The Story Girl
The Story Girl by L.M. Montgomery
The Story Girl by Lucy Maud Montgomery
originally published 1911
Bantam Classic, 1st printing, 1989
258 pages
Genre: Children’s literature, juvenalia
Synopsis & Review: While their father works in Rio de Janeiro for a time, Bev and Felix King must leave their home in Toronto to stay with relatives on their father’s family homestead near Carlisle on Prince Edward Island. Thrilled to see the place from when the King family sprang, and to play where their father grew up, Bev and Felix are somewhat apprehensive about their cousins. At the homestead live Uncle Alec and Aunt Jante, and their children: Dan the eldest at thirteen, the lovely Felicity, and the shy but sweet Cecily. On an adjoining farm live the siblings Aunt Olivia and Uncle Roger, who are caring for Sara Stanley, another King cousin. With all those cousins–and Uncle Roger’s hired boy Peter and the neighbor Sara Ray–there will be plenty of other children to play with.
Sara Stanley is called The Story Girl for her knack with telling all kinds of stories, and making them live with her remarkable voice. She is the eldest at fourteen, and almost a de facto leader and voice of reason for the group–though she is hardly perfect. With their cousins, Bev and Felix fall under her spell, and hear the stories of their family and others in Carlisle. Together, the group gets up to all kinds of monkeyshines: confronting a witch, preparing for the End of Days, braving fearsome old men, and keeping dream diaries, among others.
There are Anne girls and Emily girls, perhaps Jane or Valancy girls—no one is a Pat girl—but I’m a Sara girl. Sara Stanley, that is, the titular Story Girl of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s fourth novel. It’s the second novel not featuring Anne, and also the first not based on identification with a place (Of Avonlea, Of Lantern Hill, of the Orchard, etc). But the King homestead setting of The Story Girl—as with all the Montgomery novels I’ve read so far—is an integral part of the novel. From Bev and Felix’s delight at returning to their ancestral home to the many colorful incidents that take place there, particularly in the orchard, the King farm and its environs are key players in the little comedies and dramas that play out in The Story Girl. Read the rest of this entry »
Booking through Thursday: It’s all about me!
Which do you prefer? Biographies written about someone? Or Autobiographies written by the actual person (and/or ghost-writer)?
Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don’t have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!
Though there is something to be said for an autobiography, and the firsthand knowledge and the alluring intimacy it can offer, I tend to prefer biographies written about people. In a biography, the narrative isn’t filtered through the subject’s own ego, and it may be possible to gain a more objective view. Then again, the fascination of a really remarkable autobiographical document, such as The Kid Stays in the Picture by Robert Evans, is something not to be missed. Of course, there is the danger of a biased biographer, but we must learn to pick and choose our sources for reputable biography, considering them as we would any primary and secondary source materials. No matter which you choose to read, you ought to always consider the bias of the writer: What is their purpose in writing this? What story are they telling?
One thing I enjoy about biographies, is the sometimes vast access to documents both public and private, and they way that these become more accessible to a wider public. And the best ones will have various documents written by the subject, providing those intimate glimpses, those “truths” in which we’re so interested.
Of course, I tend to read biographies of people who are centuries dead, which does bias me, as there is little to no chance of a tell-all biography being published!
Some of my favorite biographies: Queen of Scots by John Guy, Madame Sarah by Cornelia Otis Skinner, Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser, Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman
Favorite autobiographies: The Kids Stays in the Picture by Robert Evans, I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres
Date with a Dead Doctor
Date with a Dead Doctor by Toni Brill
Date with a Dead Doctor by Toni Brill
Worldwide, 1992
251 pages
Genre: mystery
Synopsis & Review: Midge “Call me Margaret!” Cohen, a former Russian professor turned children’s book author, has been through way too many set-ups thanks to her mother. Since divorcing her veterinarian husband Paul and moving from Ithaca back to New York, Midge has made an enjoyable life for herself, hammering out two girl’s summer camp mysteries and occasionally sleeping with her super, a Russian emigre named Sasha. And even though her mother’s set-ups always go wrong, when called late on a Saturday evening by one Dr Leon Skripnik, urologist, Midge reluctantly agrees to see him. Only as it turns out, he’s only interested in her Russian translation skills. But Midge needn’t hurry, because Leon Skripnik is found dead in his brownstone the next day.
