3 silly men, J., Harris, and George, decide to take a little vacation in a boat floating down the Thames. Oh and there is a dog named Montmorency. I’ve known about this book since I was a teenager, and I’ve always been curious about reading it since it is supposed to be one of the funniest books of all time. Well, that finally happened. I listened to it on Audible, and though it was mildly amusing in parts, sometimes very amusing, I didn’t think it was very funny. By that, I mean I didn’t laugh, and I only chuckled a couple of times. It reminded me a lot of the one book I read by P. G. Wodehouse (so far). I got the humor, and appreciated and even admired it and was amused. But…I guess I like more of a plot and more character development.
The book is narrated by the author “J.” (Jerome K. Jerome) describing the decision to go on the trip, prepare for the trip, and their adventures on the water. In between real time activities, “J.” recalls various anecdotes that come to mind, such as Harris’s getting lost in the Hampton Court Maze, and an Uncle trying to hang a picture on a wall which results in catastrophe, and a stinky cheese. During the trip, the guys deal with opening a can of pineapple without a tin opener (resulting in the near death of one of them), making a pot of Irish stew, a fight with swans, incompetent rowing and losing track of each other, getting lost, and trying to find shelter. In the end, they go home early.
One of the funnier bits was J.’s description of how he loves work.
It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me: the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart. You cannot give me too much work; to accumulate work has almost become a passion with me: my study is so full of it now, that there is hardly an inch of room for any more. And I am careful of my work, too. Why, some of the work that I have by me now has been in my possession for years and years, and there isn’t a finger-mark on it. I take a great pride in my work; I take it down now and then and dust it. No man keeps his work in a better state of preservation than I do.
All of the humor is like that: one thing leading to another with absurdities piling up and up until you think it can’t get any more crazy, until it does. Actually, looking back on it, this book is funnier than it was while I was reading it. The narration by Martin Jarvis was great, but because of the book’s episodic nature, my attention kept going in and out while I was listening to it. I guess I need cohesiveness to keep me fully engaged.
This was a very cute epistolary novel set in a large London department store of the 1930s. It strongly reminded me of another novel, Dear Enemy, by Jean Webster. Not only are both books written in letters, mostly by our heroines, but they share the same humorous breezy tone, satirical takes, and many elements of their plots. Both of our young heroines write to loved ones describing their adventures in new and unfamiliar environments. They both illustrate their letters with their own humorous drawings. Both girls are wealthy debutantes leading frivolous lives, who find themselves employed in jobs in which they are, at first, way over their heads. But both manage not only to survive, but prevail, and greatly change their new environments for the better. That is a lot of similarities, but there are even more. They are both engaged to eligible “suitable” men who don’t understand them, but find true love with men who are heavily involved with and supportive of their new endeavors. In Business as Usual , most of Hilary’s letters are written to her fiancé who is a doctor. In Dear Enemy, Sallie’s are written to her best friend Judy Abbott, of Daddy Long Legs fame, and the local doctor, the “Enemy”, with whom she continually butts heads and whom she completely misunderstands at first.
Webster’s novel, written in 1915, 18 years prior to Business as Usual, is one of my most fondly regarded books. In fact, I fear I am in danger of letting Dear Enemy completely take over this review which is supposed to be about the other book! In spite of their similarities, it really is not fair to compare the two. In Dear Enemy, Sallie is tasked, by Judy, of reforming and overhauling the repressive antiquated orphanage in which she grew up and of which she is now the titular head. Hilary’s adventures take place in a London Department store and has more of a comedy of errors feel to it. Young lives and futures are at stake at the John Grier Home, so in Dear Enemy there is much more scope for humor, drama, and pathos. The orphans are mostly funny, but there is potential tragedy looming as well. Important social issues of the day are tackled albeit in a light and humorous way. Social conditions are explored to a lesser extent in Business as Usual including one game-changing incident involving an unplanned pregnancy. Sallie is much more of a force of nature than Hilary, although both are extremely admirable and likable. The romance is much more developed and emotional than in Business as Usual, in which we barely get to know the man whom Hilary begins to realize is more her soulmate than her fiancé.
