strange and random happenstance

I fully admit that the one and only reason I watched this miniseries was to see a young Giles. I might have a thing for Anthony Stewart Head, especially as Watcher and librarian on Buffy the Vampire Slayer... Therefore, over the years, I've tried to make sure I watch everything he's currently in and in my spare time watch his back catalog. Back in that catalog was this wonderful adaptation of Love in a Cold Climate, where just two years after appearing on Lillie he's back on the small screen as Tony Kroesig, the very minimally fictionalized Bryan Guinness. He's just simply adorable with his blonde hair rescuing a rabbit for his future wife who will bolt on him. He's just so perfectly cast and that's what makes this adaptation stand out for me. The cast was so fully rounded and actually felt like a family. Well, when Judi Dench signs on, even in the eighties she had pull, and well, everyone else just fell into place, even her real life husband Michael Williams joined as Davey Warbeck! See, a family! And as Tony's wife Linda is the wonderful Lucy Gutteridge, whom I adore as the love interest opposite Val Kilmer in Top Secret! and in Till We Meet Again, the miniseries I always call "the one where Hugh Grant's a Nazis!" And in an entirely random roll we have Anthony Higgins, Rathe from Young Sherlock Holmes, playing an over-the-top chef who doesn't speak English! I could go on and on, but just take my word for it, perfect casting. Also, seeing as until now, all adaptations named Love in a Cold Climate are actually adaptations of two of Nancy Mitford's books, The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, crammed under the more memorably named book, we have a lot of ground to cover in one series. Unlike the one at the turn of the century which was only two episodes jammed together as one movie stateside, here we have eight episodes to luxuriate in the story. To get all the details right. And why is that important now? Because we have another adaptation on the way! So it's time to bring out the books, sit down and watch these two adaptations, and then see if this new version with Lily James is up to snuff or if she should have stayed away, like with Rebecca.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Anthony Stewart Head, Bryan Guinness, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, Judi Dench, Lily James, Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford, Rebecca, Rupert Giles, The Pursuit of Love, Val Kilmer

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: August 10th, 2010
Format: Paperback, 240 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Fanny's mother is known throughout the family as "The Bolter." Leaving your child behind to be raised by your siblings isn't that odd in a family that uses children instead of foxes in hunts, has their own distinct argot, and lives in such an old house that only one closet has the warmth to be bearable in cold weather. It is in this "Hons" closet that Fanny and her cousin Linda spend all their time dreaming of true love. Because love is what life is all about. As they grow up their thoughts turn less from the fantasy of marrying the Prince of Wales and more towards any decent chap that can be lured to Alconleigh for their debut ball. Linda, growing up at Alconleigh, has not had the luxury of the education that Fanny has had living most of her time with their Aunt Emily in London. Linda therefore is so desperate to fall in love that she mistakenly falls for the first man who comes along. The wrong man, Tony Kroesig. While Fanny happily settles down with an Oxford don and starts having babies, Linda's marriage to Tony becomes nothing more than a sham. They have one daughter, whom Linda can't stand, but she keeps up the pretense of happy families, until one day she throws off her Facist husband for a Communist Christian. But yet again Linda has misstepped, thinking that she is in love when really she is just in love with being away from Tony. Always wanting so desperately to be in love Linda mistakes any male attention for the real deal. Could she be turning into Fanny's mother, The Bolter? Or will her desperate search for love pay off in the oddest of ways?

I remember one winter day when I first picked up the Vintage omnibus of The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. The selling point to me was the big silver sticker they had put on the cover for Masterpiece Theatre. I covet those PBS tie-in editions of yore with the beautiful artwork and here was a brand new one waiting for me to buy it. I have mentioned this before, but I am the book dork who must always read a book before watching the show, so I set to reading this before the miniseries was to air. This was a hard time in my life, I had just temporarily dropped out of college because of multiple deaths in the family and I took solace in this little escape. While I enjoyed the book, I was really looking forward to watching the miniseries more than anything. Of course, nothing goes to plan. My main problem was I was living with my family and we had only two tvs. This was to air on a Monday night, which meant one of the TVs was designated for my little brother watching Monday Night Wrestling, which meant I had to negotiate for the second TV with my mother. My mother agreed to watch it, so long as it was good. She lasted less then five minutes before she claimed boredom and changed the channel, to Two and a Half Men, to add insult to injury. I was so fed up with everyone else getting what they wanted when all I wanted to do was watch one episode of Masterpiece Theatre that I went into my room and cried. I had waited months and my mom had let me have five minutes. I had to wait more than four years to finally see the series... so logically enough, my memory of the book faded because of the incident and the emotion that followed.

Therefore a re-read was in order! I had remembered very little in the years that followed my initial reading, many of my memories were tied up in the aforementioned incident and in the second volume of the book, so I was pleasantly surprised by what I had forgotten and what I had remembered. The odd thing about this book is, truthfully, there really isn't a plot. Instead it is about the yearning and desire for love and how that can go unexpectedly right and horribly wrong. Of all the love stories told, the two that I enjoy the most were Jassy's and Linda's final love. Jassy, Linda's younger sister, has spent her entire life saving up money to run away, finally she does so in order to go to Hollywood and court an actor she has fallen for, who played a background artist in a pirate movie. The media sensation that follows is almost more entertaining than the end of the courtship, with her father viewing the reporters trying to sneak into his house as the first real and formidable enemies since he killed Germans with his entrenching tool in The Great War. While Linda's love of Fabrice is so unexpected when they meet at the train station as she is leaving her second husband, it is their banter and their easy natural conversation that makes you realize that it's not the money and it's not the looks, it's how you click that matters. Linda and I learned that love can be found in the most unexpected of places when you least expect it.

Yet, what I found most interesting about this book is how it was a mirror for the Mitfords themselves. The first time I read this book I knew about them in the vaguest of terms. Sisters, writers, one or two hung out with Hitler, whatever, it wasn't of concern to me, this was fiction. But as Nancy's sister Jessica points out in the introduction "we all know [Nancy's] got no imagination" because "there we were, larger than life, Mitfords renamed Radletts, reliving our childhoods as seen through Nancy's strange triangular green eyes." And this was a trait shared by all Nancy's books, just look to the controversy surrounding Wigs on the Green, therefore the more you know about the Mitfords the funnier her books are. Here Nancy revels in lampooning herself and her family. Her sisters Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah, and brother Tom are all fair game, from what they did to even how they spoke, Hons being the family argot for their honorable titles and here lovingly given to a closet. Let's look as to what happened in real life that was included in this book? Jessica running off to Spain with a communist, yes times two. Diana up and leaving her catholic husband for a fascist, yes, but in reverse. Nancy's affair with a Frenchman, thankfully showing she is willing to lampoon herself, also happens. But it's not just the big things, the life changing events that are mirrored, it's their love of animals, that weird language all their own, a million things that made up this family.

This book is the Mitfords as seen through a slightly wobbly magnifying lens and I love the book for this more than any other reason. It brings these people to life in a way a thousand biographies never could, though granted I've only read a few. And Nancy continued these characters stories in Love in a Cold Climate and Don't Tell Alfred. But here's the rub, Don't Tell Alfred is often forgotten and pushed aside. Albeit it is set twenty years later, and was written eleven years after Love in a Cold Climate, I find it odd that it's so often omitted. The first two books in this trilogy are often released as an omnibus and have even been dramatized twice, once in 1980 with Judi Dench and again in 2001, which was the version I mentioned above. Yet where is Alfred? I could be cruel and say it's because it's a far inferior book, which is my personal truth, but I just find it odd that Nancy Mitford only wrote a handful of books in her life, only eight "fiction" books, and of those so many were purposefully pushed aside. As I mentioned before her book Wigs on the Green had a bit of a to-do, which resulted in it never being reprinted until recently, and not many people rhapsodize about The Blessing, which overly romanticizes the philandering ways of French men, but it is my belief that we can't just omit something because it doesn't reach the heights attained by it's predecessors. For someone who so ruthlessly portrayed the painful truths of her family it's odd to me that Nancy would willingly excise parts of her own history. But that is the beauty of being the one who writes down the history am I right? You can make of it what you will. Or in this case you can just go read one of the books written by her sisters for another opinion.   

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alconleigh, Diana Mitford, Hitler, Jessica Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate, Masterpiece Theater, Mitford March, Mitfords, Nancy Mitford, PBS, Sweet Reads, The Bolter, The Great War, The Pursuit of Love

Colonel William Reid. AKA, a hard man to pin down. He's such a vibrant and amazing character but I kept getting caught up on the fact he was a ginger instead of trying to cast to the character as Lauren had written him. That's when Anthony Stewart Head popped into mine.

Name: Anthony Head

"Dream" Character Casting for the Lauren Willig Miniseries: Colonel William Reid

First Impression: Do you remember those old Taster's Choice commercials? I'm sure you do. Though I personally have no recollection of Trevor Eve being in them, it is what I remember Anthony Head from. In fact I remember going to a Doctor Who convention back in the 90s when Buffy had just started and I saw that Anthony Head, aka, the guy from the Taster's Choice commercials was there. I wanted to see him, my friend I was with declined. We made it up to him years later when we went to a Buffy the Vampire Slayer convention in the Catskills.

Why they'd be the perfect actor for the Lauren Willig Miniseries: Forget for a moment that he's not a ginger. The reason I think Anthony Head would be perfect is that, aside from being an amazingly talented actor, he has this ability to light up a room when he smiles. There's an infectious mirth that I think is inherent in the character of William Reid that is also part of who Tony is. There's also a bit of a rogue in him. He can also be scary and commanding when needed. Oh, and he looks fabulous on a horse. Is that enough?

Lasting Impression: While technically it is probably the Taster's Choice commercial, I didn't remember his name or anything from that, so I'm counting the lasting impression as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As Rupert Giles he made librarians sexy. He also showed an amazing range from action and adventure, to comedy, to scary dark depths, his name was Ripper! Now I want to go watch all of Buffy again. Dammit. I knew choosing him as William was a trap somehow. OK, queue up all seven seasons, let's get this started.

What else you've seen them in: That picture of the two of us on my wall? No, that's only for me, let's get to you all. Um, everything awesome? He's played the aging playboy in Manchild and The Invisibles, the sexy Prime Minister on Little Britain. The sophisticated aristocrat in a world about to go to war in Dancing on the Edge. He's played evil fantasy fathers in Merlin and Galavant, with singing! He's shown his comedic chops and his ability to navigate dating a younger woman on the fabulous You, Me and Them. He showed his more shallow side as a certain Regency father in Persuasion, and his sexy evil side on Warehouse 13, seen above, go Paracelsus, kill them all, um, I didn't mean to say that out loud. And of course, he was on Doctor Who. It's not like I've watched everything he's ever been in... I'm sure I've missed one or two. Maybe.

Can't believe it's them: Love in a Cold Climate! Seriously! This is awesome! Look at little Tony Head as another Tony, Tony Kroesig, Linda Radlett's husband! Thankfully this has been reissued on DVD so that you and sqwee with me every time he comes on screen.

Wish they hadn't: Left Buffy to be in Manchild? And no, not a joke. Manchild is ok and all, it's just not Buffy. I mean, it's awesome how they had him leave and then come back, both at the end of Season 6 and then in Season 7, but I missed my Giles! Also I totally still want the Ripper movie, I don't care of the comics have covered it, I still want it.

Bio: Anthony Stewart Head, he had to use the Stewart stateside because there was already another Anthony Head over here, was born into a family that prized the arts. He grew up in Hampton and attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. Tony's father was a documentary filmmaker, his mother is an actress, his brother is a famous musical theater star, and his long term partner, Sarah Fisher, was a theatre administrator, while their two daughters are actresses as well, Emily even played his daughter on The Invisibles. Like his brother he has a love for singing and has released some music both with a band and solo, where he even wrote some of the songs, as well as starring in musicals. He also has a love of horse riding and his house in Somerset with his horses was featured in season 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Head is one of those rare actors who is popular on both sides of the ocean and knows who his fans are and continues to make great shows within the sci-fi community but also expands his repertoire with period pieces. He has been acting as long as I have been alive and I hope to see him popping up in shows for years and years to come. I especially loved his random appearance in Galavant recently, such an awesome surprise. He's my William any day!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Anthony Stewart Head, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doctor Who, Lauren Willig, Little Britain, Love in a Cold Climate, Merlin, Persuasion, Rupert Giles, The Passion of the Purple Plumeria, Warehouse 13, William Reid

The Ashford Affair by Lauren Willig
ARC Provided by the Publisher
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: April 9th, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Clemmie's life has been turned on its head. Everything she took as a given is slowly being taken away from her. Her Grandmother Addie and her Grandmother's apartment on the Upper East Side have always been a safe haven for Clemmie. Yet Addie hasn't been doing well. Clemmie though has been so busy wrapped up in her own world at her law firm that she doesn't realize time is passing by. Soon it might be too late and there is so much Clemmie hasn't asked or forgot to ask her Grandmother. When the family descend for Addie's birthday party Clemmie's Aunt starts dropping weird hints about a deep dark family secret. A secret that spans Addie's childhood and adolescence in England and then her time in Kenya. Could this secret change Clemmie's entire life?

Booked as Out of Africa meets Downton, I can see the marketing ploy... but The Ashford Affair didn't feel like this to me. For those epics there is a distancing between you and the characters. You feel like an outsider looking in. No matter how much you love and care for Denys Finch Hatton or Lady Mary, you are never part of their story. That's where Lauren shines. She has created characters you connect with in a different way. You become part of their story. Reminiscent of the writing style of Nancy Mitford, as you were sitting in the Hons cupboard listening to Linda recount the love of her life, there you are sitting with Addie as she braves the cold outdoor nightclub as she sees herself losing the love of her life.

While I'm sure there are others out there who would disagree with me, and say the marketing is apt, the thing is I'm an Out of Africa hater, so it's a good thing I didn't see The Ashford Affair as such. Also, as to the Downton angle, yeah, ok, but a lot of people are in "Downton Rage" as I'm calling it because of the Matthew debacle, and Downton doesn't have the constant witty banter and humor that Lauren has brought to The Ashford Affair. Downton is an epic soap opera, even if you are one of those people who didn't realize it as such at first, but how else to categorize a show where the heir goes down in the Titanic in the first episode? I mean, come on people! Downton has a lot going for it, but there's a disconnect between that show and this book. Therefore I am rechristening it Alconleigh to Kenya or possibly, Mitfords meet Clueless... still deciding on that one. Either way, Lauren has created characters who you could see spending time with and having a laugh with (PELT!) and enjoying life, verses the epic heart wrenching day to day life at Downton. Not saying that there aren't times when Lauren is ripping out your heart, she just won't leave you dead in a ditch.

I don't think my "Mitford" interpretation is that far off either. Let's look at the evidence, a Bolter, check, either if based on Idina Sackville, or the fictional Mitford Bolter... which may have been based on Sackville or even on Nancy Mitford's sister Diana, the Bolter is key. The elder sister Dodo, a horse and hounds girl, could that be Debo Mitford, the Duchess of Devonshire who likes to write books about her chickens? Then there's Addie... a cousin and an outsider who comes to live in a glorious estate with rather odd relatives while her own parents were in disrepute with the rest of the family, can anyone say Fanny Logan, the narrator of Nancy Mitford's famous trilogy? Lauren herself has said that Nancy's book Wigs on the Green was an inspiration, which was notorious for Nancy's lampooning of her own family and was therefore out of print for many years. Also just the humor fits in more with the Mitfords/Radletts. The scene that brings this out more than any other is when Addie's mouse is set loose by Bea at Dodo's coming out ball. Lauren was able to perfectly recapture a time that, in my mind, was exemplified my Nancy Mitford's writing. Lauren brought that world to life again, and that's a hard feat.

Speaking of time, time is an interesting thing. Though the twenties are a very specific time and place within the last century, it has still developed a timelessness to it. The sepia coloring of passing generations has made it an era we are nostalgic for and romanticize, even though we weren't alive. Maybe that's why we are nostalgic for it, because we didn't live through it. Unlike the late 90s. Having the modern day section set not in the "now" but in the 90s kept drawing me out of the book. Modern references niggled at me and then I was thinking of the weirdest things, like, was their really Lord of the Rings parties in the 90s? I mean, you'd have to be a hard core book nerd to be having the parties, because the first of the movies didn't come out until 2001. In fact, the film had only been filming for two months when the action of this book takes place.

I know this is nit picky, but this is where my mind goes. This is why, while I enjoyed the whole book, the modern sections I was almost skimming. I didn't really care about Clemmie's job travails (another thing, hating the name Clemmie, sounds like the demon Clem from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or phlegm whereas I love the full name Clementine, so just call her by that). Clemmie's job was just a hurtle that kept her from her family, and while it was annoying for her, it was more annoying to me. I know Lauren connects to Clemmie's life of lawyering, I just personally didn't connect. But perhaps I just didn't want to go back to the modern sections of the book because I was reveling in the past. I would have loved it longer and more in depth because I didn't want to leave the past. Not one bit.

One thing can be certain, this book has allayed many worries of mine and I'm sure fears of others. With the inevitable end of Lauren's Pink Carnation series (le sigh) she has proven with The Ashford Affair that she is capable of writing books that I will keep buying. She kept me awake until the wee hours (is that dawn I see?) as I tried to puzzle out the mystery, which I thought I was certain of until, wham. Lauren has definitely got me for the entire span of her literary career, which I wager will be long and fruitful.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Clueless, Downton Abbey, Lauren Willig, Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford, Out of Africa, Pink Carnation, The Ashford Affair, The Bolter, The Pursuit of Love, Wigs on the Green

The Blessing by Nancy Mitford
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: 1951
Format: Paperback, 256 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Grace Allingham is engaged to a nice English boy. He didn't push for the marriage to happen before the war and therefore when Charles-Edouard de Valhubert comes into her life and sweeps her off her feet, it's really Hughie's own fault for not locking that down. Charles-Edouard is French and exciting. He loves art and beauty and Grace. Grace, like her father, is taken by all things French and is therefore really taken with her new husband. They have two glorious weeks together till he ships out and she doesn't see him for seven years. In those two weeks she managed to get pregnant, so the seven years away from her husband that she barely knows is spent raising their son Sigi and tending goats.