Anxious to turn over Skripnik’s letter, from an elderly relative arriving from Israel in the next few days, Midge tries to reach his ex-wife Phyllis, and is instead mistaken for Skripnik’s mistress. But by the time she convinces Phyllis that she wasn’t in fact Skripnik’s mistress, Midge has become a person of interest as the last person to see Skripnik alive. Of course, with the gorgeous Detective Russo on the case, that might not be so bad. Then undiscovered Chagalls pop up, and yet more Russians, and when combined with Midge’s meddling mother and the sobbing, neurotic Phyllis, things are beginning to get a little out of Midge’s control.
Is there such a thing as a New York Jew Cozy genre of mystery? Read the rest of this entry »
The Morland Dynasty: The Princeling
The Princeling by Cynthia-Harrod Eagles
The Morland Dynasty: The Princeling by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
originally published 1981
Sphere, 2007
410 pages
Genre: Family saga, historical fiction
Synopsis & Review: Mary Tudor is dying, and England waiting to see what will happen, whether Elizabeth, daughter to Anne Boleyn, will be able to claim and hold the throne. In Yorkshire, the extensive Morland family continues their rise and considers a change of allegiance. Nanette, former lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn and Katherine Parr, lives at the Watermill House with her husband and children; as one of the last of the older generation, she and Paul Morland (third of his name) direct the family, choosing advantageous alliances through marriage and trade. But the family is fracturing along religious lines. When the old King, Henry VIII broke with Rome, England began a religious revolution, and the Morlands are in the thick of it. While some family members follow Henry’s compromise with a non-papist Catholicism, others are becoming more Protestant. In an effort to support Catholics, Paul Morland breaks with the Howard family of Norfolk, and instead allies himself with the Percys of Northumberland, arranging a marriage for his eldest son John to Mary Percy, a fierce Border leader.
Paul’s eldest daughter Lettice spends time at Elizabeth’s court before traveling in the train of Lord Darnley to Scotland. In that rough, perilous land, Lettice chooses between a wolf at the door, and one at the hearth, marrying a dangerous Scots baron, Lord Robert Hamilton. When Paul’s second son William disappears from court (he joins an actors’ troop), his third son dies, and his youngest disappears at sea, and with John in the Borders with the Percys, there is no longer an heir for Morland Place. It is then that Nanette’s adopted son Jan, himself a bastard Morland twice over, begins jockeying for position as the Morland heir at the behest of his wife, Mary Seymour.
This is only the third installment in the Morland Dynasty? Really? It feels like I must be much further into the series, considering how much time the first two spanned. The Princeling clocks in at just over four hundred pages, a good hundred-plus shorter than the first two, and also covers much less time (only thirty-one years). This may be the volume in which Harrod-Eagles decides to stop speeding through history quite so quickly, but then again, the next volume covers the Civil War. How does she spread this out over thirty-plus books at such a ripping pace? Read the rest of this entry »
The India Fan
The India Fan by Victoria Holt
The India Fan by Victoria Holt
Doubleday, 1st edition, 1988
404 pages
Genre: Romantic suspense, historical romance, Gothic romance
Synopsis & Review: Vicar’s daughter Drusilla Delany grows up in the shadow of Framling, a magnificent country manor inhabited by the local family of note, the Framlings. From the age of two she feels a special connexion with the family, when matriarch Lady Harriet’s son Fabian Framling kidnaps her, adopting her as his own child for a fortnight–and he only seven years old at the time. After that occasion, she also finds herself welcomed to Framling as a companions to the younger sister, the beautiful and spoiled Lavinia. When Drusilla is six and Sir Fabian twelve, he commands that she and Lavinia play a game with him. He will be Caesar, and they are his slaves, and as his slaves, they must perform tasks. Lavinia he sends to the haunted Nun’s Room for a silver chalice, and Drusilla is to fetch a fan of peacock feathers. But when her theft is discovered, there is a commotion. the fan belongs to Miss Lucille, a Framling haunted by tragedy. When she was in India long ago, her fiance bought her the feathered fan, a thing of ill omen in that country. When surprising Miss Lucille by enhancing the gift, he was shot and killed. The incident turned Miss Lucille’s mind, and she became convinced that the fan was a harbinger of evil. And since Drusilla has taken the fan, and had it in her possession, the curse will pass to her.