Business as Usual is set in early 1930s London and I quickly became charmed and immersed in that other world. Hilary has just become engaged but since they can’t get married for another year she decides to spend that year in London, working at a real job and seeing if she can support herself and be independent away from her somewhat shallow life. She ends up in Everyman’s, a huge department store, and starts out as a lowly clerk. Precisely because she is so intelligent and over-qualified (Oxford educated!), she is not very good at it. Her unconventional thinking and sense of humor make her a square peg trying to fit in a round hole. But due to a chance encounter, she comes to the attention of Mr. Grant, the powerful and revered “head of publicity,” or “minor prophet” as Hilary calls him. He immediately recognizes her great qualities, and she is soon rising through the ranks in the book department, much to the consternation of some of her co-workers and her stick-in-the-mud fiancé. Her adventures are chronicled in letters to her parents and to bad boyfriend Basil, as well as internal store memos and such. She has her work cut out for her trying to survive in London on her meager salary. It is a light fun book, and I loved the authenticity of the setting. My copy had helpful footnotes explaining terms and words used, the meanings and significance of which have been long forgotten.
The book also strongly reminded me of another book I read and loved a long time ago, Here Come the Brides, by Bernard Glemser. That one was set in the bridal department of a huge New York Department store where our heroine has to deal with difficult customers and fellow employees, just like Hilary in the book department of Everyman’s. I really liked Business as Usual and I recommend it to those in the mood for a frothy humorous novel with a very likable heroine who finds real love in the London of a very different time and a very interesting setting. But I loved it more for the sake of the two books I read and loved long before. **3 1/2 stars**
When you’re very young you take people as you find them. It’s only when you’ve had experience that you begin to measure and weigh.
After reluctantly quitting Crooked Adam after about 3 hours of listening to it, I turned to this book. I immediately settled into the feelings of joy and peace and comfort that I look for in D.E. Stevenson and that Crooked Adam was not giving me. It felt like I was coming home again. I chose this one of all the ones that I have waiting for me on Audible because it is often cited as a favorite despite the unusual, for DES, choice as a male main character, and in first person, to boot. The narration by David Monteath was perfection.
David tells his story starting from when he was a little boy living with his wonderful parents at the vicarage. He starts out each phase of his life with the views he sees through one of the windows he looks out from at each residence he moves to as he grows up. After the rural manse in Haines, he moves in with his Uncle William in Edinburgh to complete his schooling. He starts his working life as a lowly clerk in a law office where he lives in a dingy and depressing boarding house filled with foolish and unhappy people. He escapes from there to a much more copacetic environment in a room above a book shop that he is able to afford due to his growing success as a writer. The fifth window we will remain silent on, but his life through the last window we are introduced to follows a bell shaped curve, with his childhood in Haines and his home at the end being the epitome of happiness, and the time in the boarding house being rock bottom.
Along the way, we become acquainted with the many people who enter David’s life and have an influence on him. David is gentle, kind, and trusting of others, and, at first, more than a little naive, due to his upbringing in Haines. The fellow boarders in the seedy London boarding house provide him with quite the education in the ways of the world as in one way or another they take advantage of his good nature. At one point, I thought he was going to get into an Of Human Bondage situation with one of the residents. But David is no dummy, and he shows himself very capable of putting his foot down, which made very satisfying reading on more than one occasion. Everyone we meet has something to teach him for good or ill. Some situations David encounters are rather dire, but his gentle sense of humor and inner strength of character always see him through. Many of the people we meet are happy allies. Particularly worth mentioning are Barbie and Nell who have their own story in The Tall Stranger. It is through them that he becomes reacquainted with a childhood friend who becomes his romantic interest. She is enmeshed in a trap that she is too softhearted and easily manipulated to escape from, but for the the help of David, Barbie, Nell, and his shining star of a mother, a sad future is avoided.
Well into the book, David becomes quite a success as an author of both fiction and non-fiction. In coming to the end of Five Windows, I felt like I had just finished one of his books. No wonder he was such a successful author.
I went ahead and purchased this hard-to-find early Rosamunde Pilcher title when it came my way at a good price. It was part of Harlequin’s Golden Library collection. It was her second to the last book she wrote under “Jane Fraser”, the name she used to publish her Mills and Boon romances. It would be 4 years before she published The Sleeping Tiger, the first book I read by one of my favorite authors and still a favorite of her “little” books. When I first started reading, I had high hopes that this would turn out to be one of the best of the Jane Frasers I have read. I liked our “not pretty” heroine pretty well, and I liked the hero too, thanks to his being introduced with a good bit of his backstory, before the heart of the novel started. The book turned out to be a pretty good one, but a bit below my favorites. I did feel that it was very close in quality to many of her Pilcher titles. In a few cases, better, as far as the character of the heroine. Some of her young ladies can be very weak, lazy, and not too bright.
