In my quest to read through Madeleine L’Engle’s novels for teenagers, I finally reached the fifth in the Austin Family series, ‘Troubling a Star’. I had no idea what to expect: the first book in the series is introductory, the second mainly involves a camping trip around the United States. The third, ‘The Young Unicorns’, is set in New York and is a thriller, and the fourth, ‘A Ring of Endless Light’, is a poignant story of bereavement and growing love.
However, I was still a little surprised when the opening paragraph of the first (and several other) chapters sees Vicky Austen, who narrates the books, alone on an iceberg in the Antarctic. As gradually becomes apparent, this is no dream, or fantasy… she really is there, getting colder and colder, wondering how much longer she can survive.
The bulk of the book takes place some months earlier, however, and gradually leads up to the point at which Vicky is in this life-threatening situation. She isn’t quite sixteen at the chronological start of the novel. However she’s feeling somewhat out of place in the high school she has returned to, after a couple of years living elsewhere. She loves English literature, particularly Shakespeare and poetry, but has a hard time making friends, and doesn’t find much else to like in her school.
Her friend Adam Eddington, who appeared in an earlier book, comes to visit his great-aunt who lives quite near the Austins. He thinks Vicky would like her - and, indeed, the two become friends almost immediately despite the huge age gap. Vicky misses her grandfather, whom she lost in the summer, and finds Adam’s great aunt to be a fascinating, thinking person - perhaps the only person she can relax with.
Adam, meanwhile, is off on his research in marine biology, travelling to Antarctica. And since we know from the brief prologues to most of the chapters, Vicky gets the opportunity to go there too. But it’s not straightforward, and she receives some rather strange warnings.
A large part of the book covers Vicky’s travels to Antarctica, getting to know several of her fellow passengers on the ship which will take her there. There’s quite a political element to the book; Vicky herself is rather ignorant about world politics, but is aware that some world leaders can be corrupt, or at least power-hungry. And there’s a strong theme about ecology and the importance of preserving the Antarctic rather than trying to drill for oil or encourage too many tourists.
I was slightly confused that Madeleine L’Engle introduces two imaginary countries amongst the real ones. There’s a small European country with a prince who is on the trip. There’s also a small fictional South American country called Vespugia, in between Argentina and Chile, which is quite significant in the book. They’re done well - so much so that I even looked one of them up to see if it had ever existed, or if it was a region of one of the known countries. But the only references online were to these books.
I assumed, since Vicky narrates, that she is eventually rescued from the iceberg, but I was intrigued to discover how she arrived there - and as she becomes more desperate, the book becomes more tense. I found it quite hard to put down by the time I was half-way through. The pace is excellent, in my view.
As with most of L’Engle’s books there are a few low-key references to the Christian faith; in this one, angels are mentioned several times. ‘Angels watch over you’ is a farewell greeting used several times and Vicky writes some poems about angels. This makes a nice contrast to some of the more tense parts of the novel, and I don’t think it would be a problem for anyone who does not believe in angels.
While it’s probably best to read this after the earlier four books in the series, as some characters (particularly Vicky’s family, and also Adam) were introduced there, it’s not essential. This book stands alone, and I thought it worked very well.
Recommended to teenagers, and adults who like reading teen fiction.
Review by Sue F copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews
We have a large collection of Agatha Christie's novels, mostly acquired when my sons were teenagers. I have read most of them, but there are some I have never read, or which I read so long ago that I have entirely forgotten them. Last year I decided I would read some of them, interspersed with other books, and I have finished about seven or eight. On the whole I liked them, but I can’t say I looked forward to reading another.
