Description

Kay Weston, the efficient buyer for Bradden's Inc., was noted for her keen business sense and her imperturbable calm. However, Kay's famed level-headedness deserted her entirely whenever she found herself in the presence of handsome Royce Bradden, the store's vice-president. And Royce was about to marry a beautiful blonde socialite.

In an effort to get over the pain caused by the announcement of Royce's engagement, Kay took a Florida vacation. She had more excitement than she had anticipated when she was marooned overnight on a small island during a storm, and a talented young painter and a promising young architect both served as an antidote to Royce's memory.

Notes

I was suckered into this one by the dj spine sell: "A CAREER GIRL FINDS SHE IS VULNERABLE IN HEARTS" but there's precious little in the text about her job as a buyer and ad writer for a department store or her ambition to design and build a small housing development. Instead, she's in love with the boss's son from page one and the book consists mainly of her mooning, an odd plotline, wisely unmentioned in the dj summary, about a gang planning to rob the store's fur vault, and a fantasy Florida vacation. It was published in 1943, but I'm wondering whether it was an old ms Gramercy had hanging around the archives: there's not a whisper of war in the whole thing. It's kind of interesting, from a women's career perspective, in that nowhere is it suggested that Kay would have any intention of becoming a stay-at-home wife: even the male MC, who sees how exhausting her current job is, only thinks she'd "be better off for a month's rest". Another point of interest is the department store angle: a surprising number of popular romances from the teens through mid-century feature a leading male character who's the owner of, or heir to, one, which must speak to a different role such businesses played in people's lives/imaginations at the time. (It even made its way into Hollywood: think Ginger Rogers' delightful "Bachelor Mother".) Unfortunately, these elements are (weak) sauce to really bad writing. Should you choose to indulge, you'll be served up lines like:

• "With this new complication in the affairs of Sherill Marsden and Royce Bradden, Kay was almost helpless in the advancing maelstrom of confusing elements."

• "Kay was to remember the next few days as long as she lived for here was life as the really sophisticated glamor girls knew it. Peter Paul was the very answer to a deb's prayer, and he could only see Kay."

• "The wind died down again, and they sat down to their supper of well balanced food."

If any of those whet your appetite and you can't find a copy, hit me up and I'll gladly pass mine along.

Tags

1940s, American, United States, Midwest, United States, Southeast, already taken, architect, beautiful/handsome, big, buyer, cheerful, competent, crime, efficient, f/m, female, intelligent, kidnapped, never love again, romance, selfless, short, single, stranded!, strong, strong f/f friendship, tall, third-person, vacation, workplace, writer, young

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