The book opens with 20-year-old Amabel on the last day of a ski vacation in Europe. She meets Jeremy, a Major, and a former underling of her retired military father there by chance, whom we know from his description is not destined to be her love interest though he is a perfectly nice guy. He has a bristly blonde mustache and a receding chin. As usual, Pilcher’s leisurely pace is full of background and detail which established an atmosphere that drew me right in. As with her more acclaimed novels, the smallest detail conveys atmosphere, nuance of character and paints a whole picture. She makes everything interesting no matter how seemingly inconsequential.
Unfortunately, upon Amabel’s return home to England she is met with the devastating news of her 49 year-old single father’s death. She, her two young siblings, Emma and Adrian, and their Nanny are forced to move from their large farm to a much smaller cottage on the property, the Keeper’s House. Their former estate has been rented for two years to Bill Hopper, a very rich Canadian rancher. We met 26-year-old Bill in New York City in the process of his being dumped by his beautiful model fiance. Because of this abrupt change in his plans he has decided to turn a quick purchase of a prize bull into an extended stay in Scotland. He hears about Kilgenny being available and rents it for two years, planning to spend his time raising cattle for his father’s huge cattle concern.
Although Amabel takes a dislike to Bill thanks to her resentment of his occupation of her beloved home and his amusement of catching her in an embarrassing situation (under the piano with flour on her face) at their first meeting, she pretty much behaves herself. She is not rude or petulant, and though they have a few unpleasant run-ins after their initial meeting, she even apologizes for her fractious behavior. Bill is a very likable guy, making friends with whomever he meets, besides being very large, tall, and very good looking. He takes fatherless young Emma and Adrian under his wing and they make themselves right at home at Kilgenny, spending most of their time there “helping” him with the farm. It isn’t long before Bill and Amabel also make friends and are well on their way to falling in love with each other. Things eventually come to a head when Jeremy makes a re-appearance and Bill goes rushing off to London after an unexpected phone call from his ex-fiancé.
I liked this one quite well. The plot did kind of flag in the middle once Bill and Amabel became friends and started to fall for each other. Everything was proceeding a little too predictably with seemingly no trouble on the horizon to shake things up a bit. When things did start to perk up, Amabel behaved like a really stupid idiot, actually putting her and her family’s whole future happiness on the line by a knee jerk reaction. Luckily she ran into a brick wall (rather amusingly). Also, a highly anticipated confrontation on another front happened off stage which is one of my pet peeves. One aspect which was distracting and bothersome was Bill’s constant smoking. It seemed like he was buying a carton of “Players” at every opportunity. I know, it was usual for the times, but I don’t have to like it. It’s one of those old-fashioned aspects of vintage novels that is not a bit charming. As far as the happy ending, thank goodness for Nanny, who pokes her nose in and saves the day. Those crazy kids.
I don’t think I’ve ever tried harder to like a book more than this one. But at the 72% mark when the long anticipated meeting of the sibling/lovers finally happened, I just gave up. Oh it is quite the yarn, I’ll give it that. I finished it, so that says something. Published in 1995, It is very reminiscent of the old jet-setting Judith Krantz/Jackie Collins/Jilly Cooper potboilers of 1980s and 90s. Except the sex is sweet and idealized and mostly closed door. I heard about it from a glowing review on YouTube. The concept intrigued me to no end. The possibilities! I went to extraordinary lengths to get this book, finally getting a trade paperback from an inter-library loan. Prior to this, I actually emailed the author to alert her to a prominent reviewer’s praise for the book and my displeasure that the book was not readily available in the U.S. It was a major wrench for me to have to forgo my Kindle and read an unwieldy paperback. I really missed the search and highlighting function. There were a lot of minor characters in this book to keep straight and I love the Kindle for the ability to quickly get me back up to speed after a short break in reading. Not to mention the ability to read in the dark without a lamp. Poor me. But I digress.