This time I tried ‘One, two, buckle my shoe’, which sounded interesting. Each chapter is headed by a line from the nursery rhyme, and Hercule Poirot, who is involved right from the start, think about the different lines and particularly a shoe buckle…
We first meet Poirot feeling nervous as he goes for a dental appointment. He sees various other patients, and has his treatment, and spots a lady wearing a buckled shoe getting out of a taxi. He chats to the boy who opens the door (a fan of crime fiction), and to some of the other people in the waiting room. And then he leaves, feeling relieved… only to learn, later in the day, that someone has died. The police think it was probably by the person’s own hand, but Poirot’s instincts are against this. He is convinced that a crime has been committed…
The book follows the usual course of Christie’s crime fiction. Possible suspects are interviewed, various red herrings are followed, and more than one other person dies later in the book. I find this style works well in the author’s country home stories, where there are only half a dozen or so very different people, any of whom could have done the deed; usually the prime suspect then loses their life, and is thus ruled out. The boundaries are clear in most of those books, and I can often work out what happened, and who was the perpetrator.
However this book involved (in my view) rather too many people. Agatha Christie wrote excellent plots, but her characterisation was not particularly good. Poirot certainly has plenty of character, but I found the various suspects rather two-dimensional and difficult to distinguish. Amongst the patients there’s a wealthy (but unassuming) businessman, a lady who used to be a missionary, someone from the Home Office, and a dubious Greek man.
Then there are household staff, there’s a second dentist, and two young men who are interested in girls, rather to the dismay of the girls’ families or friends. I found that if I put the book down for a few hours I had forgotten who was whom… and I didn’t much care.
There’s a lot of politics involved too, and mention of people meeting abroad, or on ships. Poirot’s memory is excellent and he never forgot anything, but I found myself skimming too often, and probably missing significant parts.
On the whole, I found myself less than enthusiastic about this book, and also feeling that I need to take a break from crime fiction. It’s not a genre I particularly like anyway. Having said that, I found it difficult to put down in the last few chapters, as I was interested to find out what had happened. When Poirot - as is inevitable - explains what happened, and who did the deed, and for what reason, I could see that it was very cleverly planned. But there weren’t really sufficient clues for me to have worked it out, and the motivation was only there if a very minor incident had been seen as significant.
It’s not a bad read, but I wouldn’t recommend it as an introduction to Agatha Christie’s books.
Review by Sue F copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews
I very much liked Alexandra Raife’s novels the first time I read them, in the first few years of the century. She wrote twelve in all, and I acquired some of them soon after they were available in paperback. I have been re-reading them over the past couple of years, and have reached the final one again, ‘Promises to Keep’. I last read it in 2005 and had totally forgotten what it was about.
The story is mainly about a young woman called Miranda. We see her first in a prologue at the airport, awaiting Ian, who is evidently her former husband. Some crisis has struck their daughter… but we don’t learn what has happened until much later in the book.
The first proper chapter takes us back to the time when Ian and Miranda, still students, got married. They had been best friends for most of their lives, so this wasn’t a sudden decision: but, as Miranda acknowledges later, they hadn’t really thought through what the commitment of marriage meant. And then she becomes pregnant, unintentionally, and things start to go downhill in her relationship with Ian.
It’s a character-based book, sometimes dipping into the past, where we see Ian and Miranda, both comfortably off and popular, very keen on skiing and other sports. Ian’s childhood home was not as happy or comfortable as Miranda’s; his father was grumpy, his mother died when he was young, and he has two rather strange aunts.
But most of the book follows, in a gentle and somewhat rambling way, Miranda’s life over the next twenty years. We see her pregnancy and then the difficult first months with a demanding, colicky and very angry baby. The author piles on as many problems as possible: baby Alexy is difficult to feed, doesn’t grow very fast, and cries so much that Miranda is permanently exhausted. A far cry from the happy, chuckling baby her parents had hoped for.
And it doesn’t get easier. Other than a few gummy smiles, Alexy is a most unrewarding child. Even her grandmother finds her hard to like, as she fights her way through the toddler years, offering no affection, and no appreciation of anything. She is clearly very bright, but makes no friends, and clings tight to her mother despite apparently despising her.
Miranda inwardly blames herself for the way her daughter has turned out, but outwardly blames Ian for leaving when he did. On his rare visits, she fights with him and Alexy rejects him. Alexy is really the most dislikeable child. I felt sorry for her at times, but she is so unfailingly obnoxious that I soon lost all sympathy. I’m not convinced anybody could be quite so unpleasant, no matter how bad the parenting was - and Miranda and Ian did their best, despite difficult circumstances.
