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A cinderella like story for all of you out there who are not a perfect size 10!

Nellie Grayson is a "fat" 28 year old spinster who lives in Colorado 1896 and her life is devoted to caring for her penny pinching father and beautiful spoilt younger sister, Terel. Her life is turned upside down one day when Jace Montgomery, a handsome stranger arrives at their home in the town of Chandler. Jace is immediately struck by the kind, compassionate character of Nellie and confides in her of the grief he has been carrying for the past 4 years since the death of his wife in childbirth. Thus begins the courting of Nellie Grayson by Chandler's newly arrived most eligible bachelor.

A wonderful tale of true love and not lust, for a change. Nellie is the most selfless heroine you will meet and Jace a most kind and considerate man who sees Nellie as the true beauty she is. Terel is the most wicked nasty ... sister you could ever meet in a story. What more could you ask for? ...

Lealing

This book begins with the death of Berni, a woman who made a living of marrying rich men, spending money to look young at other's expense and was basically a self centered selfish person. Berni dies and goes to the "Kitchen" a kind of half way place between heaven and earth where she must do a good deed for someone on earth to earn a place in heaven. Berni is assigned Nellie an overweight woman who is used by a servant by her selfish sister and father. Berni is turned off by Nellie because she is fat and thinks she wants to help Terel instead. Berni gives Nellie three wishes to use thinking it will show she is really a selfish person and will use them to get even with her family.

Nellie's sister Terel has the same kind of personality that Berni had while alive and Terel is very jealous of Nellie. Even though Terel has always been the popular sister, she is jealous that Nellie always draws people to love her because she is such a good person and is actually very beautiful. Terel keeps sweets around to feed Nellie when she is feeling depressed because she wants Nellie to stay fat so she never marries and always is there to take care of her. Nellie secretly wishes her family will always be comfortable, Terel will be popular and her father will be successful. She unknowingly uses her three wishes on other people.

Jace Montgomery, a wealthy associate of Nellie and Terel's father comes to dinner one night and instantly falls in love with Nellie. Nellie can't believe he actually likes her and Terel is extremely jealous. Terel plots to keep the two apart and spreads rumors that Jace is seeing women all over town and is actually dating Nellie to get to their father's money. What Terel knows and Nellie doesn't is that Jace is several times wealthier than their father. When Berni sees Nellie didn't use her wishes for herself she finally realizes that Nellie is a good person who deserves to be happy. Berni wishes Nellie to be thin thinking that will make her happy. Of course, that doesn't work.

After Terel plots and schemes, Nellie and Jace never get together. Berni comes to earth to straighten things out.

This story is a kind of cinderella and her fairy god mother story and is very sweet. The only disappointment I had was Nellie was a little too much of a victim. Enoughs enough already, give the girl a backbone. Still a very good story.

When I finished this book today I wanted to scream. As an obese woman I find it impossible to tolerate calling a woman of 160 something pounds of Nellie's stature overweight But what irritates me even more is that sweet Nellie wasn't found attractive by anyone except Jace, until she magically lost weight with the help of her Fairy Godmother. Then of course she becomes the most sought after woman in the entire town. Even in fiction can an entire town be that bigoted?

FYI even an obese woman can NOT sit down and devore 4 pounds of fudge without going into glucose shock, or scarf two entire bags full of pastries, cakes and donuts in one sitting without retching, or even move, after she has inhaled a roast that was intended to feed an entire family. These grotesque descriptions were wholly unrealistic unless Nellie is bulimic as well.

The inevitable sex scene in this book was ungratifying for me. There was little sexual tension or tender foreplay before Nellie and Chase consummated their relationship. Their behaviour was uncharacteristic of these two. I am weary of characters who fall into bed before marriage for the sake of 20th century book buyers.

There is one sentence in this book to treasure. When Nellie in her beautiful full figure descends the stairs to Chase, who is waiting to take her to a Harvest Ball she is overwhelmed by Jace's speechless adoration of her beauty. She finally truly feels beautiful when "For the first time in her life Nellie experienced how beautiful a woman can feel when her beauty is reflected in a man's eyes."

For this insightful sentence and the authors imaginative story line I gave it 2 stars instead of one star.

The first thing I thought when I started to read this book was, "Please don't let her lose weight at the end!" Of course, what happens? (Trust me- this doesn't ruin the plot or anything) Towards the end of the book, Nellie's fairy godmother makes her skinny. What point does that serve? As a plus-size woman (who happens to be engaged to a man who loves every ounce of me), it was utterly depressing to see that, even though Jace loved Nellie before she lost weight, that Jude had to make her skinny. I guess she just couldn't be happy being a "fatso," as everyone in the book constantly refers to her. No matter what any of the other reviewers here say, this book is NOT uplifting. It reinforces the horrible negative stereotype that women can't live happily ever after carrying a few extra pounds. I love Jude, but if you've ever had any sort of weight problem at all, skip this depressing, stereotype-promoting piece of garbage written by a woman who had obviously never known the feeling of being told, "She has such a pretty face... if only she wasn't so FAT."