A year after the war is over Charles-Edouard sweeps back into Grace's life and whisks her away to France and a new life. Only Charles-Edouard is determined to continue living his old life. Sure, he has a wife and son, but that doesn't mean he's not going to reunite with his mistresses and perhaps pick up a few more. When Grace catches him in the act she flees back to England and the familiar. The couple want to reunite, but they both want what the other can't give. Meanwhile Sigi sees an opportunity. It appears to him that keeping his parents apart might benefit him. He would no longer be ignored but would be lavished with presents and attention. Plus, if he could also get bribes off of perspective suitors for his mother's or father's hand in marriage... he might come out very well, as long as his parents don't rumble his con.

The Blessing is an odd novel in that it feels like you are reading about ghosts long gone, a feeling enhanced by the visit to the Père Lachaise Cemetery in the book. Grace Allingham and Charles-Edouard de Valhubert are quite literally Linda Radlett and Fabrice de Sauveterre from The Pursuit of Love brought back from the dead. There are many questions this brings up. Is The Blessing a long "what if" novel wherein Nancy was wondering one day what would have happened if Linda and Fabrice hadn't died? Did she just love these characters so much that though she parted with them she had to bring them back in some way? Or was she using the ghosts of the past to recapture the best seller cache of her previous two novels, The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate? All or none of these things may be true, but as a reader I felt like I was just trudging over terrain I had already gone over and over and was now trapped in a rut. There are only so many phone conversations between louche Frenchman and naive English girls that one can take in a lifetime and I think I have had my fill.

By giving Charles-Edouard/Fabrice and his lackadaisical morals full reign the book, no matter how Nancy tries, isn't a love story but a reflection of an amoral society that you aren't quite sure she's making fun of or even trying to justify in some sick way. The situations in The Pursuit of Love are able to push Fabrice into being a loving antihero for awhile, but without the strictures of the war, you see that Fabrice would have easily reverted to Charles-Edouard and his philandering ways. Charles-Edouard in some ways does love Grace, but the truth is, it isn't a love I would accept on any level. She must abide by his character or else lose him.

How is this fair? And why does everyone expect Grace to just accept this? Charles-Edouard has a long standing mistress, but of course it's "innocent" because the sex doesn't matter as much as the conversation. Then there's the young nubile mistress who Grace catches him with, though he still denies that there wasn't anything wrong with what she saw. Then there's the danger of any pretty woman anywhere that he might just wander off with at a moments notice. Yet Grace is expected to just be ok with this? No. It's not funny, it's not ok, it's sad. Everyone deserves to be loved exclusively without caveats. Sorry Nancy if you think this is acceptable, I don't.

And speaking of Nancy, and her sad Francophile life... the truth is maybe she didn't find this acceptable but she was trying to justify her own life. In 1942 she met a man, Gaston Palewski. He worked closely with Charles de Gaulle and was key in the French government for many years. Nancy fell in love, hard. Gaston was the love of her life, she dedicated a book to him and based both Fabrice and Charles-Edouard on him. Sadly, she wasn't the love of his life and he would never give up his ways as a reckless womanizer. In 1946 she moved to Paris to be closer to Gaston, with her life revolving around whenever he could spare a moment for her. She was willing to drop any plans if she could see or hear him for just a few minutes.

This obsession is oddly similar to Unity's obsession with Hitler and the stalker qualities it brought out in her. Nancy could easily be said to have been Gaston's stalker, seeing as their relationship was mainly one sided. She would have killed herself willingly for Gaston, a situation he found flattering and amusing. In 1969 Gaston married another one of his mistresses who was not much younger then Nancy. Nancy soon after became ill and eventually died of Cancer. He broke her heart. The Blessing might be see as one long justification of the life Nancy lived, a way to con herself into believing that just being a part of his life, just being one of his women was enough. I, on the other hand, find it heartbreaking. That such a smart, witty, bright woman could think that this was enough for her, that this was the life she deserved, it breaks my heart.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Cancer, France, Gaston Palewski, Hitler, Love in a Cold Climate, Mitford March Mach Deux, Nancy Mitford, Paris, The Blessing, The Pursuit of Love, Unity Mitford, Womanizer

Pigeon Pie by Nancy Mitford
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: 1940
Format: Paperback, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Sophia Garfield has had this fixed and glamorous image of what the outbreak of war would be like. Needless to say she is very let down when it doesn't live up to any of her expectations. Her husband is busy with his mistress, who is now living under the same roof as Sophia, not that she really minds, seeing as her own lover is there as well. Sophia is more put out because she sent her dog to the country for safety and is missing the little brute. The war is looking as if it's going to be very dull. Where are the spies and the romantic secret agents? And she's not talking about her friends who are pretending to be secret agents, but the real kind. Sophia does her duty though and starts work at a First Aid Post, which holds more dull drudgery in spades. She thinks it all might be more interesting if the war were to actually start in earnest, but little does she know that she's about to wind up in the middle of a giant German conspiracy. Her godfather, Sir Ivor King, is about to help Britain launch a musical campaign to bring the Germans to their knees when he is apparently murdered. This is just the first event in a series of odd occurrences that might just help Sophia get the excitement she wanted out of the war.

Sometimes you're reading a book and you can see exactly what the author was trying to do. You know what their intent was. In fact, they are trying so hard it's almost a little painful to read. But in the end their efforts fall flatter then flat and it's not that the book is bad, it's just that it's almost a nonentity. You could take or leave the book and it wouldn't matter one whit. This is exactly how I felt reading Pigeon Pie. There was one instance when I was almost drawn in, when Sir Ivor King was murdered, but that moment of shock had no follow through. The book just went back to it's standard level of blah. This is the first of Nancy Mitford's books to leave no impression on me. On the whole I have enjoyed everything she has written, except Don't Tell Alfred, but there I felt Nancy was trying to be too much and too modern while cashing in on her previous successes with the Radlett family. I have been mulling over as to why I feel this way and I think I have stumbled on an answer. While the basic framework of working in a First Aid Post is drawn from Nancy's own experiences, the farcical spies are pure imagination and just don't work. I think Nancy is one of those writers who excel at writing what she knows. I mean, what's the basic advice to beginning writers: write what you know. Nancy is amazing at this. She turns her jaded eye on the society she was raised in and with witty quips writes books that are a delight to all. Throw in something out of her milieu, and, well, you get Pigeon Pie.

In fairness to Nancy, it's hard to make spying funny in a wartime situation. Even the masters of movie comedies, the Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrams, failed atrociously with Top Secret! Which, for whatever reason I still keep watching... ah, young Val Kilmer, I can't look away, old Val Kilmer, make it stop. On a side note, Jim Abrams was the speaker for my graduation from the UW-Madison, I mention it for no reason at all, other then it was kinda cool. Yet there is one other movie to which I kept comparing this book and thinking, yes, that is what Nancy was trying to do. That movie is The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming. While set during the Cold War not WWII, it's pure farce with Russians running around New England and the comedic geniuses of Jonathan Winters, Alan Arkin, and Carl Reiner. Apparently I'm not the only one who thought it was pure genius when I watched it as a little kid because looking it up now it was nominated for best picture at the Oscars. This movie has the "comedic chaos" that I think Nancy was aiming for with the Germans taking over the aid post and doing all sorts of dirty deeds under the eyes of the British Government. She just didn't get it. Her Germans pretending to be zealot Americans just made me want to put the book down, walk away, and watch some Russians invading New England.

Yet Nancy might, just might, have been able to overcome her lack of first hand experience with secret agents if she had written a single likable character. Yes, as a rule, she doesn't have the most likable characters. They are more caricatures to be laughed at and made fun of. Though, on the whole, they usually have some redeeming aspect that makes you like them, or at least one character you can side with. Not here. Every character was so unlikable I kind of wanted the Germans to succeed in destroying them. In Nancy's other books which are peopled with vapid, amoral characters, we can laugh at them and feel for them, but not love them. That's why Nancy usually has a balance by having someone like Fanny in The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, who is good and true and is the moral compass. We need someone like us looking in on this world where husbands and wives live under the same roof as a couple but with their lovers as well and cast them a gimlet eye; a conduit into the book where we can see Nancy is hopefully making fun of the society she's living in with lovers in the house, instead of it coming across as a fact that make all the characters unlikable. Couple this with in jokes Nancy shared with her sister Diana about golden buttery wigs that make me think of old episodes of Doctor Who for some reason and you can see why Vintage decided to lump this slim volume in with the far better Christmas Pudding, because otherwise no one but the true Mitford devotee would buy it.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Christmas Pudding, Diana Mitford, Doctor Who, Don't Tell Alfred, Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford, Pigeon Pie, Spies, The Pursuit of Love, The Russians Are Coming, Top Secret!, Val Kilmer, WWII

Death in Kenya by M.M. Kaye
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: 1958
Format: Paperback, 204 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

It isn't until Victoria gets off the train in Kenya that she realizes that it was a big mistake to even come. Yet she thought the offer from her Aunt Em to help with her estate, Flamingo, was a dream come true. After the death of Victoria's mother, it's not like she had anything left for her in England and she longed to return to the Rift Valley where she had spent her happiest days as a child. Though Em's son Eden is there. They were once engaged, but Eden ran off and married Alice... Alice was the reason the Victoria thought it was safe to take Em up on the offer. With Alice there, Victoria's feelings couldn't resurface, it wouldn't be right. But right and wrong have a way of being blurred when you live in this small knit community recovering for the bloody Mau Mau rebellion.

Victoria's error in judgement is compounded when Em's friend Drew Stratton picks her up at the station and she learns of Alice's murder just hours before. Victoria is now not only thrown into a family in turmoil, but her heart is in danger of falling for the grieving Eden all over again. While she is not a suspect, being en route at the time, she doesn't know who to trust... anyone in this community could be the killer. There is also every chance the killer could strike again.

Despite being told for years to read M.M. Kaye, I have been negligent in my reading, until now. The truth of the matter is, give me something with a bit of a mystery, with a little bit of the unexplained, and I'm a sucker, therefore this book appealed to me more then her doorstop of an epic, The Far Pavilions. While at times this book was a bit too history lesson combined with police procedural, Kaye was able to not only capture the era so well, but the lush rift valley was made alive for me in a way that other authors, Frances Osborne in particular, where unable to do. I felt like I was transported. The descriptions of the lush vegetation and the burnt charcoal cairns, the music drifting across the lawns and the clink of glasses as the inhabitants had just one more drink. I was there with Victoria, yet thankfully not able to become the next victim.

While I could fault the book's constant police presence, I just can't. The suspects being in constant contact with each other could have given this book a feel like Agatha Christie rounding up the suspects for Poirot, but for some reason, the more modern feeling of the setting with the Mau Mau Rebellion, made me think that this felt more like the movie Scream. Now, I know what you're thinking, this comparison couldn't possibly be flattering to the book... yet it is. Scream has a campy fun to it that I very much like and take into account that this movie is also about a close knit community, a group of friends and family who always have the cops on hand and are always in each others presence, usually in just the one house, but the danger and the death is always there. The fact that the killer also uses a disguise... well, I know it's not Ghostface... and other killers do use disguises... but the ending clinches the comparison for me, and if I said it here, well that would be telling. Just, when you read this book, which you will, when you get to the end, just come back and tell me I'm a little bit right with my comparison. And speaking of the ending... I really didn't see that coming, now did you? Yes, I'm assuming that you have now gone and read the book and returned.

Kaye must also be applauded with how she deals with love and lust. Many authors just don't get the romance right. Either it's over the top or unrealistic. While she does underplay the extremely romantic love interest that I feel is at the heart of this book and therefore makes it work more, she is also able to juggle all the star crossed lovers and inappropriate dalliances that happen among a small group. As Fabrice says to Fanny in Love in a Cold Climate, "She lives, as all those sort of women do, in one little tiny group or set, and sooner or later everybody in that set becomes the lover of everybody else, so that when they change their lovers it is more like a cabinet reshuffle than a new government. Always chosen out of the same old lot, you see." Here, cut off from any other society, the cabinet is reshuffled often. Though in the end... it ends on just the right note. I hate when after all the killing and death if the right people don't end up together, don't you?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, Ashford April, Death in Kenya, Fabrice, Fanny, Ghostface, Kenya, Lauren Willig, Love in a Cold Climate, M. M. Kaye, Mau Mau Rebeliion, Nancy Mitford, Poirot, Rift Valley, Scream, The Far Pavilions

Death in Kenya by M.M. Kaye
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: 1958
Format: Paperback, 204 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

"This book takes place a generation later than my Ashford Affair, in the 1950s, in the aftermath of the Mau Mau rebellion. I’d read this book before—I don’t think there’s any M.M. Kaye I haven’t read and re-read—but it was particularly interesting to read it after writing Ashford, to trace the way the landscape had changed in those thirty years, and to imagine these characters as the descendants of the people my own characters would have known." - Lauren Willig

It isn't until Victoria gets off the train in Kenya that she realizes that it was a big mistake to even come. Yet she thought the offer from her Aunt Em to help with her estate, Flamingo, was a dream come true. After the death of Victoria's mother, it's not like she had anything left for her in England and she longed to return to the Rift Valley where she had spent her happiest days as a child. Though Em's son Eden is there. They were once engaged, but Eden ran off and married Alice... Alice was the reason the Victoria thought it was safe to take Em up on the offer. With Alice there, Victoria's feelings couldn't resurface, it wouldn't be right. But right and wrong have a way of being blurred when you live in this small knit community recovering for the bloody Mau Mau rebellion.

Victoria's error in judgement is compounded when Em's friend Drew Stratton picks her up at the station and she learns of Alice's murder just hours before. Victoria is now not only thrown into a family in turmoil, but her heart is in danger of falling for the grieving Eden all over again. While she is not a suspect, being en route at the time, she doesn't know who to trust... anyone in this community could be the killer. There is also every chance the killer could strike again.

Despite being told for years to read M.M. Kaye, I have been negligent in my reading, until now. The truth of the matter is, give me something with a bit of a mystery, with a little bit of the unexplained, and I'm a sucker, therefore this book appealed to me more then her doorstop of an epic, The Far Pavilions. While at times this book was a bit too history lesson combined with police procedural, Kaye was able to not only capture the era so well, but the lush rift valley was made alive for me in a way that other authors, Frances Osborne in particular, where unable to do. I felt like I was transported. The descriptions of the lush vegetation and the burnt charcoal cairns, the music drifting across the lawns and the clink of glasses as the inhabitants had just one more drink. I was there with Victoria, yet thankfully not able to become the next victim.

While I could fault the book's constant police presence, I just can't. The suspects being in constant contact with each other could have given this book a feel like Agatha Christie rounding up the suspects for Poirot, but for some reason, the more modern feeling of the setting with the Mau Mau Rebellion, made me think that this felt more like the movie Scream. Now, I know what you're thinking, this comparison couldn't possibly be flattering to the book... yet it is. Scream has a campy fun to it that I very much like and take into account that this movie is also about a close knit community, a group of friends and family who always have the cops on hand and are always in each others presence, usually in just the one house, but the danger and the death is always there. The fact that the killer also uses a disguise... well, I know it's not Ghostface... and other killers do use disguises... but the ending clinches the comparison for me, and if I said it here, well that would be telling. Just, when you read this book, which you will, when you get to the end, just come back and tell me I'm a little bit right with my comparison. And speaking of the ending... I really didn't see that coming, now did you? Yes, I'm assuming that you have now gone and read the book and returned.

Kaye must also be applauded with how she deals with love and lust. Many authors just don't get the romance right. Either it's over the top or unrealistic. While she does underplay the extremely romantic love interest that I feel is at the heart of this book and therefore makes it work more, she is also able to juggle all the star crossed lovers and inappropriate dalliances that happen among a small group. As Fabrice says to Fanny in Love in a Cold Climate, "She lives, as all those sort of women do, in one little tiny group or set, and sooner or later everybody in that set becomes the lover of everybody else, so that when they change their lovers it is more like a cabinet reshuffle than a new government. Always chosen out of the same old lot, you see." Here, cut off from any other society, the cabinet is reshuffled often. Though in the end... it ends on just the right note. I hate when after all the killing and death if the right people don't end up together, don't you?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 4 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, Ashford April, Death in Kenya, Fabrice, Fanny, Ghostface, Kenya, Lauren Willig, Love in a Cold Climate, M. M. Kaye, Mau Mau Rebeliion, Nancy Mitford, Poirot, Rift Valley, Scream, The Far Pavilions

The Ashford Affair by Lauren Willig
ARC Provided by the Publisher
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: April 9th, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Clemmie's life has been turned on its head. Everything she took as a given is slowly being taken away from her. Her Grandmother Addie and her Grandmother's apartment on the Upper East Side have always been a safe haven for Clemmie. Yet Addie hasn't been doing well. Clemmie though has been so busy wrapped up in her own world at her law firm that she doesn't realize time is passing by. Soon it might be too late and there is so much Clemmie hasn't asked or forgot to ask her Grandmother. When the family descend for Addie's birthday party Clemmie's Aunt starts dropping weird hints about a deep dark family secret. A secret that spans Addie's childhood and adolescence in England and then her time in Kenya. Could this secret change Clemmie's entire life?

Booked as Out of Africa meets Downton, I can see the marketing ploy... but The Ashford Affair didn't feel like this to me. For those epics there is a distancing between you and the characters. You feel like an outsider looking in. No matter how much you love and care for Denys Finch Hatton or Lady Mary, you are never part of their story. That's where Lauren shines. She has created characters you connect with in a different way. You become part of their story. Reminiscent of the writing style of Nancy Mitford, as you were sitting in the Hons cupboard listening to Linda recount the love of her life, there you are sitting with Addie as she braves the cold outdoor nightclub as she sees herself losing the love of her life.

While I'm sure there are others out there who would disagree with me, and say the marketing is apt, the thing is I'm an Out of Africa hater, so it's a good thing I didn't see The Ashford Affair as such. Also, as to the Downton angle, yeah, ok, but a lot of people are in "Downton Rage" as I'm calling it because of the Matthew debacle, and Downton doesn't have the constant witty banter and humor that Lauren has brought to The Ashford Affair. Downton is an epic soap opera, even if you are one of those people who didn't realize it as such at first, but how else to categorize a show where the heir goes down in the Titanic in the first episode? I mean, come on people! Downton has a lot going for it, but there's a disconnect between that show and this book. Therefore I am rechristening it Alconleigh to Kenya or possibly, Mitfords meet Clueless... still deciding on that one. Either way, Lauren has created characters who you could see spending time with and having a laugh with (PELT!) and enjoying life, verses the epic heart wrenching day to day life at Downton. Not saying that there aren't times when Lauren is ripping out your heart, she just won't leave you dead in a ditch.

I don't think my "Mitford" interpretation is that far off either. Let's look at the evidence, a Bolter, check, either if based on Idina Sackville, or the fictional Mitford Bolter... which may have been based on Sackville or even on Nancy Mitford's sister Diana, the Bolter is key. The elder sister Dodo, a horse and hounds girl, could that be Debo Mitford, the Duchess of Devonshire who likes to write books about her chickens? Then there's Addie... a cousin and an outsider who comes to live in a glorious estate with rather odd relatives while her own parents were in disrepute with the rest of the family, can anyone say Fanny Logan, the narrator of Nancy Mitford's famous trilogy? Lauren herself has said that Nancy's book Wigs on the Green was an inspiration, which was notorious for Nancy's lampooning of her own family and was therefore out of print for many years. Also just the humor fits in more with the Mitfords/Radletts. The scene that brings this out more than any other is when Addie's mouse is set loose by Bea at Dodo's coming out ball. Lauren was able to perfectly recapture a time that, in my mind, was exemplified my Nancy Mitford's writing. Lauren brought that world to life again, and that's a hard feat.

Speaking of time, time is an interesting thing. Though the twenties are a very specific time and place within the last century, it has still developed a timelessness to it. The sepia coloring of passing generations has made it an era we are nostalgic for and romanticize, even though we weren't alive. Maybe that's why we are nostalgic for it, because we didn't live through it. Unlike the late 90s. Having the modern day section set not in the "now" but in the 90s kept drawing me out of the book. Modern references niggled at me and then I was thinking of the weirdest things, like, was their really Lord of the Rings parties in the 90s? I mean, you'd have to be a hard core book nerd to be having the parties, because the first of the movies didn't come out until 2001. In fact, the film had only been filming for two months when the action of this book takes place.

I know this is nit picky, but this is where my mind goes. This is why, while I enjoyed the whole book, the modern sections I was almost skimming. I didn't really care about Clemmie's job travails (another thing, hating the name Clemmie, sounds like the demon Clem from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or phlegm whereas I love the full name Clementine, so just call her by that). Clemmie's job was just a hurtle that kept her from her family, and while it was annoying for her, it was more annoying to me. I know Lauren connects to Clemmie's life of lawyering, I just personally didn't connect. But perhaps I just didn't want to go back to the modern sections of the book because I was reveling in the past. I would have loved it longer and more in depth because I didn't want to leave the past. Not one bit.

One thing can be certain, this book has allayed many worries of mine and I'm sure fears of others. With the inevitable end of Lauren's Pink Carnation series (le sigh) she has proven with The Ashford Affair that she is capable of writing books that I will keep buying. She kept me awake until the wee hours (is that dawn I see?) as I tried to puzzle out the mystery, which I thought I was certain of until, wham. Lauren has definitely got me for the entire span of her literary career, which I wager will be long and fruitful.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Clueless, Downton Abbey, Lauren Willig, Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford, Out of Africa, Pink Carnation, The Ashford Affair, The Bolter, The Pursuit of Love, Wigs on the Green

The Bolter: Edwardian Heartbreak and High Society Scandal in Kenya by Frances Osborne
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: 2008
Format: Paperback, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

"Every now and again you come up against a book that has a real and unexpected impact on your life. The Bolter was one of those books for me. Knowing that I like to vacation in the 1920s, a friend gave me the book to read for fun back in the fall of 2010, at the same time that my grandmother, previously hale and hearty, wound up in the hospital, not once, but repeatedly. Opening “The Bolter”, I was incredibly struck by Frances Osborne’s comment that she hadn’t known that Idina Sackville, aka the Bolter, was her great-grandmother, until a chance television program sparked the revelation. The combination of events got me thinking, hard, about how little we know about our own families, about the secrets our grandparents take with them.

And that was how The Ashford Affair was born…" - Lauren Willig

Idina Sackville was was born in 1893. Raised in affluence amid a family of loose morals, she herself grew up to be not only unconventional, but some might even say scandalous. In a time when divorce was not prevalent, she went on to marry five times, it might have been six if her daughter hadn't begged her to not marry again and return to her maiden name. The first bolt to Africa left behind her very small children with her ex and his new bride. She would grow to love Africa, so much so that despite numerous divorces and reclamation of her property, she would set up three separate homes there over the years. Her parties in the Happy Valley became notorious for the booze, drugs and bed jumping. Her life became the stuff of fiction and parody in her own lifetime, with Nancy Mitford, among the many authors to take on Idina as a subject, immortalizing her as "The Bolter" in her books The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. Despite making the rift valley in Kenya "happy," her life wasn't that glamorous, and one has to wonder if she brought down the misery on herself in the end.

So, I fully admit that, seeing as this is the book that inspired Lauren Willig to write The Ashford Affair, that logically, "Ashford April" should have started with this book... rarely can it be said that I am logical, and therefore this is the second book reviewed this month. I just felt that Wigs on the Green was a nice transition between a month of Mitfords and a month of Ashford. I really liked the concept of this book more than the actual execution of it. I should have known I was in for trouble just by the fact that this book was recommended by Oprah's magazine, O. Oprah's selections tend to be... how shall I put this... books that I avoid like the plague. There is some sort of dynamic and polar opposites between me and Oprah. I have long ago accepted it, she, well, she doesn't even know I exist. But she was sneaky, instead of that "O" sticker, there was a little red band at the bottom that I didn't even bother to read the reversed out type on. Well played Oprah, well played.

The first hurtle that I couldn't get past was that every single person in this book was unlikable. They weren't just mildly annoying, but full on, me banging my head against the wall declaring that they deserved all the ill will that befell them because of their lack of morals or likability. Supposedly Idina could transfix anyone and endear them to her, so that despite all that she had working against her, the scandals, the affairs, that to those who personally knew her, she was the life of the party and a wonder to behold. Yet this never came across in the stories I read about her. Instead her great-granddaughter, who is obviously lacking in this ability to transfix anyone, has to repeatedly say it over and over as if to assure us, that despite appearances to the contrary, Idina was likable. OK... guess I'm going to have to take her word for it because rarely have I met someone who I wanted to throttle as much as India.

On top of Idina, the book is peopled with too many other characters that you don't care for because of their odiousness. Sometimes it feels like Frances Osborne goes out of her way to highlight the bad traits so that her book comes across as unbiased. Instead I felt like she just really hates her family. Then the odd rants about people other then Idina where wearing... I picked up the book because it was about Idina, not because of her son David, or anyone else. Excise David, sure she was Idina's son, but guess what, he died, so the end. In fact, they all die. And I couldn't give a damn. They all led lives that I found amoral and depraved, and they all deserved what they got. Sure she inspired some great fiction... but that's the thing about fiction, it makes this more palatable. Truth is harder to digest.

Next rant... Kenya. I picked up this book because of the "chief seductress of Kenya's scandalous 'Happy Valley set'." That meant to me, that the book was about Idina and Kenya... well... Kenya doesn't even get a look in until 130 pages after lugubrious family history and the destruction of her first marriage, that really she just gave up on in my opinion. Plus, once Idina gets to Kenya, she has a tendency to leave it quite rapidly again. It's only in her 3rd and 4th into 5th marriages that she actually spends any length of time there. Those sections of the book I found interesting. It was how the members of this little community lived and interacted that fascinated me. How they all got together at house parties and lived for the races in Nairobi. So, at least I did get some of what I expected to get in this book, but it was too little too late. These passages where not able to redeem themselves for the history of Idina's father's affairs, or her mother's political fervor. Some probably view it as backstory. I view it as too much exposition and not enough of what I wanted.