There are many other sub-plots, as Miranda gradually gets to know some of Ian’s relatives and other folk are introduced. I liked the gentle, academic Will who moves into her life for a while, and his sons Adam and Tim who are the direct opposite of Alexy in almost every way: pleasant, friendly, likeable lads, although their mother was considerably worse than Miranda in many respects.
The ending, which happens a tad too abruptly for my tastes, is entirely satisfactory in one respect. However it never resolves the problem of Alexy, or what is going to happen to her in future. Miranda is encouraged to let go, to see her as an adult, and to accept that she will make her own decisions; but I found the whole relationship with Alexy (and Alexy herself) to be quite disturbing. But then it’s a mark of skilled writing to elicit such a strong response from a reader about any character.
There are odd mentions of people from the author’s previous novels, enabling readers to catch up on what has happened to them in passing; but it’s certainly not necessary to have read any of her other books before this one. Overall I enjoyed it, and found it quite difficult to put down once I was about half-way through.
Recommended if you like character-based women’s fiction. Not currently in print, but it's the kind of book that is fairly often found second-hand online or in charity shops.
Review by Sue F copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews
I’m not entirely sure how or when this book arrived on our shelves. I don’t think I’d heard of the authors, Stephen Murgatroyd and Ray Woolfe before. Perhaps it was recommended to me somewhere; our copy looks as though it came from a second-hand shop, or perhaps Amazon Marketplace. In any case, I decided that ‘Helping Families in Distress’ could be an interesting book to read, and started it a little over a month ago.
It’s quite heavy going, despite being written for ordinary people rather than professional counsellors. The subtitle is, ‘An Introduction to Family Focussed Helping’. The aim is to advise anyone working with - or befriending - families going through a difficult patch, circumstances which they consider stressful. More than once I remembered ‘Families and how to survive them’, the excellent book by Robin Skynner and John Cleese, while reading it, although the style is totally different.
Each chapter of the book looks at different aspects of helping. It starts by discussing the ways in which people - and families - can become stressed. It points out, helpfully, that what stresses one family may be no problem at all to a different one; that it’s the sensation of distress which is significant not necessarily the circumstances themselves. Having said that, some events such as bereavement or divorce are likely to cause serious stress for almost anyone.
The assumption is made that people reading the book are likely to agree to help a family for a set period; later in the book there is discussion of ‘contracts’. These are not intended in the sense of legally binding documents, but setting out timeframes, expectations and boundaries. Much is made of boundaries in the book: the importance of having them in any relationship, and the ways in which helpers must determine how much - or how little - they will become involved with each family member, and with the family as a whole.
Examples are given of the ways in which families function, and what can add to or reduce distress. The style is friendly but, in places, technical. Some of the jargon - transference, projection, and so on - was familiar to me already, but it was interesting reading from a new perspective.
I found I couldn’t read more than three or four pages at a time; although it’s not a long book, the typeface is fairly small and the lines close together. I was particularly interested in some of the examples given of stressful situations and what was done to solve, or at least find a starting point to solve the problems. But it wasn’t written in a way that stuck; each day when I picked the book up, I had to re-read the previous page to remind myself of what was said.
I think it’s a useful book, on the whole. For anyone in the situation of wanting to help a family in crisis, without any professional training and with no knowledge of the topic, this could provide a good starting point. But it is quite academic in style, and as it was published in 1985 it’s quite dated too. Family stresses don’t change, but expectations do, and some of the suggestions and ideas may no longer be appropriate.
Long out of print, but this book can probably be found in second-hand shops, or in online marketplaces.
Review by Sue F copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews
I can’t remember how I first heard of this book. I wasn’t familiar with Shauna Niequist; perhaps I saw a recommendation on a blog, or even Facebook. In any case, I liked the sound of ‘Present over Perfect’, and put it on my wishlist. Relatives gave it to me for Christmas, and I have just finished reading it.
