To be where you are (by Jan Karon)

(Amazon UK link)

I fell in love with Jan Karon's ‘Mitford’ books more than two decades ago when my father gave me the first, ‘At Home in Mitford’ for Christmas after enjoying it himself. I liked it so much I gradually acquired the rest of the books about the Episcopalian priest in small town America, known as Father Tim. I watched him learn about being diabetic, was pleased when he adopted a huge dog called Barnabas, and rooted for him all the way when he started courting his next-door-neighbour Cynthia.

There were nine Mitford books originally, ending with 'Light from Heaven', when Father Tim, who had officially retired a few books earlier, begins to accept his role and discover new callings. Then Jan Karon wrote one which involved Tim travelling back to his childhood home and discovering some long-held family secrets. That was followed by a book where he and Cynthia followed up more genealogy clues, on a holiday in Ireland. And then, perhaps due to so many requests from her readers, Jan Karon returned to Mitford, and wrote three more books, focussing more on Tim’s adopted son Dooley and his relationship with Lace.

I was given the last of these books, ‘To be where you are’, for Christmas 2018. But I was determined to read the whole series again before embarking on what is, I’m fairly sure, the last foray into Mitford. So I started again with ‘At Home in Mitford’ in November 2000, aiming to read one every month. That didn’t quite happen, but I’ve finally finished the last book.

‘To be where you are’ is set both in Mitford and in Meadowgate, the farm where Dooley and Lace are now living. Alternate sections follow either Father Tim - or some of his former parishioners - or Dooley (with some insights into Lace’s mind too). It’s a tad confusing at times, but each section is headed with the date and place, and it’s mostly obvious who is being referred to. Dooley and Lace have been married for a few months and are hoping to finalised the adoption of the boy they have been fostering. But life isn’t easy - there are expensive problems with the plumbing, and Lace is very torn between her work as an artist and her life in the family.

Meanwhile Father Tim is asked to help in many different ways in Mitford, taking on a new and unexpected job for a while when one of his friends is taken to hospital. He’s 70 now, but still mostly keeping fit and active, wondering how far to ‘let go’ of Dooley and his siblings, and how much to stay involved. There are one or two new characters, and plenty of old friends.

I enjoyed the book, but it’s not my favourite - it felt a bit too spread out between too many people and storylines. .It wouldn’t be a good introduction to the series since it follows the lives of so many characters from earlier books. I found the number of people a bit confusing at times, and I’m quite familiar with the town. However, as a finale it worked extremely well, bringing several threads together, seeing people move forwards with their lives, and also ending with both Tim and Dooley taking their wives away on holiday… we’re not told exactly where, and it doesn’t matter.

I found it relaxing, compulsive reading at times - there are a couple of quite moving scenes - with some light-hearted moments too, mainly involving the ‘Muse’ newspaper. My favourite characters were the two children who came into focus - four-year-old Jack Tyler and six-year-old Grace Murphy. They were very well written, I thought, and quite different from each other.

Definitely recommended if you’ve read the other Mitford books and feel as if the people are your friends; I love catching up with folk like this, and could almost believe that Mitford and its people exist the other side of the world. But don’t start with this one. It’s a series that really needs to be read in order for the later books to make sense.

Review copyright 2022 Sue's Book Reviews

A Chalet School Headmistress (by Helen Barber)

(Amazon UK link)

I’ve loved the lengthy Chalet School series by Elinor M Brent-Dyer for about five decades now, re-reading them regularly and gradually acquiring more copies of my own. So I was a tad dubious at first when I learned that there were ‘fill-in’ Chalet School books written much more recently by a variety of different authors. I tentatively tried one of them - ‘Deira joins the Chalet School’ early in 2020, and was surprised at how much I liked it, and the way that some of the book truly did seem to fill in gaps in the school saga.

So I ordered a few more 'Girls Gone By' fill-ins that were reasonably inexpensive on Amazon; one of them, which came highly recommended by other fans, was ‘A Chalet School Headmistress’. I hadn’t read anything else by Helen Barber, so wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I sat down to read it a few days ago. I had made a note to read it after ‘Gay from China at the Chalet School’, which I re-read back in June; it didn’t take me long to realise that I should also have re-read ‘Jo to the Rescue’ before ‘Headmistress’. But I didn’t want to stop and go back to it later.

I wasn’t sure about the style in the first couple of chapters; it felt as if the author was trying rather too hard to emulate Brent-Dyer’s writing, with some of her typical words or phrases, yet it didn’t seem entirely authentic. However I kept going, and soon found myself caught up in the storyline; the author’s characterisation skills are good, and I could quite believe in everyone I recognised as an ‘old friend’ from the series.

