| Title | : | Moon Witch |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780373100385 |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 189 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1970 |
Moon Witch Reviews
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Re read review: Man I read too much. I just reread this and had absolutely no idea I'd read it before. I did read it the first time on Kindle and they do say you don't retain as much reading electronically so maybe that's it. I loved this the second time around too. It's numbered 38 of the first 100 HPs and is the 12th I've read on my odyssey to read the first 100. I really enjoyed this one again. There was a serious effort made to make her actually act like a 17 year old and have the hero be very aware of her age. He tries to stay away from her but falls under her spell anyway.
Original review:
There was something charming about this book. The hero was much older here but while he was snippy and caustic to her sometimes, he wasn't hateful and degrading. She wasn't particularly wimpy. I thought she was fairly well written as a 17 year old testing out her sexual wings. I liked that the hero was aware that he was too old for the heroine and that he tried to stay away from her. So many times in these old Harleys just ignore the age difference and the hero treats the heroine as if she's 27. -
Lately, I’ve been getting caught up with “That 70’s Show” on Netflix. I only saw the first couple of seasons during its initial run and I refuse to watch the final season, as that show just devolved into wretchedness, but the first 5-6 seasons were entertaining with its retro 1970’s shtick: a group of 16/17/18-year-old kids just hanging out, falling in love and being stupid. I have a recently-turned 18-year-old daughter, who is set to graduate from high school this June. She’s a very intelligent kid, as far as kids go. Since watching “That 70’s show” I’ve realized something of myself as a parent. I am Red Forman. He was right! 17/18 year-olds are dumb-asses.
What the heck does any of this babble have to do with Anne Mather’s Moon Witch? Well, “That 70’s Show” depicted Mid-western American teens doing what dumb-ass teens do: obsess over sex, TV, drugs, candy, and Rock ‘n’ Roll. Not being British nor having been a teen in the ’70s, I can’t attest if that depiction is also accurate for English teens of that era, but I’m going out on a limb and ass-u-me that in rural 1970’s UK, dumb-ass 17-year-old kids were, you know, aware of their own existence! The teen-aged heroine of Moon Witch is a dumb-ass specifically because she has no clue about life.
Here’s the plot of Moon Witch:
Little 17-year-old orphan Sara’s grandfather has just died. She’s finished her freaking O levels at school and has no one to turn to. She’s temporarily taken care of by a cranky neighbor with 7 kids, but fortune is on its way to save our heroine from ending up on social services.
In his will, Sara’s grandfather left her guardianship to his former boss and CEO of Kyle Industries, Jarrod Kyle. Only he didn’t specify exactly which Jarrod Kyle, so in a bizarre HP-land twist Sara is made the ward of the son and new CEO, also named Jarrod Kyle. Instead of being an old grandfatherly sort, this Jarrod is more of a fatherly sort (being only twice Sara’s age): a silver-blond haired, tanned, cheroot-smoking, sex-god who drives a Mercedes one day, a Ferrari the next, then a Rolls Royce on Sunday. He flies planes and owns and sails a yacht. He has multiple girlfriends (who practically come to a catfight over him near the book’s denouement), in addition to an overbearing mommy who wants to run her son’s love-life (but he ain’t listening to her).
That’s the set up. This innocent, sheltered 17-year-old beauty is now the legal ward of a 34/35 year old guardian. Fortunately, Jarrod’s father, JK (as in Just Kidding readers, I know this plot is crazy!), steps in and takes responsibility for Sara while Jarrod flies around the world going on trips, both for business and pleasure.
I’ve read tons of historicals with 16, 17, 18-year-old girls paired off with heroes in their mid-30s through early 40s. And it's hardly ever bothered me. Historicals play by different rules.
Yet in a contemporary, this is a fine line to walk. It has to be done properly with an understanding of the difficulty such a relationship faces. In Moon Witch, the older man/younger woman thing is …creepy. Even the hero knows it, so he spends half the book avoiding the heroine.
Admittedly, Moon Witch is not a “modern” contemporary, as it was written in 1970. Plus this is a Mills and Boon/Harlequin Presents we’re talking about. So since it’s an HP--which is as far away from real romance as Star Wars is to space travel and history--I eventually got on board. Despite my admitted prejudices, I ended up liking it, even though the book takes a while to get going.
This is not a love story of a middle-aged man paired up with a 20-year-old college student who in the US would be too young to buy alcohol, but would at least be armed with some worldly knowledge: how to drive a car, how to read a bank statement, how to type, or do some filing. Sara is 17 and her only skill is how to ride a horse or pony. Her favorite subjects in school are Art and English. She’s never had any feelings for a man before, no stolen kisses with boys, no harmless dates to the soda shop; she’s just a pink-cheeked little girl, who looks nothing like the sophisticated auburn-haired beauty on the original cover.