The subtitle to the book is, ‘Leaving behind frantic for a simpler, more soulful way of living’. I don’t live my life at anything approaching a frantic pace, but I liked the idea of a simpler, more soulful way of life. However this isn’t a book of instructions, or even recommendations. Instead, it’s a revealing look into the author’s own lifestyle changes over the past few years.
Shauna Niequist is a self-acknowledged extravert who lives her life in a way that made me tired just reading about it. She lives in Chicago with a husband and two young boys, but used to spend every moment of her day being active for other people. She travelled a fair amount, too, leaving her family behind. And it began to take its toll on her health, and on the whole family.
So she made some important decisions, and lifestyle changes. She started saying ‘no’ to invitations, and making an effort to be present with her family and other loved ones, rather than trying to please strangers. She acknowledges that this was very difficult at times; she liked a busy, travelling lifestyle. But, some years on, she is finding her life far more satisfying, and her relationships stronger, as she lives at a simpler pace.
Even though most of the content wasn’t directly relevant to me, the writing style flows well and I found it a very interesting book to read. There are nuggets of wisdom that I took to heart, here and there. And I found it encouraging, too. Sometimes people look at me and think I’m rather boring, doing almost nothing. But it’s the right place for me currently, and that’s what matters.
There’s an emphasis on hospitality which I appreciated, although I was a bit daunted reading about the large crowds whom the author feeds, and her effortless production of food. But the principles are good. The author also touches on simplicity in getting rid of extraneous stuff: probably we all have too many possessions, although having moved internationally a few times we’ve reduced ours several times.
The book is divided into short sections - each chapter no more than about four or five pages. So it was easy to read in odd moments, and most chapters gave me something to think about or appreciate. The author is a Christian; there are sections about praying, and following Jesus, which wouldn’t appeal to everyone. But there’s a great deal in this book that could be of value to anyone wanting to slow down an over-busy life.
Towards the end of the book I found it a tad repetitive in places, but overall I liked it very much.
Review by Sue F copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews
I have been quite a fan of the late Terry Pratchett’s books for close to thirty years. I have his entire Discworld series, which I plan to re-read over the next few years. I suppose it was nearly six years ago that I learned about the book ‘A Blink of the Screen’, which contains a selection of the author’s shorter writings. Reviews were good so I put it on my wishlist, and was given it for Christmas 2013. Yes, that is more than five years ago. It has sat on my to-be-read shelf, until a week ago when I decided to read it.
The book is quite an eclectic mixture, with some even more random colour illustrations in a couple of places. It starts with a short story written when Terry Pratchett was only thirteen. His talent shines through even at that age. It’s a clever plot, very well written, with an excellent command of language. Other pieces progress through his young adult life, with brief explanations at the beginning about why they were written and where (if relevant) they were published. Some have links to his books.
Some of the stories are frankly bizarre, even by Pratchett standards. There’s a peculiar story about Christmas cards come to life, for instance, and a somewhat disturbing one about a writer who kills off his main character, only to find this character on his doorstep the following morning. There’s a lengthy science fiction one about multiple worlds, and one about virtual reality. There were one or two I read twice and still didn’t really understand.
In the last third of the book are some Discworld stories. Only in fact three real stories, one of which I had seen elsewhere. I particularly liked the one about Granny Weatherwax deciding to be ‘nice’.. It was amusing and thought-provoking at the same time. At the back of the book there is an appendix with a ‘deleted scene’ from that story; I could see why it was deleted as it didn’t really add to the main story, but it was well worth reading.
Other Discworld writings include medical terminology and conditions - I particularly liked the idea of Attention Surplus Syndrome - and the Ankh-Morpork national anthem, which contains parts where people aren’t even supposed to know the words. These were mildly amusing, but not what I would call stories. There’s a committee meeting of wizards giving a scene rather than a real story, and there’s a speech made by Lord Vetinari. I appreciated these because of my long-standing experience of the Discworld, but to anyone unfamiliar with the series, these short pieces would probably seem puzzling, or irrelevant.
On the whole, then, I very much liked this book and am glad I finally decided to read it. But I wouldn’t recommend it as an introduction to Pratchett; it’s more for fans who like his style and who know the Discworld and its inhabitants reasonably well.
