Just North Of Bliss (Ballad Romances) [Paperback]

Duncan Alice (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Set against the backdrop of the Chicago World's Fair, this genteel romance sets prissy Rowena Belle Monroe on a collision course with Yankee photographer Win Asher. Forced by financial circumstances to earn her living as a nanny, Belle is compelled to leave Georgia and come to New York. On a trip to the fair with her employers and two charges, Belle is spotted by Win, the fair's photographer. Stunned and inspired by Belle's beauty, Win tries to persuade her to model for a series of photographs, but she's none too eager to fall in line with his plans. To Belle, Win embodies all the traits she abhors in Yankees, but after many encounters set against the carefully painted portrait of the fair, she surrenders to him both emotionally and physically. Duncan (Coming Up Roses) plays on the cultural differences between the North and South, contrasting Belle's impeccable manners and genteel ideals with Win's assertiveness and ambition. Although Belle will annoy readers at first with her old-fashioned ideals she finds photography "morally repugnant" and thinks only loose women wear makeup she slowly and believably evolves into an empathetic heroine. Unlike many of the highly sensual romances that are available today, this comic confection is light on physical fireworks but heavy on heated banter.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

In order to help her family out of genteel poverty, Belle takes a job as a nanny far away from her hometown of Blissborough, Georgia. While the rest of her family spends their time bemoaning their fate of 30 years ago when the North defeated the South, Belle is instilling proper Southern manners into two Yankee children in New York. When her employers decide to take a trip to Chicago to see the World's Fair, she comes along to help with the children. As she passes the booth of the Official Photographer of the Exposition, Win Asher takes note. Although he is the "official photographer," Win is also an artist with the camera, and, having spotted the perfect model of an American female, he'll do anything to get her to pose for him. Duncan's brash Yankee and Southern Belle with a spine of steel seem worlds apart yet sparks do fly between them, and passion is ignited in this detailed, lively, and entertaining escapade. Maria Hatton
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Zebra (May 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821772775
• ISBN-13: 978-0821772775
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,351,775 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

In an effort to avoid what I knew I should be doing with my life (writing'it sounded so hard), for several years I expressed my creative side by dancing and singing. I belonged to two professional international folk-dance groups. Dancing made for a lousy living, but it was certainly fun. I also sang in a Balkan women's choir. I got to sing the tenor drone, for the most part. My first book, ONE BRIGHT MORNING, was published by HarperMonogram in 1995. What's more, it won the HOLT Medallion for Best First Novel. It was a good start, but my career has been . . . rocky, is the best word for it, I guess. Publishing's a brutal business, but I've got more persistence than brains so the publishing gods haven't killed me yet, although they seem to be trying awfully darned hard, curse them. In September of 1996 my herd of wild dachshunds and I moved from Pasadena, CA, to Roswell, NM, where my mother's family settled fifty years before the aliens crashed. We love it here. No smog, no crowds, no money, but I had no money in California, either, and you don't need so much of it here.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Take the time to read this one!, December 6, 2010

By 

romance lover (usa) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Just North Of Bliss (Ballad Romances) (Paperback)

I've been going through every one of this author's books ever since I discovered her. I've read all her 'silent film' series and all of the 'meet me at the fair' series.

this is the 2nd book in that series that takes place at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Belle is a stuffy, prejudiced girl from the south who is unhappy with the fact that she had to take a job as a nanny in NYC to support her family back in GA. A photographer for the fair, Win, sees her and is struck by a desire to use her as a model for a series of photos of the all - American girl that he envisions.

However Belle is not very cooperative. I love Alice Duncan, and I love her writing, but I personally found Belle unlikable for most of the book. She was really a prig, and didn't act like a girl of her young age should act. She had been raised in poverty, true, but she had no sense of fun and lost a lot of her humanity.

Later in the book she does unwind a little- but it's never really a lot. I found myself wondering why Win would want her so much, as she was always so nasty to him. (and nasty about Northerners in general.)

The rest of the characters are great- as usual the author gives them life and unique personalities. I absolutely love the time period she writes in too.

I did like this book and it's definitely worth reading. Probably my least favorite of the series, but still a good read!

5.0 out of 5 stars exciting historical romance, May 12, 2002

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Just North Of Bliss (Ballad Romances) (Paperback)

In 1893 Georgia Peach Rowena Belle Monroe realizes how poor her upper crust family has become. Having no choice, Rowena Belle becomes the first Monroe to leave Georgia except for those who fought for the South a few decades ago in the Civil War. She accepts employment as a nanny in New York City. When her employer George Richmond takes his wife and two children, to the Chicago World's Fair, Rowena accompanies them as befitting her job to care for the kids.

At the Fair, photographer Win Asher notices the beautiful Belle and tries to convince her to pose for his photographs, but she refuses feeling this is indecent behavior. As Belle and Win see one another while attending the Fair, they fall in love, but she feels he is the "paragon" of everything she believes is wrong with Yankees.

Alice Duncan's second Chicago Fair tale is an exciting historical romance that readers will enjoy as fans obtain a taste of a bygone era. The period is so well described that the audience will be surprised by Belle's authentic "puritanical" attitude towards items that we take for granted as normal. The characters are warm and amusing, but as with the previous novel, COMING UP ROSES, the history is as important if not more so than the romance, not that the latter is shortchanged, but the former is so picturesque.

Harriet Klausner