A- Reviews / Book Reviews1960s / Diary / England / family relationships / First-Person / fish-out-of-water / marriage / Portugal3 Comments
This is the diary of an English girl who falls in love with an eligible young Portuguese, Afonso. The bride recounts, vividly and hilariously, her and her Mother’s plans for an English country wedding, how they dealt with Uncle George (The Head Of The Family), and their success in making ... more >
B- Reviews / Book ReviewsEngland / family relationships / Historical / London / murder mystery / mystery4 Comments
One day Jody was found lying at the foot of a staircase on her way to give a client a beauty treatment. When she recovered and talked of a man with a goat and a yellow-and-black front door, her brother-in-law and Charles, her fiancé, told her she was imagining things. ... more >
B Reviews / Book Reviews1960s / enemies to lovers / murder mystery / shipboard6 Comments
Elaine Tracy wins a luxury cruise to Las Palmas for her fiancé and herself. They quarrel, and Elaine breaks off the engagement but decides to go on the cruise alone. Attractive and unattached, once on board she inevitably draws a certain amount of masculine attention and for her the holiday ... more >
B Reviews / Book ReviewsContemporary / contemporary mystery / dysfunctional family / England / family relationships4 Comments
On his retirement, George Ainstey had moved to Ellstream, hoping to escape from the tensions of London life. His only neighbors were Lady Charlotte Merrion, who lived in the mansion on the site of an eighteenth-century ruin, and her daughter-in-law, Antonia Merrion, whose land adjoined Mr. Ainstey’s. But even in ... more >
B- Reviews / Book Reviews1970s / child heroine / England / Portugal / second chance at love2 Comments
At Edmund Brooke’s insistence, his ten-year-old daughter, Vitorina, leaves the closed world of her old and strait-laced great-aunts and their Portuguese mansion—complete with chapel—and journeys to a boarding school in England. Edmund readily accepts the offer of a golfing acquaintance to act as chaperone for Tory. Once on the train, ... more >
Book Reviews / C Reviews1950s / Europe / mystery / Post WWII / social change4 Comments
The Green Empress coaches specialised in taking clients of wealth or importance across Europe in luxury. When Angus Graham became “liaison officer” for one of these coaches he did so lightheartedly, but the dangers and difficulties of the journey were only compensated for by the charming presence of Lord Lorrimer’s ... more >