Review by Sue F copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews
I recently finished my gradual re-read of Elinor M Brent-Dyer’s lengthy Chalet School series. So I decided that this year I will read her lesser-known ‘La Rochelle’ series, which has only nine books. I read two or three of them as a teenager, which I enjoyed very much. I have gradually acquired them over the past few years from various sources. The hardbacks are quite hard to find, and they were never published in the Armada abridged versions, so my collection is a mixture of hardback re-prints and more recent ‘Girls Gone By’ publications.
‘Gerry Goes to School’ is the first in the series, and I have a hardback edition of that. I don’t think I have ever read it before, although I might possibly have done as a child. It was Brent-Dyer’s first published book, so is significant from a historic point of view. For a debut novel it is well-written and interesting, but inevitably she matured as a writer over the next decades.
The story is mainly about eleven-year-old Geraldine, who was orphaned at a young age and has been living with two great-aunts. They are fond of her, but very old-fashioned, and she has been reared with correct slang-free language, and taught by a governess who taught by rote and books which were out of date at the time. However they must travel abroad, and want to leave her in the UK. So they get in contact with a nephew to see if he will take her in.
Rev Arthur Trevenner is the father of a long family - he and his wife have ten children, all still living at home although Paul and Margaret have left school. I found the sheer number of names rather overwhelming at first, but by the end of the book had worked them out. Helen (Nell) and Lawrence are older teenagers; Jill and Bernard are 14-year-old twins. Sheila and Cecil are about nine and ten, and the ‘babies’, Elizabeth and Geoff, do not yet go to school. They seem to be about five and three respectively.
So, adding another child isn’t a problem and they agree to give her a home for eighteen months. This is rather frightening for Gerry who has lived a very isolated life. She speaks in formal language, not understanding the ‘slang’ which is used almost continually by the Trevenner family, including words which are frowned upon in the Chalet School books.
Gerry’s education has been rather mixed too, but she quickly makes friends at the school, and seems to settle in surprisingly easily. The family all like her too, other than Jill who takes an extreme dislike to Gerry, for no apparent reason.
It’s mainly a school story, so there are several incidents in classrooms, and plenty of school life. I presume these are reasonably authentic as the author was herself educated privately, and also taught in several schools as a young woman. There are far too many names - something which I tend to skim over in the Chalet School books, too - as lists are given of those travelling on trains, or playing in matches - but the main characters have distinct personalities, and I found myself interested to know how Jill and Gerry would eventually resolve their differences.
There is, perhaps inevitably, a dramatic finale - not long after another frightening scene - but, as I expected, all ended satisfactorily.
I don’t quite understand how this can be first in the ‘La Rochelle’ series, as it doesn’t take place in La Rochelle at all, unless I have misunderstood something. I recognise some of the names - the Atherton family, in particular - some of whom are mentioned in some of the Chalet School books. And Gerry herself, in later life, becomes friendly with Grizel Cochrane of Chalet School fame. So perhaps more will become clear as I read the rest of the series over the next year.
Recommended in a low-key way for anyone who likes school stories set in this era. Not currently in print, and second-hand copies are often highly priced online, but it can sometimes be found in charity shops.
Review by Sue F copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews
Re-reading gradually through my Georgette Heyer books, I came to ‘Black Sheep’, which I last read in 2008. I had mostly forgotten the story, although it gradually came back to me as I reached the latter part of the book. As with most of Heyer's novels, this is set in Regency England.
The main character is Abigail (Abby) Wendover, a young woman of twenty-eight who feels herself past the age of falling in love. She is comfortably off, and lives in Bath with her much older sister Selina, and their orphaned niece Fanny. Fanny is seventeen and has not yet had a London season, but has fallen in love with a handsome young man called Stacy Calverleigh.
When the story opens, Abby has just returned from six weeks staying with her other sisters. She is shocked to learn about Fanny’s infatuation and her determination to marry Stacy as soon as possible. Abby’s brother James is Fanny’s official guardian, and will not give consent; so as Fanny is under age (by four years) Stacy tries to persuade her to elope with him to Scotland.
