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To Catch a Butterfly
Kate openly admitted her prejudice against business tycoons. And Damian St. Ewan - despite is attractive, charming and forceful appeal - was a business tycoon. But Kate had always adored Cornwall, and when Damian offered her a two-month job there, she accepted. . . cautiously. When she got there, it came as quite a surprise that a secretarial position was not precisely what Damian had in mind.
- GenresHarlequin RomanceRomance
189 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1977
1 person is currently reading
47 people want to read
About the author
Marjorie Lewty
90 books19 followersMarjorie Lewty, née Lobb, was a British writer of short stories and over 45 romance novels from 1958 to 1999 to Mills & Boon.
She studied at Queen Mary High School in Liverpool, but her plans to study sciences at university were thwarted, when her father died. She was forced to take a hated job at secretary of the District Bank Ltd. from 1923 to 1933, when she married with Richard Arthur Lewty, a dental surgeon of Liverpool. They had one son and one daughter. After her marriage she began to write short stories which were published in magazines. In 1958, she sold her first romance novel to Mills & Boon, and her last novel in 1999.
She studied at Queen Mary High School in Liverpool, but her plans to study sciences at university were thwarted, when her father died. She was forced to take a hated job at secretary of the District Bank Ltd. from 1923 to 1933, when she married with Richard Arthur Lewty, a dental surgeon of Liverpool. They had one son and one daughter. After her marriage she began to write short stories which were published in magazines. In 1958, she sold her first romance novel to Mills & Boon, and her last novel in 1999.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 16, 2018
I don't know wth is up with that cover but it is INSANE. He looks like a hitman about to strangle her with a set of pearls and she looks like she knotted her hair around her neck in an attempt to strangle herself?... Like I said, insane.
The story itself is very conventional. The besotted hero will use every manipulative, financial, emotional and sexual means to catch his butterfly. The heroine is willing to be caught but there is an evil OW who keeps jumping up between the hero's net and his willing victim. As usual, she gets no comeuppance at all, just a nice trip to New Zealand.
We can at least get some satisfaction that the heroine was no doormat, the hero truly loves her, and the dumbass finally saw through OW's facade and he will stop looking down indulgently at her as she insults his wife, like an oblivious uncle gazing adoringly towards his horror of a niece during an embarrassing tantrum :(
The story itself is very conventional. The besotted hero will use every manipulative, financial, emotional and sexual means to catch his butterfly. The heroine is willing to be caught but there is an evil OW who keeps jumping up between the hero's net and his willing victim. As usual, she gets no comeuppance at all, just a nice trip to New Zealand.
We can at least get some satisfaction that the heroine was no doormat, the hero truly loves her, and the dumbass finally saw through OW's facade and he will stop looking down indulgently at her as she insults his wife, like an oblivious uncle gazing adoringly towards his horror of a niece during an embarrassing tantrum :(
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 6, 2016
A very old Harlequin (1977) but surprisingly sweet. The heroine accompanies Hero back to his estate in Cornwall. She thinks she will take up the post of temporary private secretary. While there she finds out that the job is temporary fiancée, and the story moves on from there. Not much action, there is a nasty young OW but not too vicious, secondary love story with the brother and the woman that the Hero wanted to avoid (thus needed a fiancée) of course the heroine makes an excellent job of fiancée and hostess while she runs the Hero's house and entertains his potential investor.
Only down side - yes as a previous reviewer said very unfortunate cover doesn't represent an accurate description of Hero and heroine, just don't look at it if you plan to read this book. I found an ebook on open library.
Only down side - yes as a previous reviewer said very unfortunate cover doesn't represent an accurate description of Hero and heroine, just don't look at it if you plan to read this book. I found an ebook on open library.
May 10, 2018
This was pretty traditional -- misunderstandings, jealousy, OM, OW. The h is tolerant, which is a good thing, because H has a mean streak that isn't going anywhere despite the HEA.
September 22, 2015
The only thing I didn't like about this sweet romance was the cover. The girl is described as having very dark hair and the cover shows a red head. Also the H is a young man and the man on the cover looks like he is over the hill.
September 6, 2024
3+
Another Lewty discovered in the Big Box, so out it comes to be read. Liked this one better than the one read directly before, even. Also, another take on ye olde Fake Engagement trope, woo.
Between the lines is the hero having been sparked by the heroine at first sight--not the inciting moment to declare undying devotion, but certainly she affected him enough to bring her exactly to mind when he needed to invent a fiancee from thin air after only one meeting--and it smoldered the entire book until he finally admits it, lets all the air in, and allows his love to catch fire.
He's also charming and irascible but-not-to-her in that way that really works in a romance dynamic between an unsure, and then sparring, and then attracted, and then contentedly settled in surety couple.