**spoilers**
Here is the plot. Hang on tight. Born in secret and out of wedlock to Wallis Simpson and HRH the Duke of Windsor, Emerald is farmed out to one of his loyal former lovers, now happily married with a young son, to be temporarily taken care of. After the now married Duke and Duchess are banished to the Bahamas and after the heroic war time deaths of her foster parents, the powers that be, a.k.a. Anthony Anstruther, a main character and royal fixer extraordinaire, decides it is time for them to take responsibility for their daughter, whom they want nothing to do with. Luckily, the ship she and her adoring foster brother Callum are on wrecks off the coast of Callum’s grandfather, The Laird’s, remote Scottish island so 3-year-old Emerald doesn’t have to deal with the hateful couple. They are raised together (sort of) until they are wrenched apart 5 years later by Emerald being bundled off to Mexico to live with Anstruther’s mother to be raised like a lady and keep her under the radar. Meanwhile, her letters to her 12-year-old foster brother, whose heart has been “broken clean in two” by their parting, are intercepted for her own good. She grows up prowling the jungles of Mexico with her bosom buddy “Nacho”, who, like all males of all ages, are smitten with her. At 15-years-old, Emerald’s beauty, despite being so thin and gangly, promises success in the marriage arena, despite her predilection for cock fights and knifing alligators to death. It turns out that her figure is perfect for runway modeling which is discovered by her next door neighbor who happens to be a former toast of the Paris fashion scene. She has the connections necessary to pave Emerald’s way in New York and Paris and save her from a marriage of convenience while still a teenager. Emerald runs away from Lady Molly’s benign but stiflingly conventional care. Good thing she kept that alligator hide which she uses to bribe her way out of Mexico. At 16 years old, Emerald soon becomes the toast of the New York, London, and Paris fashion scene and even runs in the same New York and Paris circles as the Windsors. Uh Oh. The resemblance is soon noticed and Wallis and David, uncomfortable with that, try to get Anthony Anstruther to get rid of her but Anthony finally puts his foot down. Anthony is an interesting character. He is written as a good guy, but really does some terrible things to protect the Royal House of Windsor.
Callum, now around 23 (?) and an aspiring photographer, finally tracks now 19-year-old Emerald down and the transition from protective adoring foster brother to besotted lover is head-swiveling if inevitable. Especially since the same night they meet Emerald is raped by another childhood admirer from the remote Scottish Island. Jack is now an aspiring gossip columnist and her nemesis going forward. So when she falls pregnant there is a brief doubt as to whom the father is. (It’s Callum, of course.) She is forced to find a husband since an abortion is out of the question. Callum has disappeared to be a war photojournalist because he thinks Emerald is dead due to his house exploding. Through some behind the scenes manipulations from our friend Anthony, she meets charming, handsome, noble, and impoverished Tom Sherwood. Luckily he is gay and the marriage is never consummated. Unluckily, he is an inveterate gambler and only married her for her dowry, wrested from the wealthy Duke and Duchess. Emerald’s letters to Callum about their son are intercepted by guess who. You’d think she would have learned the first time. The world just continues to conspire against the star-crossed lovers. So far.
My disaffection for this book was not caused by the writing or the plot, but the characters. We follow the heroine’s life from toddlerhood to young womanhood. I have never before accused a female character of being a “Mary Sue” because before this book, this kind of character never bothered me. But OMG. This girl. This Emerald. She was so over the top, it was grating and laughable. Every male in the book is absolutely captivated by her practically at first sight. Callum the love interest, from when she was 6 weeks old. A villainous character when he was 10 and she was 5. Nacho, her Mexican “best friend” and protector to whom she gifts her virginity, the same. Equally at home with both the peasants in Mexico and the glitterati of Europe, she leads a charmed life. She wears haute couture on the runway but prefers bulky sweaters and jeans in private. She saves her profligate husband’s estate from ruin on the strength of her homemade soap, candles and potpourri from her old Scottish Nan’s recipes. Before she is 26 she has turned her little business into a flourishing boutique cosmetic and gardening enterprise and building success upon success. Which she sacrifices to save her irresponsible and mostly absent husband from his criminal gambling creditors. But don’t worry, she builds it up from from scratch again after finally re-uniting with strong, handsome and devoted Callum. Those are the broad brush strokes, but we are met with something meant to be appealing, admirable, or sympathetic about Emerald on virtually every page. It was exhausting. I can’t really call it a love story at all, because Emerald and Callum spend very little time together on the page. He really only serves to give our heroine a happy ending. We spend only enough time with him to show how worthy he is. Poor Nacho is left in Mexico never to be heard of again. I really thought he would show up again in Europe, somehow coming in handy for Emerald, possibly as a powerful international drug dealer. Some things came full circle, but there were also quite a few loose ends. The main thing was that although the book was very readable and kept my interest for the most part, I just could not empathize or become invested in the main characters. Except Bertha, Tom’s mother. She was great. I hate to give such a monumental effort less than 3 stars, but there you go.
