The April 2022 #TBRChallenge is “Location Location Location.” I didn’t think I’d have a chance to participate this month, but I managed to slide in at the last minute with a book from the top of my stack of vintage Harlequins.

This is exactly what it says on the tin: Julia Merrill believes the best way to help her brother get over the loss of his late fiancée is to move in with him and serve as his housekeeper. He has a farm at Castlepoint on the north island of New Zealand, with only other single men around to help. Noel, the brother, turns Julia down firmly, telling her that she’s always been the family caretaker (having nursed their parents through various ailments), and this is her time to go off and be an independent young woman, as if vogue in 1972 when this novel was originally published. Their parents are now in Canada, and Julia has a bustling life in Wellington.

Julia decides that she knows her brother’s mind better than he does, and decides to stowaway in his car, not revealing herself until they arrive at his remote farmhouse, where he’ll be more or less forced to let her stay because of proximity. He’s attending a big farming conference in Wellington, so she steals back to her apartment, packs an overnight bag, and stuffs herself in the backseat of his car, hiding under a blanket. She’s bound and determined to serve as his housekeeper, dammit, and she’s not going to let a little thing like his feelings get in the way!

Julia hides out for hours waiting for the meeting to break up. She can hear her brother talking outside the car, and his grateful when he finally gets in and they start to move. Then they stop suddenly, and noises tell her that they’re on a ferry. This isn’t the way to his farm! What’s going on??

It slowly dawns on her that she’s stowed away in a stranger’s car, one that’s identical to her brother’s, right down to the blanket slung over the backseat. She’s terrified of the scandal that is sure to be released when this unknown man discovers her in the backseat of his car. She realizes that they’re traveling to the south island of New Zealand, far away from everything she’s ever known. It’s an agonizing overnight trip, with no way for her to sneak out of her hiding place and high tail it back to Wellington.

Of course, Julia is discovered at the worst possible moment, right when the man and his fiancée are having a terrific row. The fiancée, Miriam, accuses the man, Adam Dare, of knowingly smuggling a girl home on the basis that they’re having an illicit affair. She completely blows her top, accepting no excuses, and flounces off to Picton, the nearest city.

Julia is mortified; Adam is furious. A landslide has trapped them on Adam’s farm for at least a week, so they have no choice but to put up together until the road clears. Adam lives in the family homestead with his grandfather, Nathaniel, his nephew, Luke, and his nieces, the twins Susanna and Esther. Everyone else is quite bemused by the situation, and decide in their own good-natured way to make the best of things. It’s lambing time, and an extra set of hands will come in handy, especially since Granny Lydia is in hospital with a broken leg.

Julia absolutely falls in love with the tiny, self-contained property on the bay; she considers it a little garden of Eden, just breathtakingly gorgeous. She can’t understand how anyone would want to displace a single blade of grass, much less pull down the old homestead and rebuild, as Miriam had demanded. The Dare family start to tell Julia the history of their family, starting with Captain Ephraim and his lady love, Camilla, who were apparently the first white people to land on that particular piece of property in the 1840s.

Julia proves herself to be an excellent farmhand and a good housekeeper. The Dares are absolutely enchanted by the sweet girl who magically fits into Camilla’s old clothes and seems to love the land just as much as she did. Julia, meanwhile, is bound and determined to patch up Adam’s relationship with Miriam, even though the two of them have no desire to see each other again.

This is a very pleasant read, especially if you like pioneer or small-town stories. It was also rather odd, in that other than the mention of cars and TV, this could easily pass as historical fiction, of the American Western variety, only its set in New Zealand with the requisite history stuck in. There’s a lot of pretty cringy White Savior stuff going on with all the ancestor worship, though the author does at least acknowledge that the native Maori had every right not to be happy with the white people trying to settle their land.

There’s also a lot of Christianity springing up: all of the Dares have Biblical names (and one of the reasons Julia believes Adam and Miriam are meant to be is that Miriam is a name that appears in the Good Book). There’s quite a bit of praying going on, lots of Biblical references in general, and of course smoothing the rough edges of white settlement by saying it was divinely ordained to happen. Sigh.

The end is a bit much – a big rescue scene where Adam plucks Julia from the rising tide in her underwear, after she’d belted herself to Captain Ephraim’s long-lost cutlass, just to bring the romances full circle. Adam confesses his love to Julia in the middle of the raging storm, with little Luke whining about being cold and hungry nearby. The Dare family is absolutely delighted, of course; they all hated Miriam (how dare she be modern in 1972!) but no one wanted to speak up because of Adam’s initial adoration of her. Julia feels herself less than in comparison with the glamorous Miriam, but is secretly glad that she’s so much better at keeping house for her man than the woman who teaches domestic science in the big city.

This is probably the best of the original vintage Harlequin romances that I’ve read thus far, but romance writing has improved by leaps and bounds in the last 50 years. I’m in no hurry to seek out more of this author’s work. ( )