In the meantime, Stacy’s uncle Miles arrives on the scene. Miles has been living and working in India for the past twenty years, and some scandal is attached to his past. He meets Abby and they don’t much like each other at first, but quickly discover a shared sense of humour, and a willingness to defy some of society’s conventions. Miles has not seen Stacy since he was very small, and has little interest in him.
Abby is quite rebellious against some of the restrictions against women of her era. She is also extremely fond of Selina, who is not very intelligent, but rather a stickler for society’s rules. So she generally wears a pleasant mask, and puts up with considerable boredom in her daily life. So she very quickly starts to appreciate the verbal sparring she can indulge in with Miles as well as his honesty, even if it sometimes makes him seem abrupt, even rude.
As with all Heyer’s novels, the writing is just the right pace for my tastes. There are well-developed main characters, and minor ones nicely caricatured so as to make them memorable. Some of the conversation is quite amusing; she had a gift for satire, and I very much enjoyed some of Abby and Miles’ exchanges. The story is partly about Abby’s growing realisation that she feels a lot more for him than friendship, despite his complete unsuitability as a potential husband. It’s also about their attempt to separate Fanny from Stacy - who only wants to marry her because she is an heiress - without breaking her heart.
I liked Abby very much and could appreciate her internal battle to stay in harmony with those she loved, while not necessarily following society’s expectations. However I didn’t much like Miles; he has a good sense of the ridiculous and was very much in rapport with Abby, but his former way of life, and his total disregard for his relatives - and anyone else he didn’t like - didn’t appeal to me at all. His eventual help in Abby’s problem is amusing, but also rather sordid; it seems very odd that Abby would not recoil from becoming involved with him.
I also felt that the ending was a bit disappointing. Circumstances intervene before Fanny has a chance to do what she might regret, and then Miles takes action in a way that feels very overbearing, even if done in an amusing way.
It’s still a good book, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did last time I read it. Widely available second-hand, regularly re-printed, and also available in Kindle form.
Review by Sue F copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews
I do like re-reading my Noel Streatfeild books. They were my comfort reading as a teenager… and remain so even today. I acquired ‘Caldicott Place’ at the end of January 1974 and have probably read it at least once every nine or ten years since then. Possibly more. Yet despite having read it at least five or six times, I had mostly forgotten the storyline until I was about a quarter of the way through.
I read it almost in one sitting. Streatfeild’s books were intended for older children or young teens, and it only has about 160 pages. But I was caught up in the characters immediately.
The Johnstone family were comfortably off and happy, we learn, until their father has a nasty car accident. Bill, the eldest boy, is almost thirteen when this tragedy happens. Carol is eleven-and-a-half, and Tim is nearly eight. They have a dog called Jelly whom they all love, but he is primarily Tim’s dog. Bill is something of a science nerd, and Carol is a ballet dancer; not one of Streatfeild’s utterly focussed and brilliant potential ballerinas, but quite talented. She hopes to do some kind of dancing professionally when she’s an adult.
The car accident was not their father’s fault, but he is unconscious for a while, and when he starts to recover from his physical injuries, he seems to have changed personality. No longer loving and enthusiastic, he seems to see everyone through a fog of apathy. Carol and Tim aren’t even allowed to see him in hospital; Bill and his mother are very worried. Finances prove a problem too, so they have to move somewhere small and poky so that their mother can go out to work rather than looking after their large house. That means different schools, different dancing classes, and - worst of all - Jelly has to be left with the people who rent their house.
Then something astonishing happens - something so unexpected that the family doesn’t know quite what to make of it, and I hadn’t remembered it coming. There’s the chance of moving out into the countryside, so long as they are willing to take on the added responsibility of three paying guests, children of around the same ages as the three Johnstones, who for various reasons have no real home.
It’s a character-based story, with the underlying theme of their father’s slow, often tentative moves in positive directions. There are some caricatures, of course, and while the children are fairly three-dimensional, they have similarities to children in Streatfeild’s other books. Sophie, the youngest of the paying guests, for instance, reminded me a lot of Lydia in the ‘Gemma’ series.