I hope I have this right, but I listened to this on Audible so there is no way I can realistically check my facts. Our narrator, Jonquil, “Jonny” and Phyl grew up together in the same home headed by Aunt Flora along with Phyl’s brothers, George and Hugh. Flora was Jonny’s mother’s best friend and was taken in by her when her parents died. Jonny ended up marrying Hugh, and Phyl married Hugh’s best friend, Tom. Phyl and Jonny both were widowed at the same time due to an automobile wreck, and Jonny was left with two young children. Phyl and Jonny live together and the book begins when they decide to escape their dreary cramped apartment and move to “Rushing” a large but old and dilapidated cottage (it doesn’t even have an indoor toilet!) in the middle of nowhere.
This is what is known as a “slice-of-life” novel, which is a type of novel I read a lot of. It focuses on the largely unremarkable happenings and relationships of everyday life. Gentle humor, unusual characters, and the joy of living are key. At least in the novels of this type that I read. Needless to say, there is usually a satisfactory if understated romance which provides closure and a happy prospect for the characters we have come to feel invested in. Atmosphere and ambiance are key. The ones I read are usually set in the English or Scottish countryside and set at least 50 years ago. True to form, nothing much happens in this one until the previously mentioned George comes to stay at Rushing Farm. It’s not specifically stated what’s wrong with him, but he has been ordered by his doctor to “rest.” So I’m guessing nervous breakdown. George is a famous actor and something of a babe magnet. He is also spoiled, entitled, and a prima donna. The family loves George, but they don’t like him very much. They are confident that as soon as he gets a load of Rushing’s primitive conditions, he will quickly leave for less spartan accommodations far far away.
At first I was somewhat entertained by George and his angry incredulity over what he was asked to put up with at Rushing Farm. The women pretty much just take him in stride. They don’t know how to “just say no” but they are not complete doormats either. They know that George will not be able to stand being in the middle of nowhere for long and are not majorly inconvenienced by George’s whims and megrims. The stage is set on the first day when George confiscates Jonny’s son Paul’s bedroom for his own. To meet his standards, he then hijacks various pieces of furniture and decor from Phyl, Jonny, and Flora’s rooms. When they object, he bosses them and manipulates them into agreeing. But the more George complains, the happier the family is because the sooner he will leave. That is, until Angela ,the aunt of a summer guest of Jonnie’s daughter, comes to visit. She is gorgeous, sweet, down-to-earth and couldn’t be less interested in George, despite his glamor and fame. George, on the other hand, falls head over heels for the first time in his life.
All of the main characters were likable but boring. There are two romances involved, one was a foregone conclusion with no “will they or won’t they” tension to be had. George and Angela’s story had a little more suspense, but Angela deserved better even if the reader comes to understand and be reconciled to George a little more by the end. Jonnie, who I guess is our main character because everything is seen through her eyes, is the most boring of all. Her primary personality traits are competence, quietude, and inarticulateness. Phyl is charmingly lazy and Aunt Flora is wise, no-nonsense, and caring. A romance for Jonnie is threatened but is nipped in the bud by her disinterest. The book just kind of ends with the wedding of one of the characters which is a hair’s breath from ending in disaster. Or what would pass for disaster in this gentle world. There were some unanswered questions which are not my favorite. Why was Flora’s cousin so anxious to talk to her, what secret will he impart that threatens the family’s equanimity? We never know. If there ever was one. There were some amusing bits where I kind of chuckled. The most exciting and funniest part was near the end where Jonnie finally loses her temper. It was all very low-stakes. The quirky characters were not quirky enough. After I read this, I found out this was Cadell’s first book and I readily believed it. It explained a lot. Still it was lovely and charming enough to earn 3 stars from me.
This was just a terrific book with an indomitable heroine who should be as famous and celebrated as…well, I can’t think of a universally famous one who is comparable to Bettina Vanderpoel. Not that there aren’t plenty of brave, cool-headed, perspicacious, kind-hearted, and public spirited heroines in literature, you understand. But I just can’t think of one that embodies all of those qualities at once. I reckon Hermione Granger comes closest. Except Bettina (Betty) is also beautiful, charming, charismatic and a gabillionaire. I could compare her with Philippa Somerville of the Lymond Chronicles but Philippa is as unfamous as Betty. Neither would make an official top 10 list of most admirable fictional female characters how ever much they deserve to. If Betty sounds like a heroine who is flawless and therefore not your cup of tea, I wouldn’t blame you. But let me assure you that she is up against a villain so repulsive and dastardly and is fighting for causes so righteous, that you will root for her every step of the way. Not to mention she has to live in a world (late Victorian England) in which the deck was stacked against women who dared to not suffer in silence. I did not begrudge her one ounce of her power whether it came from her beauty, character, or wealth. Because she needed it all. And even then all of her gifts may not have been enough to save a woman of substance’s most precious commodity of that or almost any era: her reputation.
