Return to Drumveyn (by Alexandra Raife)

(Amazon UK link)

I have been enjoying Alexandra Raife's novels, and am gradually acquiring them all. Each is complete in itself, although 'Return to Drumveyn' includes some characters from previous books.

This one features Cristi, a young woman who was abandoned by her Brazilian mother when she was nine years old, when she was taken to live in Scotland with relatives of her mother's husband's first wife. She has been brought up as a beloved daughter in a farm community called Drumveyn, and has just finished an arts degree course in Edinburgh when she receives some startling news about her Brazilian family.

Until that point Cristi was completely estranged from her birth family, since her grandfather threw her mother out when Cristi was a small girl. She decides, in light of her news, to fly out to Brazil to meet her aunts and uncles. She hopes she might make contact with her mother, or possibly with the maid who looked after her until she was taken to Scotland.

The scene moves to Brazil, where Cristi discovers a completely different lifestyle as part of a wealthy landowning family. In one sense she's spoilt - able to buy anything she likes, with servants and chauffeurs to do her every bidding - but in another sense she feels trapped, missing the freedom she was used to, not able to wander around alone, nor expected to do any kind of work at all. She finds it disturbing too that she can't read the faces of her relatives, although she finds herself very attracted to her charming cousin Luis, who looks after her well.

So Cristi has to decide what to do. Should she stay in Brazil, living at the ranch as part of her genetic family, or should she return to Scotland to the people who brought her up?

Culture shock happens to her at two levels. Firstly there's a big contrast between the culture of a Scottish glen and that of a Brazilian city; secondly there's an even greater difference between a simple life on a farm, albeit with reasonable comforts, and the luxurious lifestyle of the rich. Her values become increasingly important to her as she has to weigh up the love of her adopted family against the strong pull of her nationality and the deep attraction she feels towards her cousin.

'Return to Drumveyn' is perhaps a bit over-crowded with characters and family relationships, particularly in Scotland where the author bases many of her books. Each novel she writes seems to pick up on a minor character from a previous one, and makes mention of people who were featured as main protagonists in earlier books. So there are quite a few to catch up on, as this is her ninth novel.

I've read all the others, although not recently, so I had a vague memory of who was who, and I still found the sheer number of people a bit overwhelming at times. I think this aspect could be really quite confusing for someone who hasn't read Alexandra Raife before. What's more, some of the returning characters seemed to me to be extraneous to the plot.

Still, it was a very enjoyable read. Cristi is a sound and likeable young woman with a good balance of strengths and weaknesses, and I could quite see why she falls for Luis the gorgeous cousin. He contrasts neatly with Dougal, the young farmer in Drumveyn who was Cristi's best friend all through her childhood. I could understand too how she is so struck with her Brazilian ranch, and how torn she feels between her genetic roots and her adoptive family.

Inevitably in a book of this length (it's about 500 pages) there are many subplots running alongside each other, and some controversial issues lightly explored. For instance, Cristi makes contact with an elderly woman who works amongst Brazilian orphan children, and learns a lot about the huge gap between rich and poor in that country. There's also an interesting thread back in Scotland where her adopted brother Nicholas decides he wants to meet his birth mother.

All in all, it's a book about integrity and family values, and although there are a lot of complex marriages and re-marriages referred to, and even a relationship triangle or two, I found it quite heartwarming. The blurb on the back says that it would appeal to fans of Rosamunde Pilcher, and I think that's probably true. Alexandra Raife doesn't write with the brilliance and astuteness of Pilcher, nor does she get in the skins of both the elderly and the very young. But her families are charming, her situations interesting, and the book is a pleasant read for a holiday or a peaceful weekend.

Recommended.