A secret garden affair (by Erica James)

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I have liked all the books I’ve read by Erica James, since my husband first gave me some of her books over twenty-six years ago. She’s quite a prolific writer of character-based novels, and I usually acquire each one after it is published as a paperback. I was given ‘A secret garden affair’ for Christmas 2023 but had not read it until the past few days, as I was slowly re-reading my collection of Erica James’ books at a rate of about one per month.

The main character in this book is a likeable young women called Libby. She’s in her late twenties, and we meet her on her way to stay at Larkspur House. The novel is set in 1981, so the whole country is obsessed with the upcoming wedding between Prince Charles and Lady Diana.  Libby is taking refuge after she caught her fiancé in bed with her best friend, three weeks before her wedding. She feels betrayed and deeply hurt, and knows she will be welcomed, loved and not judged by Elfrida and Bess, two women in their late seventies. 

Big sky (by Kate Atkinson)

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I hadn’t previously read anything by Kate Atkinson. But she’s a bestselling author, and her book ‘Big sky’ has several positive recommendations on the cover. I understand that it’s fifth in a loose series involving a private investigator called Jackson Brodie, but it isn’t necessary to have read the earlier ones. 

I doubt if I would have picked this up even if I’d seen it secondhand, but it was this month’s read for our local book group. So I bought it (used) last year, and have been reading it over the past week. It’s quite a long book - nearly 500 pages in my paperback edition - and we’ve been quite busy with guests. 

In addition, it really didn’t grab me. If it hadn’t been for the upcoming book group, I would probably have given up after about fifty pages. The first chapter is gripping: two Polish girls are video chatting with a man in the UK who is promising to find them work in hotels in London. They’re quite wary, but everything seems authentic. And he’s even going to pay for their flights. At the end of the chapter, we learn that he is not who he says he is…

Listening to God (by Joyce Huggett)

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I very much liked the three books I had read by Joyce Huggett. She was a thoughtful Christian writer, and I knew something of her because she lived, for a while, in Cyprus, though I never met her. I didn’t expect any of her books to be currently in print, but put second-hand editions of one on my wishlist. I was very pleasantly surprised to be given a new edition of ‘Listening to God’ for Christmas. 

The byline on this book says that it’s the 30th anniversary edition of the ‘bestselling spiritual classic’. It’s been recommended by many writers on prayer and contemplation. The first edition was published in 1986, and it was something of a landmark at the time. In the notes at the end, on the anniversary edition, the author expresses great happiness that the boundaries between different strands of Christianity were much less obvious than they were in the 1980s. 

The purpose of the book is to encourage all Christians to spend more time in prayer, in particular in contemplative prayer. The idea of this sounds very positive to me; as an introvert, I need a lot of time on my own. Despite many decades of being a believer, and many prayers, I’m not good at sitting, and meditating, or contemplating. Partly this is because I don’t ‘see’ things with my eyes closed, partly, I suppose, because my mind is constantly active, wandering around all kinds of topics, ideas and thoughts.

Watch the wall, my darling (by Jane Aiken Hodge)

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I discovered some of Jane Aiken Hodge’s novels when I was a teenager, and on the whole liked them very much. One of my favourites was ‘Watch the wall, my darling’, quoting the famous line which ends… ‘while the smugglers go by’. I last read it in 2008, so had forgotten all the people and the storyline, although I realised that smuggling must somehow play a part.

This novel is set in Sussex, by the coast, during the Napoleonic war period. The heroine is a strong-minded, feisty American girl called Christina, who is in her early twenties. We meet her travelling across the marshes in a hired coach, with a very nervous driver and groom who have been paid well to take her to her destination. She’s been warned by a landlord that she should not travel, and it’s so dark and gloomy - and the journey is taking so long - that she begins to think that she should have take his advice.

The coach has to halt due to branches across the road, and when the three travellers start to pull them aside, they are attacked by masked men. When she says who she is, they are allowed to travel again, with dire threats if they tell anyone what happened. And, at last, Christina arrives at the mansion where, she hopes her grandfather is expecting her. She has never met him, but had promised her late father that she would try to get to know her English family. 

The quiet war of Rebecca Sheldon (by Kathleen Rowntree)

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It’s a long time since I acquired and read the novels by Kathleen Rowntree. I decided to reread them, choosing the order of publication, although each novel is complete in itself, without any overlap of characters.

So I began with ‘The quiet war of Rebecca Sheldon’, which I read in 2001. I had totally forgotten what it was about, and so was mildly surprised to find that it’s historical rather than contemporary fiction. The novel opens in 1892, when the teenage Rebecca is visiting her schoolfriend Louisa Ludbury during the summer holidays. Rebecca merely tolerates Louisa, who prattles a lot, because she’s rather keen on Louisa’s older brother George.

Mrs Ludbury, who is widowed, is a small and very snobbish woman who tends to look down on anyone who isn’t in her social circles. She doesn’t even like the fact that she lives on a farm; she never wants the farming discussed in the house, and really doesn’t want George to end up as a farmer. And she definitely doesn’t want him marrying Rebecca, whom she insists is a ‘shop girl’.