It’s been 12 years since Bettina had seen her older sister, Rosalie, after her marriage to an English Lord, Nigel Anstruthers. Bettina was 9 years old when Rosalie left New York City and went to live in England on his estate and virtually vanished from her and her loving parents’ lives. The first 4 chapters of the book are Rosalie’s. Thank God it wasn’t more, because reading of her life with Nigel was painful indeed. Debt-ridden Lord Anstruthers of course married naive and sweet Rosalie not for love, but for her considerable fortune. He starts to manipulate and gaslight the poor girl on the ship over as soon as she leaves her family’s protection. By the time we mercifully leave her and start to focus on Bettina, Rosalie, systematically crushed and isolated for years, is lying on the floor, a victim of a violent attack, fearing for her unborn baby, and about to lose control of her money to her scheming and merciless husband and his malignant mother.
Bettina never liked or trusted Nigel and had long planned, when she was old enough, to find Rosalie and make sure she was OK. Unlike her parents, Betty never believed that Rosalie had turned her back on her family after she became a grand titled English lady. We get a recounting of Betty’s maturation from a formidable child to a beautiful young woman and her formal and informal education. In addition to being educated at elite academies all over Europe, her father, seeing her intelligence and good sense, had her accompany him all over the United States while looking over his business concerns. She gained an invaluable education from him and he in turn came to trust her judgement and even seek out her advice. So when Betty finally feels she is in a position to rescue Rosy (if she even needs rescuing) she not only has her own gifts at her command but the respect and trust of her father, one of the most powerful and wealthiest men in America.
When Bettina gets to Stornham Court, Nigel’s estate, things are even worse for Rosalie and her disabled son than she imagined. Nigel has taken over control of Rosalie’s money and is living it up in the fleshpots of Europe. Both Rosalie and his estate are in shambles. During Nigel’s lengthy absence, Bettina sets about putting things in order on the estate and in the community at large. Under Bettina’s tender care Rosalie starts to recover her former bloom and what little spirit she had before her marriage. Her sister makes friends with both the high born and low born in the county, and prepares for Nigel’s inevitable return, which I began every chapter dreading. It happens in Chapter 33 (of 50). Now one would assume that Nigel would slither away without a peep in the face of Bettina’s powers. But he is clever, arrogant, entitled and kind of insane. Also he holds some powerful cards in his hands. Not the least of which is his position as a man and a titled one. And Bettina is secretly in love with the poor but proud owner of the neighboring estate, which makes her vulnerable. To extricate Rosie and her son Ughtred (why, Frances, why???) while preserving their reputations and futures as well as those of various innocent bystanders, the battle between Bettina and Nigel must be conducted with subtlety and finesse. A war of attrition rather than a no holds barred onslaught.
In its unabridged form this book is over 500 pages. In addition to the chess game between Nigel and Betty, we go into the background and character of Lord Mount Dunstan, the love interest, their beautiful romance, various country people on the estate or in the village, an American typewriter salesman, society balls and parties, and an outbreak of typhoid fever. Everything ties together and ends in a rousing climax, resolution, and fates well earned. I’ve focused on the plot in this review, but we also are treated to FHB’s descriptive passages and reflections, insights into the Gilded age and dollar princesses, and the qualities of America v. England. America wins. Great movies have been made of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s beloved children’s books A Little Princess and The Secret Garden. I even enjoyed the film based on one of her other adult novels, The Making of a Marchioness. Why not this one? This book has everything. Is it the title? I listened to this book on Audible read by Katherine Brooks who was very good.
This early novella by Frances Hodgson Burnett of The Secret Garden and A Little Princess fame, was very much in the tradition of those stories that feature a visitor from afar whose different outlook on life transforms a person, a family, or even a whole town for the better. In the stories (or films) I am talking about, the transformation is not mutual. The visitor remains steadfast, it is the people around her that change. Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter, Old Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott, Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery. It’s been compared to Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, but I haven’t read that one. And Maybe Silas Marner by George Eliot. Heck, what about Footloose or Sister Act?