There’s gentle humour in some of the interactions, and one or two parts that are unexpectedly moving. It’s dated, of course; published in the 1960s there are overtones of sexism and racism and a definite class-consciousness. But Streatfeild’s stories aren’t concerned with these; they are a (probably realistic and most likely unconscious) background to some of the scenes rather than anything deliberate.
Recommended to anyone from the age of about eleven and upwards who enjoys a good, character-driven story about changing circumstances. Or to adults like me who loved these books as children.
'Caldicott Place' is often found in charity shops, but also reprinted from time to time.
Review by Sue F copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews
I have loved everything I have read by Rosamunde Pilcher, and have most of her books on my shelves. Re-reading them is always a joy; her characterisation is so good that I usually feel as if I’m slipping into a reunion with old friends. However, I have just re-read ‘Voices in Summer’, which I last read in 2008. And while I liked it very much, I could not remember anything about it.
Indeed, after the first three or four chapters, I could almost have sworn I had never read it before. The story is about Laura, who is in her late thirties, and we meet her just emerging from a doctor’s surgery. Laura, we quickly learn, is happily - but fairly recently - married to Alec. Alec is rather older than she is, and was married before, to the glamorous horse-made Erica. They had a daughter, Gabriel, whom Alec has not seen since his wife left him six years earlier.
Alec and his friends have a regular summer break together in Scotland, where they fish and shoot and enjoy the countryside. Laura is not looking forward to going, because his friends were all close friends of Erica’s, and she finds it hard to get on with them. Now her doctor has told her that she must have minor surgery - we never learn exactly what the problem is - and that she must not travel to Scotland afterwards.
We meet Phyllis, too, Laura’s beloved aunt who brought her up when her parents died. I l liked Phyllis, but after a chapter showing their interactions, when Laura goes to see her, Phyllis doesn’t come into the story again. I’m not entirely sure why she was introduced so thoroughly, unless it was to demonstrate some of Laura’s background, and why Laura is - other than Phyllis - rather alone in the world. She has no other relatives at all.
Alec, by contrast, has quite a number of relatives; we meet a few of them in passing, but the ones who agree to look after Laura while she recuperates are his uncle Gerald and his wife Eve. I didn’t quite understand why it was fine for Laura to travel to Cornwall but not to Scotland, as the distances would have been similar; but perhaps it was because Eve is good at looking after people, and the atmosphere is warm and relaxing, while Alec’s friends in Scotland certainly wouldn’t want to be burdened with an invalid.
Most of the story takes place in Cornwall, while Laura gradually recovers her health and strength, in the company of Eve’s son Ivan, who lives in the nearby lodge. We meet the bohemian Drusilla with her grubby baby Joshua; the elderly former nursemaid May (although I’m not sure why she was so very old, gnarled and forgetful as it turns out that she is only 78), and their rather lonely neighbour and friend Silvia. Eve is warm-hearted and kind, and loves to gather people in need around her; Gerald is wealthy enough that she can do so, although it is sometimes emotionally exhausting for her.
A slight twist to the story involves a very unpleasant series of anonymous notes, with suspicion cast on various people before the truth is revealed. It’s not a detective story; I had guessed the perpetrator fairly quickly (or perhaps recalled them subconsciously from a former re-reading, although I still didn’t recognise the plot or people.) But it’s very well done, outlining the dangers of suspicions, of jumping to conclusions, and of the possibility of mental illness striking unawares.
It’s not a long book; just over 200 pages in paperback, and I read it over about three days. It’s not my favourite Rosamunde Pilcher, and perhaps the characters and plot are not particularly memorable. But that has one big advantage that in another ten years or so I should be able to read it again as if for the first time. As with all this author’s books the characters feel realistic, the conversation if a tad long-winded mostly advances the story well, and the descriptions are exactly right (at least, from my perspective) to paint an overview of the surroundings, without being over-detailed or dull.
Recommended. This book can often be found in charity shops, but I'm delighted to see that it has been reprinted in paperback in the UK, and that it is also available in Kindle form on both sides of the Atlantic.
Review by Sue F copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews
