This wonderful novel, telling the story of Belinda, is set in Dresden in the 1880s (and somehow felt a little reminiscent of Elizabeth von Arnim). Belinda and her sister Sarah are on holiday with their grandmother; Sarah could be described as a bit of a man eater - at one point she declares herself "almost engaged to three men", Belinda is a little more reserved, but falls in love with a young English student David Rivers. Unfortunately, he has to return to England when his father dies, and Belinda resigns herself to having to marry a very staid Professor. It is not a success and Belinda finds very little happiness in her marriage. David Rivers reappears; in a modern novel, Belinda might have little hesitation in abandoning her marriage to go off with him. What is to be done?There are a couple of excellent, far more extensive synopses on library thing here if you are interested.
A really wonderful novel actually, and certainly one that I would not have come across if it had not been a VMC. Anyone else come across it?
It's the only VMC by Broughton, although I see from library thing that she has written a number of other novels, and has been published just once with an original green cover.
Oh, this is one of my top 'wish-list' VMCs and now I want to find it even more! It sounds like something will love....!
ReplyDeleteI don't remember it well, but do recall really liking it and trying to find more books by that author. Don't remember if I succeeded.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to find out more about Belinda Broughton. I'm the most recent biographer of Lewis Carroll and I've come across an apparently unpublished letter in which he declines to meet Belinda Broughton.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't hard to get Lewis Carroll to morally disapprove (at that stage in his life, at any rate) but I do wonder what he had heard about her that made him decline the meeting!