Christmas at the Keep: A moving and uplifting festive novella to escape with at Christmas

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That’s the case for ‘A Collector of Hearts’, a novella that I apparently downloaded about a decade ago but have only just read. The church, too often, has introduced rules and regulations that turn people away, or - at the other extreme - has tried much too hard to use evangelistic methods and techniques, which are often more harmful than helpful.

I only recently learned that ‘Missee Lee’ is, similarly, supposed to have been a fictional story written by the (fictional) characters, which explains, perhaps, why it’s so exciting and (frankly) a bit surreal in places. In my meandering, gradual read-through of the lengthy Chalet School series by Elinor M Brent-Dyer (with a few extra fill-ins) I reached ‘Jo to the Rescue’. Definitely recommended if you like this kind of gentle, sometimes poignant character-based women’s fiction.Having just finished Enid Blyton’s ‘First Term at Malory Towers’, which I hadn’t read for about thirty years, I liked it so much I picked up its first sequel ‘Second Form at Malory Towers’ to read immediately afterwards. Since that first novel Marcia has written twenty more under her own name as well as a number of short stories. I phoned our GP who suggested him taking another of his beta blockers when this happened, as they were a very low dose. There’s plenty of light-hearted dialogue that makes this a surprisingly enjoyable read, given the unpleasant subject matter.

When an American publisher bought Marcia’s next book (or maybe it was the one after that, it is now such a long time ago I really can’t remember the finer details) Marcia phoned me to tell me this wonderful news! The guesthouse is in Devon, and is a place they had previously visited so they’re interested to see the renovations, and familiar with the area nearby, so they go out in pairs to explore, wondering why the Colonel’s wife is so keen to know where they’re going all the time. In any case, this is the September term, and Darrell is firm friends with Sally, who travels down to the school (in Cornwall) with her.It sounded ideal, and I hadn’t read it since 2009 so I started on January 1st and have finished it today. I loved that someone wanting to be an Episcopal [Anglican or Church of England] priest (they can marry) is presented as a sane, kind, reasonable person. Apparently ‘Missee Lee’ is one of two books in the series which are considered not to fit with the rest. They have three members of staff, a Cypriot family - father, mother and teenage daughter - who don’t seem particularly friendly. These walls are bright with flowers: valerian, feverfew, mallows, lace cap hydrangeas spring from the crevices in these stones and flourish in the salty air.

With so many characters from previous novels, it probably wouldn’t be a good one to start with if you haven’t read any other of this author’s books.Very highly recommended, although it no longer seems to be available for the Kindle, and I can't find it anywhere in paperback. I love picking up the threads and learning what happened to people I had started to care about, but sometimes need a reminder as I don’t generally read one author’s books one after another.

Again, the author manages to feel very balanced in her casual advice: forget about spending an hour at the gym every day being coerced, but maybe go for a half hour walk. Overall I didn’t like the book as much as the first in the series, and don’t plan to read any more right now. Through Darrell’s eyes we start to see that being afraid is nothing to be ashamed of, that people can’t be coerced into changing who they are, and that violent behaviour in a bad temper can lead to potentially serious consequences. Anecdotes and reminiscences appear alongside questions and insights that are often quite deep, even if written in apparently light-hearted ways. And he’s particularly annoyed this time, because Stephen has got engaged to a pretty but unintelligent young woman, and Paula has brought with her a playwright who hopes Nathaniel might help to fund his latest production.There are some unexpected twists and turns, including a couple of revelations that I really wasn’t expecting (one of which made me go back, yet again, to an earlier section to try to figure out why I hadn’t seen it coming). Eleanor - El - is the main character, or at least the one I most related to in this warm, character-driven novel. If she looks across the river Evie can see Kingswear with its tier upon tier of houses stacked on the hill above the marina: narrow terraced houses the color of ice cream: mint, vanilla, bubblegum, coffee. I think some of them must previously have been published in booklet form; readings for passiontide and Holy Week, for instance read as if they were intended for that time of year, but they came up (in my yearly reading) in August. There’s quite a large cast, with ten children (including Joey’s niece Sybil) as well as the four mothers, Phoebe and Debby, and a few doctors too, including Joey’s husband.