The Headmistress of the title is Miss Wilson, usually known as ‘Bill’, who takes on the role of acting Head after a nasty accident that happens early in ‘Gay from China’. This particular term, the autumn one, sees Bill in her new role, with more of a focus on her than is found in any of the other books. And I thought it worked very well. There’s quite a bit of plot in this book, and since I hadn’t read it before the stories felt fresh, but could easily have been ideas that Elinor M Brent-Dyer might have come up with.

We see, for instance, the prefects in discussion, and coming up with a very novel idea for a staff ‘evening’, described in some detail just as similar ‘evenings’ are discussed in the original books. There’s an unpleasant incident involving one girl taking revenge on another… something nicely woven into the book, explaining something about a girl who, in a later book, is quite unpleasant to someone else.

Then there’s an incident with an escaped cow, a few night-time wanderings, and a lunch with Joey Maynard which helps one of her nieces. There’s also quite a poignant scene involving one of the staff who suffered a terrible tragedy; it’s referred to in one of the other books, but explored rather further in this one. I thought it sensitively done, and, again, it felt quite in keeping with the official series.

To be picky for a moment, I thought there were too many exclamation marks which should have been removed by the editor. And I felt that the author’s attempt at accents for one or two characters felt forced and unrealistic. But they’re minor issues - and overall I thought this a very enjoyable read, and a useful addition to the Chalet School canon.

As with most of the GGBP editions of these books, there's an introduction; this also has an epilogue by the author, explaining her reasoning behind the book, and a short story that expanded a little on an event in 'Headmistress'. I'm not sure why it wasn't an extra chapter in the book rather than at the end.

I wouldn’t recommend this book as a standalone, but if you are considering adding a few of the fill-ins to an existing Chalet School collection, this is a good one to try. Intended, as were the originals, for older children or teenagers, but currently most likely to be read by adults who appreciated the series in their own childhoods.

Review copyright 2022 Sue's Book Reviews

An Ocean Apart (by Robin Pilcher)

(Amazon UK link)

I discovered Robin Pilcher over twenty years ago; his mother was the better-known late Rosamunde Pilcher, so I was intrigued - and absolutely loved his first novel ‘An Ocean Apart’. I re-read it in 2017, and have just finished reading it for the third time. Happily I had forgotten most of the storyline (other than the bare bones of the plot) and quickly found myself engrossed once more.

It’s quite a long novel, and it features a man called David who must be around forty. He is quite depressed at the start of the novel, having recently lost his wife of 18 years. He is staying with his parents - who are Scottish - and his three children are at boarding school: their choice, not his. He’s been off work since he nursed his wife through her final illness, and has been doing some gardening.

Then a crisis happens at the office and David is told he’s the only person available to visit the United States for an important meeting. His parents think it might be good for him to get away for a few days, but jet-lag and too much drinking get the better of him, and the meeting is a disaster. David falls into an even deeper depression, not helped by having caught the flu…

But he’s a strong character. I liked David very much indeed; Robin Pilcher has a gift of characterisation resembling that of his mother, and all the people in the book seem three-dimensional. David stays longer in the United States than he was planning to, and makes friends there; as an unknown person, doing some gardening as a temporary job, he feels safer than he was back in Scotland where everyone kept expressing sympathy and asking how he was doing.

As well as the story of David’s gradual healing from the worst of his depression, there’s a business thread involving some shady dealings at his father’s company. Some of this went a bit over my head, but it didn’t much matter; it runs alongside the main plot, and provides another dramatic incentive for David to finally pack up and return home.

There’s a low-key romantic thread which doesn’t get resolved until the last few pages; there are some lovely friendships made, there’s a terrific housekeeper character called Jasmine, and some very poignant scenes. The writing is excellent, the plot well-crafted (even if there’s just a tad of coincidence in the final couple of chapters - again a little reminiscent of Rosamunde Pilcher), and the people so well-drawn that I found myself wondering how they were all doing a couple of hours after I finished the book.

Very highly recommended; it’s in the genre of women’s fiction but I don’t see why men wouldn’t like it too, if they want some light character-based reading with nothing too stressful. It would make ideal holiday reading.

Review copyright 2022 Sue's Book Reviews

Persuasion (by Jane Austen)

(Amazon UK link)

It's been a while since I read any books by Jane Austen, and not far off two decades since I last read ‘Persuasion’. But it was chosen for this month’s local book group, after a request for a classic novel, and I read it on my Kindle.