Sir Fabian goes off to school, and Lavinia and Drusilla continue growing up together. Lavinia grows wilder and lovelier and more arrogant, and Drusilla grows clever, but is considered plain by some. When Lavinia’s sensual nature gets her in trouble with a stableboy, the two girls are sent to a fine boarding school, Meridian House. There Drusilla excels in her studies and finds favor with her teachers and fellow students, while Lavinia, stunning but not bright, gets into more trouble, and is asked to not return. Then Lady Harriet Framling arranges for the two girls to be sent to finishing school in France. It is there that Lavinia finds herself in a scrape she cannot bear to confess, extricating herself only with the help of Drusilla, a fellow student Janine, and Drusilla’s old nurse Polly. Lavinia’s secret will shadow her through her debutante season in London, and when she makes an excellent match–with Drusilla’s erstwhile suitor–a murder complicates things further.
Two years later, Lavinia sends for Drusilla, who travels to India to act as a companion to Lavinia and governess to her two young children–while escaping an unappealing but convenient marriage. It is in this mysterious, exotic world, a world troubled by rumblings of mutiny and the end of the East India Company that Drusilla will find love.
Oh man, this was one of the first paperbacks I thieved from my Uncle Jack, but it stands the test of time much better than Nightwalker did. Though at nine I had already had some introduction to historical romance, The India Fan introduced me to a more genteel, history-oriented brand of romantic fiction. And I loved it. I still do, despite its flaws. Read the rest of this entry »
Anne of Windy Poplars
Anne of Windy Poplars by L.M. Montgomery
Anne of Windy Poplars by L.M. Montgomery
originally published 1936
Bantam, 14th printing, 1988
258 pages
Genre: Juvenalia, young adult, children’s lit
Synopsis & Review: Following Anne of the Island and preceding Anne’s House of Dreams (though written much later, oddly), Anne of Windy Poplars finds Anne Shirley, our redoubtable redhead, happily engaged to Gilbert Blythe at long last. While he does a three year medical course, she takes a position as a high school principal in Summerside, PEI. This marks the first time that Anne will be away from Green Gables and Avonlea without familiar faces nearby (as when she attended Queens and Redmond), and while she puts out feelers in the community of Summerside, she also writes a great many letters to Gilbert. Summerside is not the most welcoming town at first; it seems that when Anne got the position over a cousin of theirs, the local clan the Pringles vowed to have nothing to do with her. She cannot board with the Pringle family who always boards the principals, she is left out of choir and not invited to parties, and worst of all, is subject to constant insubordination in school. It seems that at least half of Summerside is Pringle or part-Pringle. And her vie-principal, Katherine Brooke, goes out of her way to be hateful to Anne.
Despite the prevalence of Pringles, Anne finds kindred spirits. She boards at Windy Poplars on Spook’s Lane with the widows Aunt Kate and Aunt Chatty, their cat Dusty Miller, and housekeeper Rebecca Dew. She also befriends their little neighbor, Elizabeth Grayson, a whimsical sprite trapped in a dark old house with her grandmother Mrs Campbell and her Woman. And once she subjugates the Pringles, Anne has no shortage of interesting experiences, becoming confidante to young women, inspiring her students, and charming even the crankiest of cranks.
Though when I was younger I would often skim Windy Poplars, as an adult it is by far my favorite Anne book. (Of the sequels, I suppose. Well, maybe of all. I’m just not sure where I’d rank Green Gables as a standalone. Nah, I’ll let it stay in first place.) And discovering that a lot of people don’t like it could lead to snide remarks about their relative maturity, but I won’t go there. I’ll just plant that little seed in your imagination. I didn’t say anything of the sort. Read the rest of this entry »
