Category: 1950’s Fiction
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The Village by Marghanita Laski
After having enjoyed Little Boy Lost last summer I knew I had to read another book by Marghanita Laski so I decided to buy myself The Village by the same author for Christmas. I think I expected something with the same tone and feel as Little Boy Lost, but this novel is quite different…
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Book Group: The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
Last month my book group discussed The Daughter of Time, a 1951 mystery novel with a twist. Inspector Grant is in the hospital with a back injury, bored out of his mind, when a friend brings him an intriguing case: Did Richard III really murder his young nephews, the famous “Princes in the Tower”? Using…
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A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O’Connor
The very first paper I wrote in college was on the story ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’. I don’t remember what I wrote, but I do remember that I attributed the story to Eudora Welty throughout the paper, earning the wrath of my professor! Thankfully, I was able to laugh it off and…
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Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart
After my slight disappointment with Wildfire at Midnight I chose my next Stewart carefully. I wanted something that I would love as much as I love The Moonspinners or Thornyhold so I read the beginning of several novels to see what would click. As soon as I started reading Nine Coaches Waiting I knew it…
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Wildfire at Midnight by Mary Stewart
Wildfire at Midnight is set on the Isle of Skye during the week leading up to the queen’s coronation. Giannetta Brooke is a successful fashion model and wants to escape London during the festivities in order to take a rest from her busy schedule. She ends up in an isolated hotel in Camasunary, an area…
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Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple
Ellen North lives at Netherfold with her publisher husband Avery. Her children live away from home; Hugh is in the army and Anne is at school, but they visit during breaks and adore their parents and their beautiful home. Their grandmother, Mrs. North, lives quite close by and is bored and lonely so she engages…
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The Hours Before Dawn by Celia Fremlin
This is a Virago that I’ve had for a few years and finally grabbed off the shelf one night when I was in the mood for a mystery. It is set in the late ’50’s, in a middle-class London neighborhood and focuses on Louise Henderson, the mother of two school-age girls and a baby, Michael.…
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The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins
I bought The Tortoise and the Hare not really knowing very much about it, but with the knowledge that it has been admired by several bloggers and by Hilary Mantel. And who could resist that cover? This fifties novel of marital discord turned out to be remarkable and one of my favorite reads of 2012.…
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Madam, Will You Talk? by Mary Stewart
For my fifth Mary Stewart novel I decided to read the very first book she published, in 1955, Madam, Will You Talk? This action-packed thriller is set in the South of France and is the first-person account of Charity Selborne and the trouble she finds herself in just for being nice to a little boy.…
A Certain Fondness 