I knew the story, more-or-less, helped by having seen a BBC film production of it in 2019. But as ever, I’d forgotten most of the detail. And, with Jane Austen, there’s a lot of detail! Indeed, I wondered what I had let myself in for as I read the first chapter; it’s long-winded, and really says very little other than that the heroine - Anne Elliot - lost her mother some years ago, has an older sister called Elizabeth and a younger one called Mary, who is married. She also has an extremely snobbish father.

The writer in me is impressed by the way Austen ‘shows’ rather than ‘telling’. It’s typical of her era (she wrote the book in 1815-1816) that her descriptions give not just a vague idea of what a character looks like, but shows them in a typical attitude. In this case. Anne’s father is perusing his favourite book, one that lists all the aristocracy, of which he is (in his mind, anyway) a significant member.

On the other hand, it’s very wordy… coming to the book after such a long period (and after having seen the films more recently) I did wonder just what I was getting into and whether I would manage to wade through in time for the meeting. However, I gradually became caught up in the story, so that the wordiness was no longer distracting.

Anne is a likeable heroine; she’s kind, unassuming, and - which gives the book its title - very persuadable. We soon learn that she broke an engagement eight years earlier to a young naval officer, Frederick Wentworth. Her father and sister didn’t approve, and her close friend Lady Russell also felt the match was unsuitable. Anne hasn’t forgotten him, and has not found anyone she likes nearly as much. So it’s a bit of a shock when she learns that he’s to be in the neighbourhood…

Much of the book is set in Bath, where Anne’s father and sister have gone for a while, to aid their dwindling finances. Anne herself stays with her sister Mary for a couple of months; Mary is married to a nice young man and has two children whom she finds very difficult; but Mary is both garrulous and a complainer, though essentially good-hearted. We see Anne in her role as aunt, as confidante, as someone whom everyone likes but who is often unnoticed.

There’s a large cast of characters, which I found a tad confusing at times. It’s not helped that three of the young men who feature are called Charles. But it didn’t matter too much; I followed Anne’s story, I felt for her confusion, embarrassment and growing rekindling of love, and I appreciated the gentle satire of many of the other characters.

Not my favourite Austen, but I was very glad to have the motivation to re-read ‘Persuasion’; recommended if you like this style of writing. It's widely available in paperback form, and for the Kindle. I downloaded the version I read free from Project Gutenberg.

Review copyright 2022 Sue's Book Reviews

When you went away (by Michael Baron or Lou Aronica)

(Amazon UK link)

I had never heard of Michael Baron, but his book ‘When you went away’ was offered free for the Kindle ten or eleven years ago. So, as the reviews were good, I downloaded it. Today, at least on Amazon, the author of the book is shown as Lou Aronica, with no mention of Michael Baron. So perhaps it was a temporary pseudonym.

I finally started reading the book a few days before returning home from six weeks away, and finished it on my flight. It’s a very readable book with quite engaging characters, and a pleasant (if slightly predictable) storyline.

The narrator, a man around forty called Gerry, starts by recounting a poignant dream, where he was with his wife Maureen when they were much younger. We quickly learn that they were happily married for nearly twenty years, with a teenage daughter and a new baby son. He was quite a surprise, but very welcome.

We also learn that Gerry is in the depths of despair. His daughter has vanished - we only gradually learn the circumstances - and his wife died shortly before the book starts. The only thing that keeps Gerry going is the necessity of looking after his young son, and he’s not finding it at all easy. He has had compassionate leave from his job but he knows he needs to return, so he’s trying to find a suitable babysitter…

It’s an emotive start to the story, and I found Gerry a three-dimensional, believable character. He isn’t sure how to deal with the constant questions about how he’s feeling, and how he’s coping… and he’s definitely not ready to leave his young son in the hands of a stranger. The book charts his beginning to move on, helped in part by a colleague who clearly likes him in a way that, she hopes, will become more than friendship in time…

It’s a character-driven plot, one which I thought was very sensitively done and unusual in being from the point of view of a man; most books of this kind are written by women, featuring women as the main protagonists. Not that it matters - I was quickly drawn into the storyline, appreciating Gerry’s confusion at times, his guilt about even thinking of starting a new relationship, and his constant worry about his daughter.

I didn’t know how it was going to end - misunderstandings arise, as in all the best romance books, and it wasn’t until the last chapters that the various threads started neatly tying themselves in place. Possibly the climax and ending were a tad too contrived, but it didn’t worry me; I’d much rather have a predictably satisfactory ending than a traumatic or shocking one.

The writing drew me in, and most of the characters felt believable. Overall I enjoyed the book very much; it was difficult to put down once I’d reached about the mid-point. Recommended if you like this kind of novel. I think of the style as women’s fiction, but don’t wish to be sexist. Whatever your gender, this is a poignant, well-written romantic book.

Review copyright 2022 Sue's Book Reviews