Nora Roberts – All the possibilities

The third book in the MacGregor series, published August 1, 1985.
Genre: contemporary romance
Cover: typical, but I have a duology, called The MacGregors Alan – Grant. I like that cover better.



Shelby Campbell's father, a promising politician, had been assassinated years before. Since then, Shelby avoided politics entirely. Then she met persistent, persuasive Alan MacGregor--and the stubborn Scot was a senator!! How could she resist a man who courted her with rainbows - and whose passion proved that anything was possible?


A typical Nora Roberts book; I really enjoyed the heroine Shelby. She is an artist, lives as she pleases and refuses to be bored. Her father was a Senator, running for President, when he was murdered in front of his children. Shelby adored her father, she was only eleven, but she was determined to live life to the fullest, and never marry a politician. She would not risk that kind of heartbreak again. Nor would she be molded to be a polished politician’s wife.
But when she met Alan MacGregor, another Senator who would undoubtedly run for President one day, she had to make the hardest decision of her life. She told him in no uncertain ways that she was not interested in him, in dating him, going out with him, but Alan did just not take no for an answer, and forced his way in her life and in her heart.
He knew that Shelby was the one for him, and he would have her as his wife. Sure, she was nothing like the cool blondes he usually dated, poised and elegant, Shelby was fire and life and unique. But he had to overcome her fear to get her to accept.


I liked Shelby a lot, determined to go her own way, not giving in to pressure. But I had a hard time with liking Alan. I know this is an 80’s book, but he really did not take no for an answer. He kept pushing and sometimes pushing to far. He did not accept her reasons. In my eyes, even if the woman loves you and desires you, no means no, and just pushing on, bedroom wise until she gives in at last, is just not the right thing to do.


It is just a short story, so Alan did not have all that much time to sway Shelby with more gentle ways, but it pushed the wrong buttons for me. I did love it when Shelby and Alan visited the MacGregor castle though, and the MacGregor tried to intimidate her with his loud ways, but as a true Campbell, Shelby was not afraid of him and stood up against him. He loved her for that, and accepted her in his family immediately. But Alan still had to make her accept his proposal at that time.
But well, what woman can say no to a man who gives her a rainbow instead of the standard roses?

I have read this book in Dutch, many years ago, and now I am slowly making my way through Nora’s backlist in English. And I am afraid I will never catch up with the pace she writes in. But like Alan, I will persevere.

6 stars.

© 2014 Reviews by Aurian