Yet all issues pale to that which angered me and put a fire in my belly that just wouldn't quit. Inaccuracies abounded in this book. If one or more facts is glaringly, obviously, 100% wrong wrong wrong... how can we take anything the author says at face value. The first error, which she later repeated, proving that it wasn't a typo, was about the political affiliations of one Oswald Mosley. For those who don't know, Oswald Mosley was the founder of the Blackshirts... those same Blackshirts that where parodied by Nancy Mitford in Wigs on the Green. The Blackshirts are Fascists. Who does Frances Osborne say Oswald Mosley's affliations lie with? The Communists. Because Communists and Fascists are the same right? NO! They HATE each other. Google Oswald Mosley and you will get quite a few politically incorrect jokes that Mosley said about Communists. In fact, Diana Mitford, sister of Nancy and Jessica, eventually married Oswald, after being his mistress for quite some time, and Diana's Fascisim led to a prolonged silence between her and Jessica, because Jessica was a Communist.

If this error wasn't enough, Osborne goes on to say that in Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love, the one with a character based on Idina, that when the fictional Bolter arrives to visit her daughter Fanny at the end of the book that Fanny is delivering her 1st child... not her 3rd, which is actually the case... but her first. These errors indicate a problem that might run deeper in the book. These are just two errors that I, who is not an afficianado of Africa or the Happy Valley set picked up on. Where there are two glaring errors, there are probably more. So how can I believe ANYTHING this author says? It shouldn't be shelved in biographies, but in fiction... Osborn in fact could conceivably make the book far more readable if she where to do this... historical fiction, not biography. Gaw... at least one good thing came out of this book, and that's The Ashford Affair.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Ashford April, Frances Osborne, Happy Valley, Idina Sackville, Jessica Mitford, Kenya, Lauren Willig, Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford, Oswald Mosley, The Ashford Affair, The Bolter, The Pursuit of Love

Don't Tell Alfred by Nancy Mitford
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: August 10th, 2010
Format: Paperback, 240 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

Fanny's life is being turned upside down. She has spent a quiet life in Oxford with her husband, raising her boys. They are now gone from home, two out of school and two at Eton. What is Fanny to do? Settle into middle age and just wait for death? Sounds fine to her. Then she receives a shocking blow, her husband has been named Ambassador to France, making her Ambassadress. They are to uproot their lives and start hosting cocktail parties and dealing with foreign crises in a large mansion in France. Never before has Fanny had to personally deal with family problems being fodder for the gutter press. Nor did she think that the former Ambassadress secretly living in the Embassy would threaten Alfred's tenure as the new Ambassador. Such little things, like her sons showing up unexpectedly, or her mother remarrying, become not little incidents to be dealt with, but calamities to hide from their dinner guests. Fanny is sure she shall fail, and miserably. Luckily she does have some people on her side, and the ace up her sleeve is her father figure Davey. When in doubt, get Davey. He can do anything, even smoke out former Ambassadresses from the woodwork!

I remember being on Lauren Willig's blog one day and she was talking about heading out to Paris on a research trip and how that had inspired a need to re-read Nancy Mitford's Don't Tell Alfred. At this time I had already read The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, being the two books of Nancy's that you could actually get stateside, so I was interested in this book of hers I'd not heard of. So I went to Wikipedia and looked it up. Where I read "it is the third in a trilogy centered around an upper-class English family, and takes place twenty years after the events of The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate." I instantly went WHAT!?! (But say it in your head as David Walliams does it so well on Little Britain playing Sebastian, the PM's assistant, WOT!?!) So many thoughts went through my head, mainly, wait, there's a third book followed closely by, but I have an omnibus, omnibuses aren't supposed to leave out books in the series. Then very quickly, "I MUST FIND THIS BOOK!" superseded all other thoughts. Luckily it was around the time of Deborah's 90th birthday when the publishing Gods decided to re-release Nancy's back catalog, so finding the book proved a lot easier then I thought it would, you can't say the same for Highland Fling, Christmas Pudding or Pigeon Pie. Of course I had to find time to re-read the first two first... which proved rather difficult... until now!

And oh, how I wanted to love it, or even like it, but seriously... it was horrid. I can see why the critics ripped it to shreds. In fact, because of critics, she never wrote fiction again. Personally, if you where going just by this volume, I am with the critics, I would have been begging Nancy to forever put down the pen. My main gripe? Well, seeing as this is a gaggle of characters that are not only known and loved but revered by some, I wanted them to stay IN CHARACTER. I mean, it's like everyone had a full frontal lobotamy and personality transplant. Uncle Matthew loving cocktail parties and he WILLINGLY went to France!?! This was the man who refused to eat under any roof but his own and hated foreigners. The entrenching tool being his weapon of choice against them, not witty dialogue... thankfully Nancy doesn't push it THAT far, seeing as he only goes to the cocktail parties for the food. Also, Aunt Sadie, her and Matthew were insperable, and here they are, sperated. Alfred actually leaving his cloistered life as an Oxford don to be an Ambassador? No. And then there's Fanny. I don't know what happened to the down to earth Fanny who had her life together, but obviously, she's gone, replaced with a twit who cares more about clothes and bungling parties then anything else. Also blithly killing people off in assides and not telling us why in most cases, goodbye Aunt Emily, Lady Montdore, Lord Montdore, two of Matthew's three boys... I'm sure there are more, but I can't think through all the eliptical carnage.

Besides changing every personality trait of the characters I loved, Nancy added too many new characters I couldn't care about at all, let alone distinguish one from the other. There where lots of French people, lots of non French people. The only person I kind of liked was her cousin Lousia's daughter Northey, who was basically Linda mac two, though Scottish. She even had Linda's badger obsession. If they ever decide to make this into a movie, if they don't case Karen Gillan from Doctor Who as Northey it will be the biggest wasted opportunity ever. On top of the lack of who all these characters are, the writing is confusing so that you never know who is talking. There can be pages and pages of dialogue, with no attribution, no "Fanny said" no "Northey said" no nothing. And you know what? The dialogue was so boring, I didn't even bother trying to figure out who said what. Yes Nancy, you bored me.

Yet what was the biggest bore and drain? Politics! I'm guessing the two main things that where being debated in the book was some rocks/islands and the forming of a European Army... someone else who has read this I would love confirmation as to this being the case. Politics in general bore me, made up French politics put me into a coma. I'm sorry Nancy, just because you where in love with a Frenchman who worked for de Gaulle, doesn't mean that instantly all his boring politics and life become interesting to the rest of us. Plus, it was more you in love with him and his world, he really couldn't care about you... so, why did you torture us with this book? Really!?! It was like you where purposefully destroying all the lovely memories I have of the previous two volumes. It no longer surprises me why this was out of print.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Amy Pond, Charles du Gaulle, Doctor Who, Don't Tell Alfred, France, Karen Gillan, Little Britian, Love in a Cold Climate, Mitford March, Nancy Mitford, Oxford, The Pursuit of Love

Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: August 10th, 2010
Format: Paperback, 256 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Polly Hampton was hoping that upon her family's return from India that she would reach the cold climate of England and that everyone would be more refined and not at it all the time. By it, she means love and the affairs of the heart. Sadly, her friend Fanny fills her in, that indeed, daydreams of love fill most hearts even far away from India. The thing is, Polly does not want love. She doesn't want her mother constantly hoping for her to fall into a mad passion, even arraigning for notorious French seducers to ply their trade on Polly. Polly will play the part but her heart will never enter into it. Lady Montdore continually has Fanny as her own "spy" hoping that Fanny can detect a glimmer of love within her daughters cold heart. Lady Montdore has spent her life planning for her daughter to have "all this." Yet, when the truth comes out as to the long game Polly has been playing, "all this" doesn't even enter into it. Love takes many forms, and it doesn't matter if it's odd or unconventional, love is what matters.

Love in a Cold Climate is always combined with The Pursuit of Love in adaptations for the simple reason that the events are actually concurrent with the previous volume. Also, for some reason, they think it's more romantic or apt to call it by Love in a Cold Climate. While I do see the reasoning, I always feel that by doing this neither story is getting full justice. While Pursuit is Linda's tale, Love is more obviously, not just Polly's story, but Fanny's, whose life gets fleshed out. It's not just about living in Linda's world anymore, but Fanny's own world and how others view it. In giving us more time with Fanny, who, let's face it, is the character the majority of us will identify with, there is a stronger connection for me with this book. Fanny's love of Linda, and, really, hero worshiping of her, gave the first book less heart for me. Perhaps it's because I'm the more sensible one and will identify with whichever character that may be. Like in Sense and Sensibility, I am Eleanor, not Marianne. I am Fanny, not Linda. While Polly might be the "main" character for much of the first half, her flinty heart, the opposite of Linda's overflowing heart, puts Fanny center stage and gives me a more satisfying read. Also, less time at Alconleigh and more time with Fanny's father figure Davey, means you realize what a hoot Davey is. His humor and his love of gossip fuel the fires of this book to make it more fun and full of laughs then you would expect after reading only the first volume.