Berni A woman who thought only of herself during her life is sent to the 'Kitchen' a place where during your life you weren't bad enough for hell but not god enough for heaven. She is given an assignment...Nellie. Nellie an overweight young woman who loves her family to a fault, eats entire cakes, pies, cookies, etc when she is distressed, which is always. Terel, Nellie's sister is a witch at best. She lies, slanders, demeans and criticizes Nellie at every turn; their no better father is a penny pinching jerk. Nevertheless, Nellie loves them both and believes all of their lies without question. Nellie meets Jace a handsome guy who falls in love with her and not Terel, much to everyone's astonishment. While this guy loves her, Nellie rewards him by not believing and not trusting anything he does or says, even when the evidence is smacking her in the face. The author depicts Nellie as a woman overwieght by approximately 10-20 pounds. If I ate like her, I would be 100-200 pounds overweight. The thing is... this woman never stops or slows down in her eating. (If she loses weight it's not through work or willpower). I like to read stories where in the end the bad guys pay for or at least acknowledge they were bad and apologize. If this occurred, I must have missed that chapter. Lastly, had Berni, (the 'fairy godmother') not intervened, the end result would not have occurred. It had nothing to do with the characters 'finally opening their eyes to the truth' on their own. I was half expecting Nellie to be declared a saint in the end. I personally would have declared her something else. How her sister and father are 'rewarded' for their actions made me sick. I won't be popular with this review and I know it, but I refuse to rate it highly if I don't think it's deserved.

I have only read a few Jude Deveraux's books and had very few expectations for this one. After reading the first few pages, I was completely hooked! The heroine in this story is not your typical damsel in distress. She is a "fat old maid" who looks after her selfish father and sister's needs, who catches the eye of a handsome stranger new in town. Jace is the ultimate hero. He looks beyond the superficial side and see Nellie for who she really is. If anyone is in need of a hero rescuing her, it's Nellie. After many years of enduring and believing the criticisms from her family and people of the town and being a slave in her own household, Nellie needed someone to show her that she is worth much more than what her father, espcially her sister make her out to be. I loved this story. It's really beautiful and is realistic in that most women don't look like the heroines in many romance novels. This story reminds us that we don't have to be "physically perfect" to find our true love. Read it, you'll love it. However, I was disappointed that Nellie's father and sister did not get what should have been coming to them for being such abhorring individuals.

Nellie Grayson was a beautiful, sweet and shy woman who adored her sister very much. She practically raised her sister when their mother died when Terel, her sister was only four years old. She cooked, washed, cleaned , do all the house servant ought to do in order to make her sister and father life easier. No time for romance, no time for her to spend anything at all except to her sister and father.

Then came, Jace Montgomery, who recognized the beauty of Nellie soul not just her overweight appearance. He made Nellie believe that she was also a desirable woman. He made Nellie wished for all the things she had buried years ago. Married and children. But Terel, who hate loses to her sister will fight tooth and nail to win Jace Montgomery although it included trickery and deceit. But fear not, cause with Nellie new ally who really was her fairy godmother, she would found out that she deserved all the happiness and the ultimate dream she hope for, winning Jace Montgomery heart.

A very good book at first but a bad ending . How come Terel, the evil sister, didn't get just a little of punishment for all she had done to made Nellie life miserable by lying and made sure that Nellie had a low opinion about herself, unattractive overweight old maid that did not deserved anybody except being a house servant. She even didn't make any apologize to Nellie. It all end well cause of some hocus pocus from a fairy godmother. Just like that. Mrs. Deveraux lost a bit of her touch in this book. It still a good book to read , lot of laugh and tears, and you can meet the Montgomery's clan again. But don't gave yourself a high expectation when you started read this book, and you won't get a big disappointment in the-end.

Jude Deveraux was my favorite author until this book. I have read every Jude Deveraux novel and somehow had missed this one- Now I wished I had never found it. When I began to read this book I like others was overjoyed at the idea of the heroine being overweight- that was great- about time! Than everything she had done- every good deed she accomplished was destroyed for me in one simple paragraph. It wasn't enough that she found her man, he was good looking he was- a Montgomery! In Deveraux land you are either a Taggart kind of woman or a Montgomery, but neither is such a bad thing. But she had to go and explain his attraction because God know's he had to have a reason to like a fat woman!!!!!!!!!! It couldn't be that he was just a nice person or that he didn't see her outside, no it was because his mother was a large women and all the women he had grown up around were large or excuse me FAT! This has completly destroyed my opinion of Jude Devereux and that hurts'- this is the same women who wrote THE greatest romance novel in history with "Knight in Shining Armor" and who gave us a wonderful character like Michael Taggart in "Sweet Liar". It is a huge disapointment when someone you admire so greatly turns out to be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

If you are looking for a fresh take on historical romance, pick this up. JD combines some unusual plot elements (including time travel, life after death, magic, etc.) with some memorably unique characters to create a masterpiece of a romance novel. Nellie, the heroine, is much more "real" than most leading ladies. She isn't a perfect size 6, or even an 8. The hero, Jace, is a strong, caring Montgomery (of the infamous Montgomeries featured in other JD novels)who has the helps Nellie find the courage to love and live! I laughed out loud during parts of this book!

This book is perfect for all women becuase it shows that a woman does not have to have the perfect body to find a good man. As an overweight woman this book helped to bring up my self esteem. It is what is inside that counts, not what is outside. Big woman are just as beautiful as skinny women and this book shows that by the fact that handsom Jace Montgomery chose shy, sweet, and overweight Nellie over Nellie's skinny sister Terel. Terel is also the type of character that you love to hate because she is so self-centered. This is truely and excellent book and I suggest that all women should read this because as a woman you know what it feels like to inadequate.