I love the title of this book. Octavia Bassett is anything but a “barbarian.” If a little dashing and open-mannered, she is also well-behaved, kind, beautiful and classy. But she is from America, and in Slowbridge, “It was not considered in good taste to know Americans.” For sure not ones from “Bloody Gulch,” a small mining town in Nevada, where Octavia’s father made his fortune. She is a bit different from the young ladies in the small English enclave: she is self confident and unintimidated by the disapproval she encounters, particularly in the person of Lady Theobald, who rules insular Slowbridge with an iron hand. All of society must bend their behavior to her idea of what is gentile, proper, and correct. Particularly her sweet granddaughter Lucia. When Octavia arrives to stay with her meek and mild Aunt Belinda her effect on the town is much like a “tremor in the force.” Not that she does anything so shocking even by the standards of most of Victorian England, but it is how this town reacts to her. She wears beautiful gowns and jewelry, her hair is worn stylishly (curls on her forehead!), and she doesn’t just speak when she is spoken to but actually tries to have two-way conversations. She is not only seen but heard.
There is not a lot of action. The big climax occurs when a garden party is arranged without Lady Theobald’s blessing. Meanwhile Lucia has found some backbone thanks to Octavia’s example and influence. She has fallen in love with an unsuitable suitor while Lady Theobald is arranging a more conventional marriage for her. Unfortunately her first choice seems to have fallen under Octavia’s inevitable spell. The writing, descriptions, and the Austen-like satiric and humorous tone are the attraction here. I was also reminded of The Miss Buncle Books by D.E. Stevenson.
Satisfactory outcomes were had by all including an unhappy one for Lady Theobald. There was a slightly unexpected twist in the quickly wrapped up end. Or maybe it just seemed too quickly wrapped up because I just wanted more of Octavia Bassett. The narrator, Anne Hancock, of this Audible book perfectly voiced our main character. It reminded me of the raspy distinctive tones an old movie star, Jean Arthur, whose voice, as described by Edward G. Robinson, “grated like fresh peppermint.”
This was a perfectly enjoyable DES which pretty much picks up where Sarah Morris Remembers leaves off. Sarah and Charles are married and have built a cottage near Sarah’s grandparents on some land that they gifted to them. I listened to this on Audible and the new narrator made the choice of losing Charles’ Austrian accent which was so much a part of his personality in “Remembers.” Sarah’s father who was so important in the preceding book stays in London and is very much on the back burner which was A-OK with me. At the end of Sarah Morris Remembers, the good vicar made me very angry by discounting Sarah’s frantic and confused insistence that she had seen her beloved Charles whom she feared dead. No matter how passionately she tried to convince him, he refused to believe her, which added to her pain and confusion. After Charles and Sarah are reunited at her grandparents house in Scotland (where she was sent to basically recover her sanity), I thought it was pretty significant that her father was not included in the joy of their reunion, nor even told, at least on the page, of Charles’ miraculous return.
A lot happens in this book, which spans, as near as I can make out, around 13 years. But there are two main plot threads. Sarah and Charles take Lottie and Clive’s neglected child, Freddy, under their wing. Lottie never wanted her (in SMR she wanted an abortion!) and treats her accordingly–only concerned with her own pleasure-seeking. Her father is not a bad man but a non-entity in his daughters’ life whose only concern is running his business. Sarah and Charles only see Freddy on some holiday breaks from her boarding school (Saint Elizabeth’s of Charlotte Fairlie!), but it is enough to guide her, give her safety, security, and what she most needs, love. A lot happens with Freddy, including her transformation from an ugly duckling to a swan and her almost falling victim to a cad and a fortune hunter.
The second is Charles becoming obsessed with writing a fictionalized account of his life. It totally takes over his life for about 6 months and frankly he behaves like an asshole, neglecting and ignoring Sarah. To my relief, although she is vexed and frustrated, Sarah makes the best of it by developing friendships and having an adventure or two on her own. One of the friendships that she develops is with Deb and Mark of Celia’s House. And Celia herself to a lesser extent. Their children becomes Freddy’s playmates when she can come to them at Craignethan. (Although the title of this book is Sarah’s Cottage, The final almost half of the book is set at her grandparents’ large home, the cottage largely forgotten). Once his manuscript is finished, Charles gets back to normal (the book was basically therapy for his difficult life in Austria). But once he got everything out on the page, he refuses to have anything to do with it, giving it to Sarah. “ Do what you like with the wretched thing—burn it if you like!” What she does with it forms another satisfying story line.