There is also so much in this book that appeals to the lover of Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey in me. In Fanny staying with the higher echelons at Montdore House we have grand feasts on such a scale that you may be salivating while reading this book. There are balls where the rooms are flooded (on purpose) to make it like Venice, where you can float on gondolas indoors, an image that I think will never leave me, despite how short that passage is! With the character of Cedric, we have open acceptance of a gay character in a 1930s setting! Yes, there is some not quite PC labeling of him, but for the time, it was very forward. While Cedric didn't sit that well with critics in 1949, the fact remains that Nancy had a fully realized, sympathetic character with a non-mainstream lifestyle who was loved, truly loved by Lady Montdore, and therefore secured his acceptance in the aristocracy.

Yet for all that, Nancy can never make one non-mainstream lifestyle acceptable. This is a fatal flaw in this book, and that is Boy (Harvey) Dougdale. In fact Boy has so loomed in my memory that, aside from the "Venetian Ball" he is the overwhelming memory I have of this book. Boy is not just lecherousness, he is a pedophile. I am sorry, but there is no humor in someone who is not just sick but, as Uncle Matthew would say, a sewer. He has preyed on all the young girls, and boys, and for this he is nicknamed the Lecherous Lecturer. Yet is anything done about this pervert in their midst? NO! In fact most people find it funny in a kind of deviant way, "Oh, that's just Boy". He is in fact pitied, yes PITIED, because his unwanted attentions to young girls has resulted in him marrying one of the young girls he molested with his "sexy pinches" and massages. Pitied because his proclivities sparked an unwanted love that drove this girl to pursue him to the alter, not just the roof for a little cuddle. Guess what, don't fiddle with little children, because no matter what others think, I will not pity you, I will hope that the little girl will murder you on your wedding night.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alconleigh, Downton Abbey, India, Love in a Cold Climate, Mitford March, Nancy Mitford, Sense and Sensibility, The Pursuit of Love, Uncle Matthew, Upstairs Downstairs, Venice

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: August 10th, 2010
Format: Paperback, 240 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
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Fanny's mother is known throughout the family as "The Bolter." Leaving your child behind to be raised by your siblings isn't that odd in a family that uses children instead of foxes in hunts, has their own distinct argot, and lives in such an old house that only one closet has the warmth to be bearable. It is in this "Hons" closet that Fanny and her cousin Linda spend all their time dreaming of true love. Because love is what life is all about. As they grow up their thoughts turn less from the fantasy of marrying the Prince of Wales and more towards any decent chap that can be lured to Alconleigh for their debut ball. Linda, growing up at Alconleigh has not had the luxury of an education that Fanny has living with their Aunt Emily. Linda therefore is so desperate to fall in love that she mistakenly falls for the first man who comes along. The wrong man.

While Fanny happily settles down with an Oxford don and starts having babies, Linda's marriage to Tony Kroesig is a sham. They have one daughter whom Linda can't stand, but she keeps up the pretense of happy families, until one day she throws off her Facist husband for Communist Christian. Yet again Linda has misstepped, thinking that she is in love once more, when really she is just in love with being away from Tony. Always wanting so desperately to be in love, Linda mistakes any male attention for the real deal. Could she be turning into Fanny's mother, The Bolter? Or will her desperate search for love pay off in the most oddest of ways?

I remember one winter day when I first picked up the Vintage omnibus of The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. The selling point to me was the big silver sticker they had put on the cover for Masterpiece Theatre. I covet those PBS tie-in editions of yore and here was a brand new one waiting for me to buy it. I have mentioned this before, but I am the book dork who must always read a book before watching the show, so I set to reading this before the miniseries was to air. This was a hard time in my life, I had just temporarily dropped out of college because of multiple deaths in the family and I took solace in this little escape. While I enjoyed the book, I was really looking forward to watching the miniseries more than anything. Of course, nothing goes to plan.

My main problem was I was living with my family and we had only two tvs. This was to air on a Monday night, which meant one of the tvs was designated for my little brother watching Monday night wrestling, which meant I had to negotiate for the second tv with my mother. My mother agreed to watch it, so long as it was good. She lasted less then five minutes before she claimed boredom and changed the channel. I was so fed up with everyone else getting what they wanted when all I wanted to do was watch one episode of Masterpiece Theatre that I went into my room and cried. I had waited months and my mom had let me have five minutes, a trait that more or less continues to this day. I had to wait more than four years to finally see the series... so, logically enough, my memory of the book has faded because of the incident that followed.

Therefore when finally getting around to planning Mitford March for my blog, I was excited for the re-read. I remembered very little in the years that followed my initial reading, many of my memories where tied up in the aforementioned incident and in the second volume of the book, more on that later, so I was pleasantly surprised by what I had forgotten and what I had remembered. The odd thing about this book is, truthfully, there really isn't a plot. Instead it is about the yearning and desire for love and how that can go unexpectedly right and horribly wrong. Of all the love stories told, the two that I enjoy the most is Jassy's and Linda's final love. Jassy, Linda's younger sister, has spent her entire life saving up money to run away, finally she does so in order to go to Hollywood and court an actor she has fallen for, who played a background artist in a pirate movie. The media sensation that follows is almost more entertaining then the end of the courtship, with her father viewing the reporters trying to sneak into his house as the first real and formidable enemies since he killed Germans with his entrenching tool in The Great War. While Linda's love of Fabrice is so unexpected when they meet at the train station as she is leaving her second husband, it is their banter and their easy natural conversation that makes you realize that it's not the money and it's not the looks, it's how you click that matters. Linda and I learned that love can be found in the most unexpected of places.

Yet, what I found most interesting about this book is how it was a mirror for the Mitfords themselves. The first time I read this book I knew about them in the vaguest of terms. Sisters, writers, one or two hung out with Hitler, whatever, it wasn't of concern to me, this was fiction. But as Nancy's sister Jessica points out in the introduction "we all know [Nancy's] got no imagination" because "there we were, larger than life, Mitfords renamed Radletts, reliving our childhoods as seen through Nancy's strange triangular green eyes." And the more you know about the Mitfords the funnier the book is. Nancy lampooning herself and her family. Jessica running off to Spain with a communist is both Linda and her little brother's fate. Up and leaving your husband, just like Diana did. Nancy's affair with a Frenchman. The families love of animals, their weird language all their own. This book is the Mitfords as seen through a slightly wobbly magnifying lens, and I love the book for this more then any other reason!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alconleigh, Diana Mitford, Hitler, Jessica Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate, Masterpiece Theater, Mitford March, Mitfords, Nancy Mitford, PBS, The Bolter, The Great War, The Pursuit of Love

Nancy Mitford is the most well known of the Mitford sisters. The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate are considered standard reading among Anglophiles. The eldest of the Mitford children, she was of the generation known as the Bright Young Things, the generation satirized by her friend and fellow Bright Young Thing Evelyn Waugh in his book Vile Bodies. Her debutante photographs where done by Cecil Beaton, the most sought after photographer and chronicler of the age. Unlike her siblings, she never took to politics and instead she threw herself into writing, mainly books that where parodies of her family with the characters thinly veiled.

Much like the people she wrote about, she never had fulfillment in love, placing her heart time and again with the wrong man. Yet where she wasn't a success in affairs of the heart the same couldn't be said about her writing career. "The Pursuit of Love was a phenomenal best seller and made her financially independent." This allowed her to relocate to Paris, where she spent her time writing biographies about French luminaries like Madame Pampadour and Voltaire. Yet it is her comedic sensibilities and sense of humor that people remember in both her novels and her various contributions to newspapers.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Bright Young Things, Cecil Beaton, Evelyn Waugh, Love in a Cold Climate, Madame Pampadour, Mitford March, Mitfords, Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love, Vile Bodies, Voltaire

Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford
Published by: NYRB Classics
Publication Date: 1960
Format: Paperback, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
Recommended for: Anglophiles, Biography Buffs, Mitford Maniacs, Journalists and History Buffs
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Jessica Mitford was the "Ballroom Communist" of the engagingly eccentric Mitford Family. The second youngest daughter of the 2nd Baron Redesdalee, she had an unconventional upbringing where education was the bare minimum to make a good wife. Always wishing for an escape from her family, be it through schooling or politics or moving to another continent, she suffered through being a deb and presentation before the queen and watching her family come apart at the seems due to a divergence in beliefs. But at her first chance she ran off with her cousin, Esmond Rommilly, the nephew of Winston Churchill, to fight Franco in Spain. What with all of England trying to force her home, sending really big ships no less, even the courts of Chancery, it's surprising that she actually was able to succeed in her convictions and in marrying Esmond. The madcap and eccentric life that followed from Rotherhithe to the United States with Esmond equals that of her earlier life, but with herself being the master of her fate.