She's a lot of what I enjoy and want in a heroine. Capable without being a paragon, smart without being too clever, stands up for herself while still being vulnerable and needful for him herself.
I liked reading about her taking the running of his household in hand and flourished doing it, and that it healed past ills she'd suffered and allowed her to rethink preconceptions about him. Meanwhile, her running his household so well let him fall even more in love--beyond that spark and their obvious chemistry--let him plan and believe in a future for himself he'd never envisioned before.
The 'young daughter of a neighbor / colleague playing-at-seduction who treats the heroine as a rival' element shows up a lot in vintage harlequins. Not my fave side complication, but here not at its weakest or worst. Two make an appearance in this book; that the one young daughter the hero *thought* he'd needed to outmaneuver with a fake engagement acquitted herself quite nicely was a welcome twist on the device.
I believed in the love story. I liked them both. I'm glad for what both did -for- Nanny that wound up making each better for it themselves in the long run. There's a lot of strong secondary characters, and the Big Business aspect isn't simply wallpaper or vague powerful jet-setting. After all they came through, learned about each other but also themselves, and also that combustible chemistry ready and trusted to kick into full flame -- these two kids are gonna enjoy an excellent HEA.
And whew boy, is the original cover art for this one simply ghastly. lol
Another Lewty discovered in the Big Box, so out it comes to be read. Liked this one better than the one read directly before, even. Also, another take on ye olde Fake Engagement trope, woo.
Between the lines is the hero having been sparked by the heroine at first sight--not the inciting moment to declare undying devotion, but certainly she affected him enough to bring her exactly to mind when he needed to invent a fiancee from thin air after only one meeting--and it smoldered the entire book until he finally admits it, lets all the air in, and allows his love to catch fire.
He's also charming and irascible but-not-to-her in that way that really works in a romance dynamic between an unsure, and then sparring, and then attracted, and then contentedly settled in surety couple.
She's a lot of what I enjoy and want in a heroine. Capable without being a paragon, smart without being too clever, stands up for herself while still being vulnerable and needful for him herself.
I liked reading about her taking the running of his household in hand and flourished doing it, and that it healed past ills she'd suffered and allowed her to rethink preconceptions about him. Meanwhile, her running his household so well let him fall even more in love--beyond that spark and their obvious chemistry--let him plan and believe in a future for himself he'd never envisioned before.
The 'young daughter of a neighbor / colleague playing-at-seduction who treats the heroine as a rival' element shows up a lot in vintage harlequins. Not my fave side complication, but here not at its weakest or worst. Two make an appearance in this book; that the one young daughter the hero *thought* he'd needed to outmaneuver with a fake engagement acquitted herself quite nicely was a welcome twist on the device.
I believed in the love story. I liked them both. I'm glad for what both did -for- Nanny that wound up making each better for it themselves in the long run. There's a lot of strong secondary characters, and the Big Business aspect isn't simply wallpaper or vague powerful jet-setting. After all they came through, learned about each other but also themselves, and also that combustible chemistry ready and trusted to kick into full flame -- these two kids are gonna enjoy an excellent HEA.
And whew boy, is the original cover art for this one simply ghastly. lol
July 16, 2022
Kate had always adored Cornwall, and when the business tycoon Damian St Ewan offered her a job there for two months, she accepted with alacrity. She had taken it for granted that the job was to be a secretarial one, but when she arrived she learned that that wasn't precisely what Damian had had in mind...
January 26, 2025
Spoilers. Good story marred by slow pace and lack of action. Rich H owns quarries, etc in Cornwall, wants very much to re-open a tin mine his family had to close years ago, not just for the profits, but also to bring back employment, so on. He has Canadian magnate coming to visit to look everything over to decide whether to invest and magnate has very lovely daughter who is interested in H.
H decides he needs fiancee and picks h who works at a classy secretarial bureau and who has done work for him before. We can see through story that H was interested in h before this. She wants to move to Cornwall and she wants to help her old nanny whose landlord wants her to move out so he can sell her house. H asks her to come to Cornwall, h assumes for secretarial work, when they get there H tells her he wants her to pretend to be his fiancee.
She is not impressed with rich men - her father went bankrupt and her fiance at the time dumped her - and she thinks H is typical, greedy, money obsessed. However she agrees to help him out and falls in love when she realizes he's got much more than money to offer.
There is a second OW close to home, the daughter of a neighbor/business colleague, who wants the H, warns the h off the first day she is there, and is all-around insulting, contemptuous, treats h like a temporary tart.
Lots of drama that is sadly muted as H's housekeeper's husband, who manages the quarry and is H's good friend, gets badly injured in work accident and the Canadian tycoon and daughter arrive, desperately motion sick, right after H leaves to handle the accident and get his friend to hospital. She does her best to entertain them, offers good meals, so on, and things get much easier when H's younger brother arrives and immediately the daughter and brother fall in love.