Sarah didn’t always do or act the way I wanted her to. At times she came across as a little, as the British say, “wet.” She often excuses Lottie’s destructive and manipulative behavior and the harm she is doing to Freddy. There was a lack of insight and urgency to act. After 18 year old Freddy finally lays all of Lottie’s cruelties over the years on the line, and explains to Sarah why she wants nothing more to do with her mother, it’s “Oh Freddie, she does love you! I know she seems neglectful but that’s just her way. She cares for you, darling.” Uh No, Sarah, she does not. Honestly, I wanted to throttle her. Freddy recounts even more horror stories, and finally Sarah gets it. I wanted a more dramatic and cathartic resolution, but in the end Sarah and Charles acted with wisdom and restraint in regards to Freddy.
All in all this was almost equal to Sarah Morris Remembers. Sarah and Charles rarely disappointed me. I often feared how they would react to certain challenges, but if they let me down, it was only briefly and they always did the right thing in the end. It was quite episodic and I was often confused as far as the timeline. Sarah’s never having any dearly wanted children was never addressed sufficiently.
Although I did anticipate enjoying this very much, the real reason why I chose this one, in the still many Stevenson titles I have left to read, is that it leads up to Sarah’s Cottage, one I have reason to believe might be a favorite. Fingers crossed.
Sarah Morris Remembers traces our heroine’s life as a child growing up with her loving parents, her two brothers, and a younger sister in their country vicarage home. It starts some years prior to WWII and takes us through the end of the war and Sarah’s reunion, after their separation, with the love of her life. We see her family and the world through her eyes as she is writing down her memories with help from her diaries.
When I started this story of my life I unpacked the diaries which I had kept in a large tin box and, as I turned over the pages, all sorts of things came back to me – things I had forgotten – and I realised I had plenty of material for a family chronicle. I had intended to write the story to amuse the family but I hadn’t got very far before I saw that I was faced with a difficult choice: either I could write a story about the family, suitable for the family to read, or else I could write a true story about everything that had happened to us all.…I saw quite clearly that the story would be no good unless it was true in every detail. I would write it for myself, for my own satisfaction; no eye but mine should ever see it and perhaps when I had finished it I should be able to see some sort of pattern in my life.
Although not a beauty like her kind and gentle mother and her little sister, Sarah is smart and spirited. And, nurtured by her parents, she has a very highly developed sense of morality. She is a very good girl. Sometimes a little too good to my liking, to be honest. But that is true of all DES heroes and heroines. It’s part of their charm and the comfort and joy of the books. Sarah, at least, is spunky and sensible to the last page. She and her siblings have an idyllic childhood: Lewis, the oldest, is handsome, smart, and their parents’ fair haired boy. Willie, like Sarah, is a bit of a rebel, and her little sister Lottie is pretty like a little doll and cossetted as the baby of the family. As the children grow up, Lottie becomes friends with a wealthy schoolmate whose family has her for weekends and vacations and she ends up more influenced by them than her own family. Although Lewis has a hankering to choose a military career, he complies with his mother and father’s wishes (especially his mother) and goes to Oxford. Willie and Sarah stand up against their well-meaning parents and fight for and follow their own dreams. One day, when Sarah is a young teen, Lewis brings home a good friend, Charles, who is Austrian. Although nothing untoward happens or is even hinted at, Sarah is drawn to him and, though he is 5 years older (possibly more), it is mutual. WWII is still a few years away, but Hitler is on the rise. We follow Sarah as she makes her way through her teens, while keeping tabs on the rest of her family and their highs and lows.
Sarah and Charles’ connection eventually leads to an engagement, but before they can be married Charles must come to the rescue of his noble and wealthy Austrian family who are threatened by the Nazis. He mysteriously and alarmingly disappears. Sarah bravely carries on with her father in war torn London, doing their bit, while waiting for her beloved Charles to return to her (hopefully).
This Stevenson is very romance-forward even though Charles and Sarah are separated throughout much of the book. Their love and passion (yes, passion in a D.E Stevenson!) are consummated before Charles leaves for Austria albeit with the belief he will return in a few weeks in time for their wedding. That has got to be a first for DES, and I thought it was worth mentioning. True to her original intent, Sarah tells the truth regardless of the foibles and weaknesses of herself, her parents, her brothers, and especially Lottie (Hoo Boy!). Even Charles comes across as a bit of an ass in one part, even though Sarah worships the ground he walks on. And Sarah rarely let me down.
Of course, because this is D.E.S., we spend some time in Scotland where her grandparents live near good ol’ Ryddelton. And yes, a certain ghostly carriage can sometimes be heard by certain people on certain nights. I’m hovering between 4 and 5 stars, so I’ll go with 4 1/2, leaving some room in case I like Sarah’s Cottage even more.