The first time our hero lays eyes on the heroine, the chick is decked out in a sexy pinafore:
Moon Witch is not written in a psychologically intense way Charlotte Lamb would handle the older man/younger woman trope as she did in the wonderful
Temptation and
Crescendo. (IMO, Lamb has written the best and the worst HPs of all time, although that was because she was like a power hitter in baseball who either hits nothing but home runs or strikes out at the plate.) Anne Mather is no armchair psychologist, nevertheless, she did write some oddly entertaining books. She was a big fan of older woman/younger man plots, evil mothers-in-law who’ll stop at nothing to break up the protagonists, and cheating tropes (married or engaged). She’s written tons of crazy HPs/Mill and Boons.
This one was definitely crazy.
There’s lots of hinting at the attraction between our leads, but it comes full force when the kid, er heroine, starts dancing to some of her favorite tunes, hits from Sammy Davis, Dave Brubeck, & Dean Martin.
Now remember this was published in 1970. Mather could’ve gone with Led Zeppelin, the Doors, Rolling Stones, Elvis, or even freakin' Tom Jones…but no.
That’s why I’ve liked the Harlequin Presents series. No matter what decade they were written in, they’re always strangely anachronistic, at the very least 15 years out of style.
(Side note: That’s one reason why I can’t stand the recent batch of HPs; the writers have ditched the weird, fake, old-timey fantasy setting in favor of some sort of chick-lit/50 shades of hot new adult sex fusion that is perfectly fine for just about every other contemporary romance, but not HPs! Harrumph to that, I say!)
So, anyhow, Sara’s alone, shaking her ass, dancing to the "latest" sexy beats, turns around, and there he is: Jarrod, lusting after her.
“Turning the volume up she allowed her own inhibitions to melt away, closing her eyes, and dancing with the same abandon she had seen teenagers on television adopt…Sara halted abruptly, conscious of the informality of her attire, the bare feet, and the damp untidy tangle of her hair. She switched off the radiogram, and for a moment the silence seemed as deafening as the music had been. He did not speak but continued to look at her, his eyes slowly following the length of her body and back to her face again resting for a heart shaking moment on her mouth…”
Sara is given a car, starts her driving lessons, and gets to go to one measly party where all the boys her age are hot for her. Then she immediately gets pneumonia afterward and is out of commission, laying around doing nothing for the rest of the book until Jarrod decides to take her with him on a glamorous trip. First to NYC for some wining and dining in the finest Manhattan restaurants, shopping trips and carriage rides through Central Park, then off to Jamaica to meet his mother.
Mather introduces another man into the story near the end: a rich, sexy, friend of the hero who’s the same age as he is. This is just to confirm that the heroine knows her heart and it’s Jarrod she loves, for, like, 4 eva!!!
They share their first kiss a few pages from the end, and Jarrod reminds her there is more to male-female sexual relations than just kissing. To which Sara’s eyes open wide with awe and surprise.
Hey, if Courtney Stodden’s marriage is still going strong, [ETA: Sadly, they didn't; they divorced.] then the reader of Moon Witch can have hope that Sara and Jarrod will be happy together for many years to come. Until Jarrod gets cancer 15-20 years later from all the smoking and tanning he does and leaves Sara a wealthy widow long before she hits 40.
Moon Witch wasn’t just a hit with readers. For Harlequin, it was an “All-Time Favorite Best Seller.”
My copy is the 9th printing since the original 1970 hardcover release, and who knows how many times it’s been reprinted or rereleased since 1982. It’s available as an e-book today.
Another Anne Mather phenomenal success was
No Gentle Possession which was—like many other HPs—offered free with dish detergent:
Anne Mather must’ve been the bomb back in the 1970’s. Her
Leopard in the Snow was made into a movie starring, Mr. 2001 Space Odyssey Canadian cutie, (well I think he was a cutie, anyways) Keir Dullea.
Moon Witch reminded me of Anne Mather’s
Stormspell. That was a full-length book, with a similar older-man younger woman scenario, although no guardianship-ward/ temporary daddy "ick" factor thrown in. In that one, the hero was just a cheating sleaze who “initiated the heroine into womanhood” before leaving her for his fiancée, but at least we the readers got to see into the hero’s mind to understand him better. Plus, in Stormspell the heroine got to spread her wings a little before she and the hero settled down.
Still…I can see why this HP appealed to the romance loving masses. Moon Witch, you are an awful book, straddling a fine line between romantic and pervy, and I hate myself for liking you. Gods above forgive me, but I do.
3 ½ stars
(For full disclosure, I met my husband-to-be when I was 18, he was 22 and we were both dumb-asses. We'll have been together as a couple 20 years this March.) -
"Moon Witch" is the story of Sara and Jarrod.
