go on being a surgeon and running a house and a husband and children too?’ Jane blushed. ‘Well, I don’t suppose so.’ She added ingenuously: ‘I suppose being a surgeon’s wife is the next best thing…’ ‘I daresay it is,’ agreed Polly kindly, ‘and being married to someone who’s interested in surgery would make it awfully nice for him to come home to.’

A sense of humor is essential if you are going to read a Betty Neels novel. I’ve read only one before that I know of and liked it pretty well. Like this one, it was an undemanding sweet, and simple placeholder while waiting for a book I really wanted to read to become available. I was spurred to try another one when I read a review on Goodreads, and I saw how many were available on Kindle from my local library. She is mostly known for being the queen of “nurse romances.” I started reading some more reviews to narrow the field down a bit. I was struck by the affection and dedication that many readers hold for this author. She is definitely one of the most beloved, if not the most beloved, of all of the old-timey Harlequin (Mills and Boon in the U.K.) authors. There are other authors that people love, but not with her output -134 separate novels. That’s a lot of books! And she only started writing when she was 60 years old! In the process, I kinda went down a Betty Neels rabbit hole and I ran across a delightful website dedicated to Betty, The Uncrushable Jersey Dress . Her fans have their own language. They refer to the RBD (Rich British Doctor), the RDD (Rich Danish Doctor), and have figured out the ratios of couplings by RBDs and RDDs with nurses or non-nurses. Or nurses and non-medical heroes (of which there are only 6.) They call the author “The Betty” or TGB (The Great Betty), or “The Divine BettyN”. They call fellow Betty fans Betty-real first name. Betty Keira, Betty Madeleine, Betty Debbie, etc. That just scratches the surface. There is even a spreadsheet for all 134 books, including such things as Hero’s car, Names of family retainers, pets, descriptions of the other women (brainy, wispy liar Marcia Jason (recovering from polio), for one, etc. The books are all rated. “Lashings of whipped cream” being a 10 out of 10 and the lowest being “tinned soup.” It is a whole world out there, possibly equaled only by Georgette Heyer devotees. This book, I rated 2 stars (beans on toast?). Betty is 3 stars, and her fans are 5 stars.

Anyway, for a variety of reasons, I chose Polly, written in 1984. One reason was that it didn’t appear to be a nurse romance.
Plain, plump, but smart Polly is fluent in ancient Greek and Latin, though she has only attained her A levels in the field, and has not gone to University. She is hired to type out a book manuscript by icy, rude, but good-looking professor Sam Gervis upon the death of the author. He is engaged to an absolute witch but has a nice about-to-be-married sister whom Polly becomes friends with while she is doing her typing at his home, Elmley Castle. We spend a good deal of time with Polly’s nice supportive family, her “learned schoolmaster father” her nice stay-at-home mother, her two dumb but nice sisters, and a little brother.

Cora and Marian had no need of brains; they were so pretty that they would marry just as soon as they could decide which of their numerous boyfriends would make the best husband.

As she comes to the end of her work, she realizes that she needs to get another job.

She couldn’t teach, she would be hopeless in a shop and the idea of sitting at a desk typing all day quite sickened her, which left only one other thing she might be able to do. She could train as a nurse.

Nothing like a true calling. Going on to University and getting an advanced degree in the field she truly loves and is good at never crosses her mind. She goes to train for her newly chosen vocation in a hospital where she does candy striper-like duties and goes to class. She is glad to escape the company of the uncomfortable professor with whom she has fallen in love. Much to her shock, one day, she runs into the professor in the hospital! It turns out he is a professor alright-a professor of Pediatic Surgery! So I ended up with a doctor-nurse romance after all. Sigh. He takes to driving Polly home and back on weekends. One day he tells her she will “never be a nurse”. Of course, the reader knows this means that Dr. Gervis is going to marry her and she can’t be a wife and a nurse at the same time. But Polly’s confidence is undermined and after a rough day, she ends up going to the head nurse’s office to quit. He follows her home to confess his love and propose marriage but he is called away on an emergency. Meanwhile, his nasty fiance comes to her house to tell her they are getting married in two days and Sam is not coming back. Polly flees to her aunt in Scotland, and Sam follows her there and finally clears up all of the lies and misunderstandings.

He put an arm around her and held her close and kissed her thoroughly.

‘Sam,’ said Polly weakly, ‘we’re in the middle of Crewe Station.’
He looked around him. ‘So we are. I thought it was paradise. Such a satisfactory answer that she kissed him back.

The end.

I gave this book a low rating because of the many WTF moments. First off, He kisses Polly “soundly” once and lightly a second time, when he is definately still engaged to Deirdre. That is not acceptable behavior. And about that engagement. First, as far as we know he is engaged to be married to Deirdre who is making wedding plans, throughout the whole book while he is sniffing around Polly. Later he claims that they broke off their engagement before his sister Diana’s wedding, which occurs well over halfway through the book, but kept it a secret from everyone in order not to “spoil her day.” I call bullshit on that. Firstly Diana makes it perfectly clear she hates Deirdre, and having her beloved brother call off his engagement would have made her day, not spoiled it. After the wedding is over and done with, Deirdre crashes his fiesty grandmother’s little private tete-a-tete with Polly and Sam. Granny also loathes Deidre and tells her off, but…

Deirdre stalked to the door, then turned to put a hand on Sam’s arm. ‘Oh, Sam, I know I’ve been naughty, but you’ll forgive me, won’t you? After all, we’re to be married soon. You haven’t forgotten that?’ She spoke beguilingly and smiled up at him, no trace of bad temper allowed to show. He moved away so that her hand fell to her side. ‘I haven’t forgotten, Deirdre.’

What is he playing at? Whatever his game was, I didn’t like it one bit. And if their engagement had been broken for weeks, Why would Deirdre bother to go to Polly’s home to tell her a pack of lies about marrying Sam in two days? Apparently, She is not only a bitch, but a psycho bitch.

When Polly tries to quit nursing, the head nurse tells her to go home to talk with her family about it but be back the day after and if she hasn’t changed her mind, they can arrange matters then. But Polly totally blows off her promise to Nurse Brice and runs off to Aunt Maggie in Scotland. She just leaves her in the lurch and essentially is a “no call-no show”. Not in character for Polly and quite careless of the “The Betty.” Still another piece of careless writing is that Polly’s family calls Professor Gervis “Sam” right from the beginning because they all get along great from his first meeting with her family (on page 18). But much later in the book, after Diana’s wedding, he comes to pick Polly up to take her back to the hospital, it’s as if he is meeting her family for the first time. “…he instantly became one of the family…he was ‘Sam’ withing ten minutes…”

So I could overlook the patronizing, mocking behavior of Professor Sam towards Polly and the outdated attitudes towards women and careers. Betty was just stuck in the 1950s and that’s sort of why people love her. But I was disappointed that I had to overlook careless writing as well. I’m going to give her another chance though partly because I’m curious to see if this is part and parcel of a typical Betty Neels novel. I am determined to crack the mystery of her appeal, but time will tell if I can become a fan.