I rarely read biographies. I have to say, if more biographies were as fun and enjoyable as Jessica Mitford's I would read nothing but. The Mitford family has always been fascinating to me, what with the sisters paths being so divergent. Nancy was one of the "Bright Young Things" and a literary darling, with Love in a Cold Climate, which basically skewered her own family for her amusement. Pamela was horse obsessed and kind of out of the limelight. Diana married the heir to the Guinness fortune then divorced him to have an affair with the head of the British Facist party. When they eventually married, Hitler was at their wedding, which was held at the Goebbels' house. She also spent time in prison. Unity was Hitler's biggest fan and when war broke out between England and Germany she failed at committing suicide only to die of meningitis. And Debo... well she married the Duke of Devonshire and lives at Chatsworth, writes books about chickens and is the last remaining Mitford daughter. You could not make this stuff up! From her earliest days with family to her later life with Esmond, Jessica captures the love she had for these people while at the same time the exasperation of her situation. From hoarding money so she could run away, to the ultimate subterfuge that resulted in her being victorious, even if she had to chase the Spanish Consulate representative all over England and France. To the years scarping by in the States doing anything and everything to stay there, from selling stockings door to door to being a bouncer at a bar. That's right, Jessica, not her husband, was the bouncer.

Given the extreme fame of her family and the career Jessica later established as a journalist in her own right, if a muckracker at that, it's beyond enjoyable to see where it all began. The fact that a high born Hon would eschew her family and their beliefs to set out on her own crusade for right, for the poor and disadvantaged, is a noble crusade indeed. But what you also see is that with Esmond, this is a love story. From her first hearing mention of him, she was in love. From their similar backgrounds of trying to shed off what was their families hereditary hangups, she envied him for his actual escape and later he aided her escape as well. Whether he felt the same inevitability as her that they were meant to be is hinted at. But what is certain is that they were perfectly matched. It makes sense that the book ends with the outbreak of World War II. It's the event that, more than anything, shaped that generation, but more personally than that, embodied the division of this family. It was also the event that would claim Esmond's life. But at least in this book, we can see the love still remains.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Ballroom Communist, Bright Young Things, Chatsworth, Duchess of Devonshire, Esmond Rommilly, Franco, Hitler, Hons and Rebels, Jessica Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford, Winston Churchill

The Agency: The Body at the Tower by Y.S. Lee
Published by: Candlewick
Publication Date: August 10th, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Mary Quinn is back, now a trusted member of the Agency, the all female detective unit operating out of Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls. Her new assignment sends her into the grimy underbelly of Victorian London dressed as a poor boy, evoking her own childhood memories of fear, hunger, and constant want. As she insinuates herself into the confidence of several persons of interest, she encounters others in desperate situations and struggles to make a difference without exposing —or losing —her identity. Mary’s adventure, which takes place on the building site of the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament, offers a fictional window into a fascinating historical time and place. "

Oh, how my tbr pile keeps growing, but I vow to read the first before picking up the second. Really, I vow... could someone maybe check on me later today to make sure I don't run to the bookstore?

Dracula in Love by Karen Essex
Published by: Doubleday
Publication Date: August 10th, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"From the shadowy banks of the river Thames to the wild and windswept Yorkshire coast, Dracula’s eternal muse, Mina Murray, vividly recounts the intimate details of what really transpired between her and the Count—the joys and terrors of a passionate affair that has linked them through the centuries, and her rebellion against her own frightening preternatural powers.

Mina’s version of this Gothic vampire tale is a visceral journey into Victorian England’s dimly lit bedrooms, mist-filled cemeteries, and asylum chambers, revealing the dark secrets and mysteries locked within. Time falls away as she is swept into a mythical journey far beyond mortal comprehension, where she must finally make the decision she has been avoiding for almost a millennium.

Bram Stoker’s classic novel offered one side of the story, in which Mina had no past and bore no responsibility for the unfolding events. Now, for the first time, the truth of Mina’s personal voyage, and of vampirism itself, is revealed. What this flesh and blood woman has to say is more sensual, more devious, and more enthralling than the Victorians could have expressed or perhaps even have imagined. "

Yet more Mina... I really think this is the new tread. No more zombies and werewolves and other supernatural beings trust into classics, just Mina Harker and her take on Drac.

Wigs on the Green by Nancy Mitford
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: August 10th, 2010
Format: Paperback, 192 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Eugenia Malmains is one of the richest girls in England and an ardent supporter of Captain Jack and the Union Jackshirts; Noel and Jasper are both in search of an heiress (so much easier than trying to work for the money); Poppy and Marjorie are nursing lovelorn hearts; and the beautiful bourgeois Mrs Lace is on the prowl for someone to lighten the boredom of her life. They all congregate near Eugenia's fabulous country home at Chalford, and much farce ensues. One of Nancy Mitford's earliest novels, Wigs on the Green has been out of print for nearly seventy-five years. Nancy's sisters Unity and Diana were furious with her for making fun of Diana's husband, Oswald Mosley, and his politics, and the book caused a rift between them all that endured for years. Nancy Mitford skewers her family and their beliefs with her customary jewelled barbs, but there is froth, comedy and heart here too. "

Out of print for years, due to the fact that she's so deftly skewering her own family, who were not pleased, this is one of the many Nancy Mitford re-releases due to Deborah Mitford's 90th birthday (she of the Duchess of Devonshire and the last remaining Mitford sister).

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: August 10th, 2010
Format: Paperback, 240 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Nancy Mitford’s most enduringly popular novel, The Pursuit of Love is a classic comedy about growing up and falling in love among the privileged and eccentric.

Mitford modeled her characters on her own famously unconventional family. We are introduced to the Radletts through the eyes of their cousin Fanny, who stays with them at Alconleigh, their Gloucestershire estate. Uncle Matthew is the blustering patriarch, known to hunt his children when foxes are scarce; Aunt Sadie is the vague but doting mother; and the seven Radlett children, despite the delights of their unusual childhood, are recklessly eager to grow up. The first of three novels featuring these characters, The Pursuit of Love follows the travails of Linda, the most beautiful and wayward Radlett daughter, who falls first for a stuffy Tory politician, then an ardent Communist, and finally a French duke named Fabrice. "

Nancy's most famous novel and I just have to say, loving the new covers, this is Nancy as a young deb!

Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: August 10th, 2010
Format: Paperback, 256 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"One of Nancy Mitford’s most beloved novels, Love in a Cold Climate is a sparkling romantic comedy that vividly evokes the lost glamour of aristocratic life in England between the wars.

Polly Hampton has long been groomed for the perfect marriage by her mother, the fearsome and ambitious Lady Montdore. But Polly, with her stunning good looks and impeccable connections, is bored by the monotony of her glittering debut season in London. Having just come from India, where her father served as Viceroy, she claims to have hoped that society in a colder climate would be less obsessed with love affairs. The apparently aloof and indifferent Polly has a long-held secret, however, one that leads to the shattering of her mother’s dreams and her own disinheritance. When an elderly duke begins pursuing the disgraced Polly and a callow potential heir curries favor with her parents, nothing goes as expected, but in the end all find happiness in their own unconventional ways. "

The sequel to The Pursuit of Love, in other words, a must read.

Don't Tell Alfred by Nancy Mitford
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: August 10th, 2010
Format: Paperback, 240 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"In this delightful comedy, Fanny—the quietly observant narrator of Nancy Mitford’s two most famous novels—finally takes center stage.

Fanny Wincham—last seen as a young woman in The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate—has lived contentedly for years as housewife to an absent-minded Oxford don, Alfred. But her life changes overnight when her beloved Alfred is appointed English Ambassador to Paris. Soon she finds herself mixing with royalty and Rothschilds while battling her hysterical predecessor, Lady Leone, who refuses to leave the premises. When Fanny’s tender-hearted secretary begins filling the embassy with rescued animals and her teenage sons run away from Eton and show up with a rock star in tow, things get entirely out of hand. Gleefully sending up the antics of mid-century high society, Don’t Tell Alfred is classic Mitford. "

Why did I not know until recently that there was a third book in The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate series!?! Why!?! I want to know how this essential piece of information slipped me by!

The Blessing by Nancy Mitford
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: August 10th, 2010
Format: Paperback, 256 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"The Blessing is one of Nancy Mitford’s most personal books, a wickedly funny story that asks whether love can survive the clash of cultures.

When Grace Allingham, a naïve young Englishwoman, goes to live in France with her dashingly aristocratic husband Charles-Edouard, she finds herself overwhelmed by the bewilderingly foreign cuisine and the shockingly decadent manners and mores of the French. But it is the discovery of her husband’s French notion of marriage—which includes a permanent mistress and a string of casual affairs—that sends Grace packing back to London with their “blessing,” young Sigismond, in tow. While others urge the couple to reconcile, little Sigi—convinced that it will improve his chances of being spoiled—applies all his juvenile cunning to keeping his parents apart. Drawing on her own years in Paris and her long affair with a Frenchman, Mitford elevates cultural and romantic misunderstandings to the heights of comedy. "

And a final Mitford book to round out your week! Gosh, I have a lot of book buying to do...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 3 comments  

Labels: Don't Tell Alfred, Dracula in Love, Karen Essex, Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford, The Agency, The Blessing, The Pursuit of Love, Wigs on the Green, Y.S. Lee