17 year old heroine is orphaned when her grandfather dies, and finds that he has nominated his friend as her guardian. Turns out, it's the hero (the friend's grandson) who is as unhappy to get the responsibility as ever. Basically, she is whisked into their rich household, where the hero takes delight in making her count what he has given her, his grandfather keeps warning her away from the hero, all women keep fawning over him and even his estranged mother basically tells her to keep her paws off. Despite all this drama, she finds herself falling for the man who ultimately reciprocates her feelings in an underwhelming climax.
Did not feel the chemistry at all and I found his whole family and friends unlikable and the ending was depressing (its a HEA during a funeral).
SWE
1.5/5 -
Sometimes the older man/younger woman thing is fine, or it’s something that can be overlooked. But sometimes it’s just…
—whhyyyy does she have to be 17
—why does he have to be 35
—why does she have to be newly orphaned, penniless, naive, and without education
—why does he have to be so wealthy and sophisticated and so desirable (apparently) to multiple women
—why does he have to be her newly appointed guardian , particularly when he never knew her family
—etc., etc.
The power imbalance is just too great, and I just never believed in their mutual attraction, interest, and devotion. Nothing awful happens between them, but nothing specifically great happens either—honestly, neither one are all that interesting. And extra side eye for his male personal assistant/34-year-old friend making a pass at her, too. -
This was sweet story. Not a lot happens but slowly picks up pace mid way. There was a lot of tension between them but you know the H Jarrod is fighting it until she turns 18. It was funny how he keeps getting buffer to stop anything happening. There was chemistry but it was subdued. Enjoyed it nonetheless.
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Moon Witch is a lovely vintage Mills & Boon romance, written and set in the 1970s. So of course you get all the usual "jet set" glamour from that era, a young virginal but spirited heroine, and an older rakish man of the world who of course falls in love with her and is - we assumed - redeemed by his passion.
Seventeen-year-old Sara Robins discovers that she's the ward of 35-year-old business magnate Jarrod Kyle. However it's Jarrod's elderly father J.K. that takes her on and starts splashing money on her (car, clothes, etc) with Jarrod staying away.
Although we later find out that Jarrod was deliberately staying away because of his attraction to Sara, it does feel like a bit of a lost opportunity. More early scenes of interaction and sexual tension would have been good.
Also the author keeps mentioning Jarrod's "silvery" hair at the start which makes him sound prematurely grey, but it later transpires he's actually blond.
A good one for fans of vintage Mills & Boon, and conveniently it's now available on iBooks. -
read for uni
If I could give this a zero, I would. Holy shit, took the death of the father figure that the two main characters SHARE to get them to admit their love, Sara got a bangin job offer in Paris and she’s like nah babes I wanna fuck my literal legal guardian 1 week after I’ve turned 18 and come out of his care. Also the fact that jarrod said his only choice after kissing his literal ward was to hang himself? Babes maybe you should have just not been a rat and thirsted over someone you thought was 15. -
Moon Witch was published in 1970 and mum purchased this as a hard back through her book club. I later purchased this as a paperback second hand from a bookstall.
Synopsis:
Sara Robins had never even heard of Jarrod Kyle until he became her guardian. He was far removed from anyone Sara, at seventeen, had known in the small, quiet world she'd lived in until her grandfather's death.
Jarrod Kyle was just twice her age, handsome, rich, successful and surrounded by sophisticated women. Perhaps it was inevitable that Sara would fall in love with him.
But was it love or only a teenage crush? Whichever, Sara couldn't imagine Jarrod's returning her feelings!
It was a nice romantic story for a young reader as I recall. -
Sara Robins has never even heard of Jarrod Kyle - until he becomes her guardian!
Jarrod is far removed from everything Sara knows in the small, quiet world she has inhabited since her grandfather's death. Jarrod is twice her age, handsome, rich, successful and surrounded by sophisticated women. Perhaps it is inevitable that Sara finds herself so deeply attracted to him…
But when it becomes clear Jarrod may be powerfully drawn to her too, Sara begins to wonder if there is more to this than simply a crush… -
Anne Mather has done it once again, she has made a book so emotional and bewitching that you can't do anything but flow with the book, characters and flip the pages begging for more. I really loved this story, I thought it was absolutely beautiful. The chemistry and passion hidden with hate and annoyance makes it all worth the while. The book was surely aptly named.
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Nothing happens until the last 20 pages, but then you don't really want anything to happen, because she's 17 and he is 35. it took me almost a week to read it. Plain boring.
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Another vintage Harlequin May-December romance
Entertaining, but with an abrupt ending
I liked the hero's two girlfriends, I don't think I've ever read that in an old Harlequin before -
Probably if I had read this 30 years ago I would have rated it higher. But yes, it is that old, and kind of silly.
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Read between January & June 1983.
Original noteso n book from 1983: Good love story. Neat setting in England.