Our h doesn't quite know where she stands. Sometimes H is quite loving, but is it just an act? Or does he care for her. Sometimes he's quite nasty and reaches the nadir of mean the night before the Canadians leave and h's role ends. He accuses h of breaking their agreement without explaining what he means, and tries to take her to bed, foiled only by the replacement housekeeper yelling for help to douse a kitchen fire. The h decides H is simply nasty, can't tolerate that she had actively helped him with the Canadian deal.
He leaves with Canadians and so does the neighbor OW and h goes to the cottage H agreed to rent to her nanny. Nanny arrives, they get everything settled and h walks back to H's house in the dark planning to sleep there one more night before leaving.
H is waiting for her. He wants to marry her for real and will she go with him to Scotland tomorrow? The neighbor OW has been feeding him little innuendos and sly bits of poison, claiming h is chasing the local doctor, so on. (H saw local doctor with h as they ran into each other and he gave her a ride home.) He hadn't told her that he was falling in love because you don't take a cudgel to catch an elusive butterfly.
Bog standard fake engagement story, with plenty of interesting minor characters, but too many pages with not much happening between h and H. Slows it down and makes less enjoyable.
Also the cover is hideous, shows the h with her mouth wide open as H puts a string of real pearls around her neck.
H decides he needs fiancee and picks h who works at a classy secretarial bureau and who has done work for him before. We can see through story that H was interested in h before this. She wants to move to Cornwall and she wants to help her old nanny whose landlord wants her to move out so he can sell her house. H asks her to come to Cornwall, h assumes for secretarial work, when they get there H tells her he wants her to pretend to be his fiancee.
She is not impressed with rich men - her father went bankrupt and her fiance at the time dumped her - and she thinks H is typical, greedy, money obsessed. However she agrees to help him out and falls in love when she realizes he's got much more than money to offer.
There is a second OW close to home, the daughter of a neighbor/business colleague, who wants the H, warns the h off the first day she is there, and is all-around insulting, contemptuous, treats h like a temporary tart.
Lots of drama that is sadly muted as H's housekeeper's husband, who manages the quarry and is H's good friend, gets badly injured in work accident and the Canadian tycoon and daughter arrive, desperately motion sick, right after H leaves to handle the accident and get his friend to hospital. She does her best to entertain them, offers good meals, so on, and things get much easier when H's younger brother arrives and immediately the daughter and brother fall in love.
Our h doesn't quite know where she stands. Sometimes H is quite loving, but is it just an act? Or does he care for her. Sometimes he's quite nasty and reaches the nadir of mean the night before the Canadians leave and h's role ends. He accuses h of breaking their agreement without explaining what he means, and tries to take her to bed, foiled only by the replacement housekeeper yelling for help to douse a kitchen fire. The h decides H is simply nasty, can't tolerate that she had actively helped him with the Canadian deal.
He leaves with Canadians and so does the neighbor OW and h goes to the cottage H agreed to rent to her nanny. Nanny arrives, they get everything settled and h walks back to H's house in the dark planning to sleep there one more night before leaving.
H is waiting for her. He wants to marry her for real and will she go with him to Scotland tomorrow? The neighbor OW has been feeding him little innuendos and sly bits of poison, claiming h is chasing the local doctor, so on. (H saw local doctor with h as they ran into each other and he gave her a ride home.) He hadn't told her that he was falling in love because you don't take a cudgel to catch an elusive butterfly.
Bog standard fake engagement story, with plenty of interesting minor characters, but too many pages with not much happening between h and H. Slows it down and makes less enjoyable.
Also the cover is hideous, shows the h with her mouth wide open as H puts a string of real pearls around her neck.
November 1, 2024
The strange cover is not representative as she is dark haired, has a beautiful dignity and is 22. The hero is about 10 years older than her, apparently very attractive, but rather austere. 4 stars because she is a wonderful heroine - capable, caring, smart, beautiful and resilient. The hero was not as likeable. He is clearly besotted, but in an important man of business kind of way. The OW, a petulant 18 year old neighbour, needed some retribution which these older stories often ignore. In some respects the briefly included OM might have made a better hero for her, as the real one had likeable moments but then could flip to mean.
Still I enjoyed it and I’ll try another by this author.
Still I enjoyed it and I’ll try another by this author.
April 3, 2021
Das gehört zu einem der besten Liebesromane, die ich in meiner Jugend gelesen habe. Die meisten Romanheftchen enthalten nur seiche Liebesgeschichten, die entweder sofort langweilen oder nur für die kurze Zeit des Lesens unterhalten und dann sofort vergessen werden. Doch zwischendurch tauchen auch solche Perlen auf.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews