No Roses in June--1961

Back up, Horse. Edward Campbell is about to make his move.

If wedding dresses could talk, what stories they could tell. This one, hanging in an apartment window, billowing into the room would natter over the back fence about the broken engagement she witnessed.

"The wedding was days away and he flew in from South Africa
peddling some story about irresistible passion.
Said he's ALREADY married to her best friend!"(Giphy)

Though Ian, her ex-fiance, tells her that she can 'take it', Fiona MacDonald is not without the need of a restorative. As a good minister's daughter, she's not going to down a bottle of gin and get tight. But she will don a tight dress, garish make-up and go out to have a night on the town in the company of a noted Lounge Lizard. She ends up at a dive called Cat on the Tiles with “rowdy, thought-banishing company”.

"What has being decorous and disciplined ever done for me?"
(Giphy)

Just as she is thinking very seriously about pounding jello shots off of Lounge Lizard's sloping shoulders and signing the waiver for Girls Behaving Badly: Dumped in Edinburgh, she encounters a Hot Colonial-type sneering at her. But, after all, she will never see him again. (Gentle Reader, this is her future husband.) After a fender bender in the parking lot, Hot Colonial makes himself their designated driver. Fiona is dropped off last and the conversation goes really well.

Edward was about to lose his five star Uber rating.
(Giphy)

Him: You smell of whiskey and look like a hussy.

Her: You have the musk of self-righteousness which is much harder to shower off.

Him: Don't pass out on me since you are definitely drunk.

Her: I'm drunk on sorrow!

Fiona passes out. Not the best look for a girl trying to maintain that she is Most. Certainly. Sober. And as Hot Colonial carries her up to the apartment, let us pass around the box of Kleenex and dab our eyes gently over the fact that she has been carried across the threshold in the muscled arms of a stranger on the very night her ex-fiance carries his own bride across another. The Colonial sees the wedding dress and flings Byron (who knew a thing or two about shagging and inconstancy and diss tracks) at her feet:

...as soon

Seek roses in December, ice in June;

Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff,

Believe a woman, or an epitaph

Or any other thing that's false--

Soon, Fiona has taken a job as a governess on a super remote (Is there any other kind, Essie?) sheep station in New Zealand. She is met by her new boss, C. Edward Campbell, the Hot Colonial.

The trollop walks off the plane and he extracts the damning information that Ian jilted her. Of course, thinks Edward, Fiona was tramping it up with another man. She deserves what she gets. He's popped her into the same blender as his perfidious sister-in-law Fleur (also at Cat on the Tiles that night) and hit PUREE.

As much as he'd like to send her away, they have a real emergency on their hands at Belle Knowes. Edward's brother recently died (in an "accident" with a gun) and his sainted sister-in-law (the first wife) died much earlier. Edward quit his job to run the farm and raise the children but help is hard to come by. What can he do?

You could take me back to Dunedin, Mr. Campbell.
(Giphy)

It is very telling that when she offers him a way out, Edward does not take it. Instead, he says, "It might straighten you up to taste life at Belle Knowes for a few months. It'll scare the hell out of you, of course." Yes, Mr. Campbell. But I didn't know we were running a Benevolent Home for Wayward Girls.

Her first test in The Great Rehabilitation of Fiona MacDonald, Lady-Delinquent is on the boat ride over to the station. The rabbiters are flirtatious, the dogs are out of control and there is a hot wind kicking up. She exhibits heroism by saving a dog from going over the side of the boat, wins the trust of the captain and kisses an old rabbiter as a matter of honor. Edward sneers. But, note: This is when he says, later, that his heart did its first flippy-flop.

He's so sure though that she is rotten. "...life up here is rather stripped of frills. Veneer soon cracks. You'll show up as shoddy before long." Instead of trying to explain herself to a brick wall like that, Fiona takes the stoic road and waits for time to vindicate her.

When Fiona discovered that Sam Elliott would be her Spirit Guide
on the Stoic Road, she decided to stay the course.
(Giphy)

Into the Tar Pits of Fiona's Likeability many creatures come to drink, sinking in the inky depths. Let us make a survey:

• Miss Trudington. "Quite Victorian" and Edward's best hope to "straighten" Fiona up. Instead, Fiona gives her a make-over and cures her arthritis. 
• Her charges, Victoria, Elizabeth, William and James. Half Maori, half Scots. Edward is sure she will be a terrible influence on them but Fiona begins as she means to go on, ringing the school bell, whipping them into shape, opening each day with a prayer and homily. They adore her because she is unstinting in her affection for them, unsparing in her discipline and, unlike one of Edward's old flames, NOT A RACIST.
• A Maori station hand and his wife. He's gotten into trouble over alcohol (A real case of someone needing to work out his own rehabilitation here in the mountains.) and she is dangerously pregnant with their second child. Fiona does all the housework when the wife goes on bed rest, which proves her to be both not lazy AND NOT A RACIST. 

Other steps on the road to Fiona's Rehabilitation include learning to ride horses (Something which terrifies her), giving mobility-saving massages to Trudy and taking the children to the cottage over in Wanaka for a couple of weeks. Edward agonizes over letting her go sample the wild lights of an obscure New Zealand town, but decides it will be fine as long as there will be another adult around to watch her. 

Miss Trudington was not the chaperone Edward hoped she'd be.
(Giphy)

Meanwhile, Fiona just wants to do her job, have her character vindicated and love the children (all the while weeping discretely into her pillow for Ian). Moving on from that loss feels impossible. But (Symbolism Alert) have I told you what Edward's profession is? Road-building. Cutting passes through impassable terrain. Linking two distant points.When Ian sends an opal necklace (to match the engagement ring he got her), it's Edward who sends it back with a reminder that Fiona isn't his wife and that opals are kind of tacky anyway. I dearly hoped that when Edward's letter arrived, Ian's new wife opened it and caused a scene.

One day, Edward asks Fiona to clean his study out and she finds an airmail letter from Edinburgh. It's Fleur's letter (telling her husband (the children's father) that she is going to leave him for another man--Edward) but it's not been opened. Robert never saw it. Ergo, the gun "accident" really was an accident. Edward tells Fiona that night that the emotional thickets have been cleared. (Claps hands.) It's time for him to do some courting!

Alas, Edward was not as specific and unmistakable
as Teen Legend Jake Ryan.
(Giphy)

But first a rescue. Fiona and the children are caught in a landslip and she rushes to save James, the wee-est of the children, bracing herself above a protective culvert and shielding his body with her own. I love this scene so much. Fiona can be compared favorably to Mother Teresa and Edward is cool-headed and competent, engineering her way to safety. He stitches her up later but his cool-headedness deserts him and he rushes to the garden to vomit.

Yes. Essie Summers turned vomit into a love token.

Further tokens of love are Edward inviting her brother in from South Africa and having the domestic intelligence to have extra wild pig and cream on hand for her surprise guests. (Grab him, Fiona!) When Trudy is on the verge of announcing her engagement to an old beau, Edward takes Fiona aside. Isn't it time to admit they love each other?

The timing of that is too perfect. Fiona wades into him with a lot of stabbing exclamation points about how he's never trusted her and now that he's about to be left high and dry of a chaperone, he can't start doling out the magnanimity. But Edward isn't going to back down this time. They're going to finally get it sorted out. He doesn't wait for her to explain that night in Edinburgh but takes her on wholly on the faith she has given him. It's New Zealand where there is ice in June and roses in December and Edward Campbell can believe in women.

Edward got the rest after a probationary period of abject grovelling.
(Giphy)

Rating: 8/10 Digging Out the Sheep. There are so many unforgettable scenes in this one. Here is a sampling:

• That image of the gauzy wedding dress wafting into the room--first when Ian is breaking her heart and again when Edward is judging her so harshly. 
• The rescue with little James and after when Edward is stitching Fiona up and has to excuse himself to throw up. 
• The young children greeting her with a haka on her first morning at Belle Knowes.

Something I wasn't crazy about was how devoted Essie was in re-quoting an exact quote (in one case a Joyce Dingwell poem about tourniquets) when it's resolved. ("Hey, Edward, remember how you said [quote]. It is being resolved this very minute!") It's mistrustful of the reader and these aren't long books.
I liked the little moments of side-eye Essie casts the rest of the anglosphere about New Zealand not having an established "color-bar". She wants none of your apartheids and Jim Crow laws.
But the real genius of this title is how Essie Summers shows Fiona and Edward's relationship building even when he hasn't put aside his distrust of her and she hasn't gotten over the broken engagement. Some authors would push too hard here, making them too obviously in love too soon. But Essie takes her time, clearing obstacles and whacking back misconceptions like she doesn't have a hard, 190 page count to fret about. 

The Misunderstanding: He thinks she leads a secret debauched life and must be reformed by wholesome isolation and fresh mountain air.

Location: Belle Knowes a sheep station on the shores of Lake Wanaka, Otago region, New Zealand

Other Notes: Mentions made of Pigeon Island, Lake Wanaka, Hyndman's (a bookstore in Dunedin). Writers Patricia Wentworth (p. 102) and Joyce Dingwell (p. 114) are mentioned as well as one of her own poems (p. 115).

Come Blossom Time, My Love--1961

*reads description of heroine with light
brown and curling hair...checks cover...
reads description again...*

Jeannie Fraser (22) is a typist by day and Cinderella by night. Like any good Cinderella, she comes with an evil step-parent (Miserly Bertram Skimmington who owns a pickle cannery!) and two siblings--Peter (14), who dreams of owning a sport coat, and Teresa (9), who writes revenge poetry.

One day, Jeannie gets a letter from her dead-fairy-godmother bequeathing her an orchard in Central Otago. And it is about time! Peter is on the verge of step-patricide, Teresa has the sort of cough that carries off operatic sopranos to have romantic on-stage deaths and Jeannie has eaten enough 'hateful, horrible tapioca' to last her a lifetime.

Jeannie couldn't take another night of pudding.
(Giphy)

So she kidnaps the children and disappears. Yes. You read that right. She lays a false trail, buys new clothes, registers under fake names...It only wants aviator glasses and trench coats to be more thrilling.

When she makes it to her new estate, she walks bang into the path of her new manager. And, quelle horreur, THEY KNOW EACH OTHER. Ahem. Back in Auckland, Jeannie caught him in a torrid embrace with her noble boss's Very Young Wife.

Jeannie is ready to go off-grid like a doomsday prepper, and is horrified to think that she could be tracked down if her manager talks. For his part, Fergus MacGregor is still furious about the Puritanical self-righteousness she exhibited when she walked in on him committing a Class C Human Resources Violation in the boss's office.

Jeannie thought that his melting brown eyes bumped it up to a Class B.
(Giphy)

And so they square off for The Great Patriotic War of Mutual Misunderstanding. Of course the children adore him. Children cannot be trusted to hold a grudge when you really need them to. Living on the same land doesn't help her either. Their proximity to one another means that little bits of correct information get shaken loose like sheetrock dust raining into a basement apartment. He notices that she is careful not to spend too much of the inheritance. She admires how he looks after his elderly uncle. She is quick to pitch in on the harvest. He's been trained as an accountant.

And if it all looks like they're headed south on the gentle wheelchair ramp to Sensible Conjugal Bed-flannels, never fear. Neville is here. He's a local sheep buyer and I cannot imagine Essie Summers writing him without the hugest grin on her face. He is an unapologetic scoundrel and gets all the best lines.

"No good getting mad with me. Just forget it.
I'm quite unsnubbable."
(Giphy)

He is NOT, marriage material. When he asks her out, Fergus arranges to come and watch the children, bringing a game of Monopoly under his arm and some bottles of pop. (Does he hope Teresa will blab family secrets? The lime-fizz can't hurt.) Now Jeannie has no excuse to hide herself away. Soon she discovers that Neville has an unfortunate family connection: Cecily. The Young Wife. The Torrid Affair-er. A woman who knows Jeannie disappeared and has good reason to hate her.

Over time, Jeannie hates thinking of that overcharged moment in her boss's office, even more than she used to. Fergus is fighting his own attraction for a woman who doesn't trust him. When he kisses her, he says, using insult like a suit of armor, "Neville will teach you if I don't." A girl cannot take that sort of thing lying down. She retorts, with a sort of malicious sting, that it's been pleasant to learn from Neville. But then she trips all over her dawning realization.

The next time they kiss, it's for a better reason: wanting to. Too bad it's the night that Cecily, like a taco combination plate, returns. Thereafter, the emotional landscape becomes inflamed and feverish. No. Wait. That's her appendix. It bursts on the way to the hospital. Though they have just had ANOTHER fight, Fergus lies and says he's her fiance.

Editorial Hectoring: Look, Fergus. I might have thought twice before adding another layer to the constraint and complication already so abundant in your relationship. But what do I know? I've only been married for twenty glory-filled years. 

The More You Know.........
(Giphy)

When she is recovered enough to be interviewed by the Press, word leaks out that they are engaged. "I'll be termed an opportunist," he says, reading the item he helped to plant. His bright eyes are on hers, waiting... When she calls the idea ridiculous, he breathes easy. It won't matter to her that he has nothing but a modest bank balance and a decent car.

When the engagement becomes known, they are forced into acting out the charade. But not in private, Fergus. "You know I'm a bounder," he replies. "You knew it from the start." He might allow his lips to twist cynically but they are too busy rearranging themselves over HERS.

Later, Fergus confesses to having spent three month in prison on a charge of drunk driving. (That's why he's always pounding lime-fizz.) Jeannie's faith in him finally makes him tee up his pride, whacking it with the 3 iron for a long bomb down the fairway. May it be forever lost in the rough or eaten by an alligator.

Then, Cecily's husband, The Noble Boss, dies.

ROLL CALL! We have:
Cinderella, Who is On the Lamb and Pathetically Pleased with her Sham Engagement
A Chiseled Jaw With a Mysterious Past and an Unspoken Passion for the Girl Who Wears His Ring
and
The Well-looking Widow

Bad-Girl Guidebook, Rule #4: If you can't BE good, have good lipstick.
(Giphy)

The end comes when Cecily tries to blackmail Jeannie with the knowledge of how she left Auckland. Frightened for her brother and sister, Jeannie duly breaks off her engagement and Fergus gathers them all in Cecily's drawing room like Miss Marple, cracking the case at the end of the who-done-it. There will be no more things left unsaid and he addresses the DUI first. It was Cecily who was drunk and grabbed the wheel. He sold his accountancy practice to pay for her reconstructive surgery. But, all in all, he will be a decent marriage risk. (Which Jeannie had already sorted out for herself.)

Jeannie unburdens herself about the Tyrannical Pickle Man and finds out that he DIED the day she left Auckland! Cecily, the lying snake, kept that info back. Oh, and she threw herself into his arms, that day in the boss's office.

It's all over but the shouting...er, kissing. There is a LOT of kissing.

Rating: 6/10 Fire at the drapers. I have a lot more affection for this book than that rating suggests. It's kind of an outlier for The Summers Canon since the hero is an orchardist with a past. There is a smashing secondary love-story for a later-in-life couple. I also love that Jeannie has a really good reason (two actually--Peter and Teresa) to stay quiet about why she left Auckland. So it's not just pride keeping the plot going. But I wanted the main characters to have more fun together--to see that they would be a great couple--and, though I generally love the bits of poetry Essie Summers sticks into her books, these were not well integrated. Ultimately, I find that the parts hang together awkwardly. Still, it's a sweet book and I really love the way that the hero really has a serious set-back that impacts his marriageability.

The Misunderstanding: She thinks he's chasing a married woman. He thinks she is a snob who refuses to mix with the rural community.

Location: Strathlachan, an orchard near Corriefield, not far from Dunedin in Central Otago.

Other locations mentioned: Fiji, Auckland, the Roxburgh Hydro, the Leviathan (a hotel in Dunedin), the drive (also in Dunedin) through the Octogon, down Princes St and to the Burns statue, First Church on Bell Hill

Moon Over the Alps--Video Review

Moon Over the Alps--1960

First order of business. Check out her orthodondia.
Nobody with teeth that good will ever be considered plain.

Penny Smith (actual name) has an awful fiance, terrible relatives and an inferiority complex. She's come to stew about them on a holiday where the fogs of indecision clear. Her engagement must come to an end. Unfortunately, an acquisitive magpie steals her engagement band just as she is on the point of mailing it back to Rotten Dennis.

She finds it...(reads text closely)..."horribly fouled".
(Giphy)

So now she's got a poop-ring. Her moral compass is better than mine because she sends it to a jeweler to be cleaned instead of back to her crappy fiance. (PUN INTENDED)

In the mean time, enter Charles...Smith (not actual name). He's on vacation too, irritated that all the ladies are swiping right on his Tinder profile. Because of the crushing realities of modern dating, Penny's only annoyance is fending off the Entertainment Committee looking for another spiffing shuffleboard player. The two Smiths decide to join forces for the duration of their vacation--leaving the details of their pasts behind them and pairing up anonymously. (And you thought my Tinder reference was off the mark.)

But who can resist a tropical moon? Not these two. Soon Charles is making veiled promises and Penny is wishing her poop-ring were already winging its way to Dennis because she would like to snog Charles with a clear conscience. They snog anyway, you guys.

Who hasn't returned a man's feces-encrusted love-token?
(Giphy)

The next morning, Penny overhears Charles telling someone that she's fine for jaunting about on holiday with but she's rather a PENNY PLAIN!

Heartbreak, like an odd-job man, has trod over her happiness in hobnailed boots, crushing the tender flowers of her love. Moments later, when Penny finally receives the ring back from the jeweler, Charles is there to see her slip it on. Now it's his turn for the odd-job man to wade through the fresh cement of his budding devotion. (As a metaphor, this is killing it.)

When interviewed, the laborer could not be bothered to do more
than shout over the sound of his concrete saw: "DON'T SEE HOW IT'S
MY FAULT," he bellowed. "THE KEY TO ANY GOOD RELATIONSHIP IS COMMUNICATION."
(Pixabay)

Though the terms of their agreement had always been "What Happens in Picton, Stays in Picton", Charles turns white and calls her a "rotten little cheat". Thankfully for the page count, she does not spend a moment wondering why a man who was so scathing about her looks should appear so shattered when he discovers she is taken.

Fast forward to Dragonshill. Penny has cut all ties with her poop-fiance and the terrible relatives to take an emergency job on a remote sheep station in the mountains. The father of her charges has been in an accident in South America, the mother has rushed to his side and "Uncle Carl" is there too.

Her responsibilities are the education and minding of four young children, most of the cooking and cleaning, and the companionship of Madame Beaudonais-Smith, a 91-year-old French woman. Let me skip a lot and tell you that she is FANTASTIC at it, whipping up delicious meals, enriching the young ones, baking bread for fun, being a champion skier, and speaking French with Madame after the poppets have gone to bed.

She's out to win "Survivor: New Zealand Sheep-wife"
(Giphy)

Finally, "Uncle Carl" comes home and, lo and behold, he is Charles Smith...er, Beaudonais-Smith. The tender flowers of her love come poking hopeful shoots up and she's bashing them back like emotional Whack-a-mole, hiding behind the formality of using his whole double-barreled name to keep her safe. He relies on the tried-and-true method of quelling his own burning passion--a classic of elementary school relationships: Name-calling. 

A cheap two-timer. Someone who cuts and runs at the first chance. A girl who is not to be relied on. 

A letter from her poop-fiance (I can't go change it now.) makes Charles scathing enough for even his grandmother to notice.
Madame: Charles totally likes you. Like, like-likes you. 
Penny: No, no, I am a hump-backed, wall-eyed toad! 
Madame: You have assests, girl! Your voice.
Penny: Um...?

See, the French have a proverb: "The tongue is the road to the heart."  (Clears throat, steps to podium, taps microphone) Dear Peoples of France, We know how you kiss. We have a name for it. That proverb's a little on the nose...even for you.

But Penny is coping beautifully with all the hardships of back-country living until Verona shows up. Verona is just a stunning auburn-haired model with an antipathy to mountain living. Of course Charles is in love with her and not adverse to flirting with Penny to show Verona (whose name I cannot sign off on) he's got more than one string on his bow.

I'm going to skip a lot here but notable highlights include Charles chucking Penny into a horse trough when she won't use his first name; Charles rifling through Penny's closet, choosing a dress and making her come to tea when she prefers to act like a servant; the careful way Charles proposes in hypotheticals, painfully aware that a mountain man hasn't much to offer; the almost Victorian law Penny lays down when she demands he (the son of the household) not 'meddle' with her (the help)...

Penny had to remind herself that she did NOT want to be meddled with.
Definitely NOT.
Usually NOT.
(Giphy)

One of the reasons she can't duck into an empty closet with Charles for some light meddling is that Penny has grown to like Verona. Despite her having all the qualities necessary to be a really cracking villainess, Verona is also a delight. But when a nearby neighbor is horribly injured, the truth comes out. Verona doesn't love Charles at all, but this other fellow with the crushed ribs...

As for Charles? Embracing Verona would be as exciting as watching butter melt. (I don't know your life.) He makes it clear that he is not attracted to alabaster princesses, but is he interested in Penny Plains?

We don't find out until after the best adventure ever. Penny, with no help at all, has to hike out to the snow-bound hut where Charles has sent a distress signal, stitch up his bloody wound, assess the likelihood of death (High), throw his massive frame onto a wonky dogsled and drag it over terribly rough ground (on her bloody knees) back to the homestead--all while Charles is out to it.

Oh my gosh, you guys. I live for this stuff and I cannot approve of myself at all. It's all martyrdom and yet here I am: standing in a queue waiting for my Triple, Venti, Non-fat, Caramel Martyr-iato.

As he recovers, Charles comes to the slow, dreadful realization that she was the one who saved his life and in what manner she did so. Later, he discovers her raw and blistered shoulders and says these actual words (no-I-am-not-kidding): "Off with your blouse."

Is this the right moment to tell you that Madame
investigates 'glandular fever' in one of the shepherds by
examining his groin?
(Giphy)

He summons the courage to try to win her again and has the good sense to laugh in her face when she tries to peddle the lie that she is just not interested. He knows she loves him. She's got the scars to prove it. So when she finally flings his words about 'holiday jaunts' and 'Penny Plains' at his feet, he tells her he'd been talking about a stupid boat and begins to tell her in no uncertain terms just how attracted he's been.

When they finally get engaged, Madame is waiting for them in the salon with the parure of family emeralds.

Rating: 8/10 Digging out the sheep. Honestly, this rating means nothing. I struggled to start this book but once I got going, I raced to the end. The really glorious part is that Essie Summers takes the time to go through Charles's wrong-headedness, point by point. Sometimes I feel so short-changed in that department by these mid-century Harlequins but if Essie Summers makes her characters suffer, there's going to be some settlement of the accounts. And I love it.

The Misunderstanding: He thinks she's a worthess two-timer. She thinks he finds her plain and that he's in love with someone else.

Location: Starts in the Queen Charlotte Sounds near Picton. Ends at Dragonshill, in the mountains near Lake Tekapo in South Canterbury

The Lark in the Meadow--Video Review

My video review of The Lark in the Meadow explores the developing mid-century rabbit situation in New Zealand. What do you mean "niche"?

The Lark in the Meadow--1959

Essie Summers plonks the exposition down in front of us like a headless fish, gutted and ready for the grill. I will ape my betters.

Sarah Isbister, 24, nurse, half sister to young Rory and Pauline (14-ish and 12-ish) is suddenly orphaned when old (but curiously hot) New Zealand visitor Duncan Alexander fails to have his dodgy breaks worked on at the Scots equivalent of Les Schwab (where those of us in the Pacific Northwest have our tires rotated, our alignment adjusted and our brakes tested for reasonable prices). He kills her parents outright and doesn't fair so well himself.

As he is dying in the hospital, the only thing that will soothe his guilt is to give Sarah and the youngsters half of his New Zealand estate, Challowsford. Doubtless he would have shoved the whole thing at them if he could. But he can't. The other half belongs to his nephew: Curiously Hot, Grant Alexander.

London, as any true Betty Neels fan would tell you, is an inhospitable place for single nurses to care and comfort young children. Failing a lint-fair Dutch giant cornering our heroine in the sluice room, the only thing to be done is take the legacy and emigrate.

Any vast, faintly-accented endocrinologists
with foreign titles and stately homes? 
No? Going once...twice...

Sarah embarks via slow-going cruise ship which is a real pity since a letter of character beats her to her destination, dripping with poison from the pen of one Elaine Thomason. The missive comes crouched in the most hand-wringing tone. (Dear Mr. Alexander, I feel prostrate with embarrassment but I have to tell you ALL the salacious details of the last days of your dear, sainted uncle with that gold digging hussy. Her actions were lower than the earth's molten core...)

Grant's reception of Sarah is chilly but it was never going to be fantastic. He knows nothing of the brakes and thinks she obviously took advantage of a dying man, accepting an inheritance she had no business touching. The letter is a confirmation of his suspicions.

He notes her chic clothes and of the way she has wormed herself into a cozy friendship with the ship's captain. When she sinks herself to explain that their passage was paid for from her own money and that she has enough for her own and the children's needs for several weeks, he is salty.

"Am I expected to applaud?"
(Giphy)

More horrors await. On the drive down to Challowsford he corrects her at every turn. That's not a village, lady. Here in New Zealand we call them townships. That lark isn't singing in a meadow. It's a paddock. No, you cannot help around on the farm. We don't need amateurs.

If Sarah's nose is still intact from all Grant's snubbing, he suggests that meeting Mrs. Macfarlane (the Challowsford housekeeper) will be sure to knock it out of joint. That lady is a wary piece, predisposed to think that Sarah is a lay-on-the-sofa-and-litter-cigarette-stubs-on-the-antique-mahogany-furniture type but it doesn't take long for her to take the true measure of the Orcadian beauty.

If the old saying is, "When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war." then there must be another one that exists only within the world of Essie Summers: "When Scot meets Scot, then comes the salted porridge." Mrs. Mac knows at once that Sarah is independent, hard-working and would die before taking a penny that wasn't hers. Grant Alexander, blind as he is, must be descended from some other race.

Belgians, probably.
(Giphy)

Sarah refuses the dubious hospitality of Challowsford and declares that she will stay in one of the abandoned cottages well away from the house, cleaning it and bringing it back to life. Now that they have a modest home and miles of open countryside, the children won't have to be raised in a London orphanage. (I always imagine it as a Dickensian wasteland in these scenarios. Rory is one growth spurt short of escaping life as a chimney sweep. Poor Pauline has to sell matchsticks.) Any slights she has to endure from Mr. Alexander are worth it.

Such is the level of mistrust that Grant sends her an offer to buy out her share of the estate...through lawyers. I think the firm name was...lemme see...Snotty, Coward & Dumb. Her retaliation is to use his phone, with Mrs. Mac and Grant pinned to their chairs at the Challowsford kitchen table, turning them down flat. Because insult is the usual chaser to injury, she also asks the operator for the charges and counts out $2.10 and slaps it on the table.

All these lively duels with the handsome Mr. Alexander don't get in the way of Grant bonding with Rory and Pauline. He teaches Rory to drive tractor, hands over responsibility of the chickens to Pauline, enrolls them in school, and arranges for the use of ponies. “Sarah felt lonely, shut out.”

Oh Betties. That wrings my heart like a pile of oranges from a New England bed and breakfast. Poor Sarah. I have said before (and, heaven knows, will say again) that 'stoic' is catnip for me. She's lost a mother and beloved step-father (I do adore that detail—beloved 'steps' are a thing with me.), moved away from all her friends, and has the burden of young children. Even if she was the Virgin Queen, it would still be nice to have a tall drink of New Zealand water to lead an attack against the Spanish Armada with.

"But it might be a squidge easier with a boyfriend, you know!?"
(Giphy)

A disaster of that caliber would really bring a couple together but country-invading Spanish galleons are NOT thick on the ground. However, Mrs. Mac obliges by breaking her arm on the eve of hosting the shearing gangs after the local bakery has burned to the ground. This is almost as bad, you guys. In the world of Kiwi farming, it's Raiders of the Lost Ark face-meltingly bad.

Grant expects a cheap little gold digger to be useless but gets a warrior woman instead. She throws herself into the success of the endeavor and, while horribly exhausted, manages to deliver twins on a nearby station. If that isn't enough, one of the twins almost dies and the mother has a hemorrhage. She saves both lives and, once delivered to the nursing home, Sarah also has to give blood. My Betty-Neels-Fangirl-Heart grew two sizes because I have a hair-trigger appreciation for nursing heroics. 

A cease-fire would be nice but they don't get one until the Christmas holidays. I have to tell you about the gifts! He gets her a book about the history of New Zealand ranching, subtly underlining that he accepts that her interest in her adopted country is genuine. SHE GETS HIM A GIFT CARD!

"Apple chutney in July. You like apples."
(Giphy)

On Christmas night, Grant kisses her. Like a NASCAR racer, he sees an opening and takes a chance, threading narrowly between danger. She is stunned but not angry.

Complications arise from beyond Challowsford. Sarah gets a letter from Elaine Thomason (one-time neighbor and full-time troublemaker) who is coming for a visit. Evidently the rules of hospitality laid out by Homer almost 3,000 years ago in The Oddessy were in full effect in 1959. One was expected to suffer enemies in one's home for indefinite periods of time because Zeus, or something.

Grant has his own sort of hell to endure. He discovers that not every man on the Chevoit hills cares to scrape Sarah's character for bacteria and grow a culture over months and months, tsking into the microscope at intervals and saying, "Bad. Very bad.". Farmer Jeff, for instance.

Grant: You mean Jeff and Sarah?
Mrs. Mac: Aye, just that...That ought to please you. 
G: What do you mean--ought to please me?
MM (Her face was guileless): Well, you've no' exactly made the lassie welcome, have you?

Mrs. Mac drops some Truth Bombs.
(Giphy)

Is it any surprise that Grant is on the receiving end of Sarah's stingingest slap not five pages later? He is a Freudian mess, lumbering into one ill-conceived remark after another, until Jeff contracts a convenient case of the measles. (Think of Grant stealing pillow cases from hospital infirmaries, riddled with measles, and rubbing them on the steering wheel of Farmer Jeff's sensible station wagon.)

I suppose it's just Elaine to be dispensed with now. She's just awful and lands on Challowsford like an epidemic of foot rot. Grant seems interested in her, keen to listen to her poison about Sarah and tolerant of her terrible ideas. (Like painting the homestead PINK, you guys!)

Weeks later (Who has guests they can't stand for WEEKS!?), Elaine suggests that she and Grant would be so delighted if Sarah would disapparate or lose herself down an abandoned mine shaft (the better to clear the ground for a forthcoming wedding). Sarah is gutted. There are many sacrifices she's made for the children but she loves Grant too much to stay and watch him be wedded to Elaine.

For one thing, the wedding dance would be embarrassing for everybody.
(Giphy)

Being a trained nurse has its benefits, as any Betty Neels fan knows. In no time, Sarah scouts out a new job and apartment in the city (heartsick at tearing Rory and Pauline away from paradise) and makes her plans to steal away without telling anyone.

But as anyone who has ever watched an episode of Lassie will tell you, there is always a little boy stuck on a cliff. A LITERAL little boy stuck on a cliff. Nail-biting adventures always clear the air and inspire passion (That's what Hollywood told me.) so it is not very long after Grant pulls her and Literal Boy to safety that declarations are made and proposals are accepted.

Her English lark is welcome in his New Zealand meadow...er, paddock.


Rating: 7/10 Flash Flood
I remembered hating this book when I first read it and, aside from the busyness of the season, that's what has kept The Lark in the Meadow in my TBR pile. The memory of Grant's cruelty and unfairness bothered me, no end.
This time, however, I sort of loved it. Grant wasn't as awful as I remembered and each misunderstanding seemed to lodge my heart more firmly in my throat--hoping, praying that it would all sort out for the young lovers. And it does. Not only does Sarah have a homecoming, but Pauline and Rory too.
The one part that fell a bit flat was when Grant is hosting Elaine. Essie Summers muddied up the water quite satisfyingly (Does he love her? Does he hate her?) if Grant didn't already love and believe Sarah. But when he declares that he knew Elaine was a fink from the start of her visit, I can't quite buy it.
But Elaine is a piece of work. She hated the idea that Sarah would get ahead so much that she wrote a letter (long hand!), swiped the Challowford address from Sarah's handbag (probably) and walked all the way down to the post office to buy an airmail stamp. You've really got to admire her stick-to-it-ive-ness.

Location: Chevoit countryside (South island)

Misunderstanding: Because of misinformation provided by a third party, he thinks she's a gold digger, as fake as a one dollar gold watch.

The Master of Tawhai--1959

(link)

Rowena Melisande Ainsley Fotheringham (23) has First-World Problems, as they say. The difficulty is that she is loaded. Her unwieldy name is enough to assure us Poors that she is more pedigreed and pampered than a blue-ribbon shih-tzu at Westminster.

But she is running away to New Zealand with twenty pounds to her name and the promise of a job at Tawhai Hills being an old lady's companion. Reason? She was thrown over by ex-fiance Geoffrey because he fell in love with someone named Josie (whose name suggests she might take her once-yearly vacations...lowers voice to whisper...at caravan parks). Geoffrey's parting shot was to also tell Rowena that he was only sort-of interested in her because of her wealth and connections. Which is a weaselly way to break up with someone you're cheating on. Like, just do the pro forma song and dance. "It's not you, babe. It's ME."

She leaves everything...cough...behind.
(Giphy)

On her way to her job, a series of unfortunate events finds her walking across muddy paddocks and treed by a raging bull. Rescue comes in the guise of a hunky horseman who nevertheless bawls her out. Enter our hero, the deciduously named Forrest Beechington. He wastes no time telling her that his aunt's companions all threw themselves at him and he, for his part, did not play catch. He does not want Rowena to get ideas about lacing up her cleats and playing ball either.

The warning makes her bristle even though there must be a whole chorus of clanging bells going off in her head. Someone is being sought after for their wealth and position? How terrible! Who could that possibly remind her of? But The Fire Engines of Empathy never switch on the sirens and peel out of the station. Instead, she gets busy inventing a vague semi-engagement with an itinerant artist she met on the boat coming out. (Does that seem oddly specific to you?) That will convince His Lordship, Master of His Shabby Antipodean Fiefdom that she isn't interested in him.

There is an 'occupied' sign on the lavatory door of her heart.
(Giphy)

Tawhai Hills IS unfortunately down-at-heel on the inside. And the only extended family are:
Nearly-blind Aunt Lavinia who is "useless"--her words, not mine and certainly not because of the near-blindness. She's daffy in a way that Essie thinks I am going to find charming and don't quite.)
Nephew Tony, 17, who exists for no reason at all.
and nieces
Penny, 17, who is waiting to be old enough for Farmer Nicholas and a follow-up book full of misunderstandings.
and Lindsay, 20-ish, who has a weakness for mopery, sulks and itinerant artists.

Rowena throws herself into the task of restoring Tawhai Hills like a privileged rich girl, confident that training cotton-headed village girls is her birthright. In fairness, she does a good amount of hard work herself, acts as Aunt Lavinia's companion beautifully, calls Forrest "Mr. Beechington" and even condescends to give Village Girl a makeover.

Forrest comes upon them, cutting hair in the sunshine and says, lighting a fuse on a bomb he didn't even know was live, "...if I'm too busy come harvest to get to Geraldine to get mine done, you might attempt to cut mine." Oh my hotness. The image of her fingers in his hair... (Pardon me as I fan myself vigorously.) Village Girl is very lucky she didn't accidentally get shorn bald.

But, for all the flying sparks, Forrest and Rowena are running on different tracks. He is superior and baiting. She is meddling and has lied about a LOT of things. Here's the working list: her economic status, her relationship status, her middle name, and her ability to ride a horse like a professional.

Rowena hates lying so much, you guys.
(Giphy)

While visiting town, Forrest catches young Lindsay keeping company with Itinerant Artist Dirk Sargison. (The Dirk Sargisons of this world are handed their cad credentials at birth. Not all of us as so blessed to find their vocation so easily. Dirk is to be envied.) Forrest, with very little actual evidence, labels him a bounder and Rowena (who knows that he for sure is one and has a mini freak out that her mythological semi-fiance has painted her into a tight corner) tells him, in her meddling way, that it's best if Forrest doesn't forbid the relationship outright. Though she knows it means she will be exposed, Rowena suggests that Dirk should be invited up to Tawhai Hills where he will look like a plastic picnic spork next to John Macrae's sterling silverware.

Editorial Note: John Macrae is mooning after a disinterested Lindsay and is described as dependable and dishy and possibly headed into politics. I do not buy for a minute that he is that desperate for the Lindsay we've seen thus far. Boyfriend doesn't need to settle. Boyfriend can have his pick.

Having looked over every eligible maiden in
both the North and the South island, the petulant sad-sack with
daddy issues is definitely the one for me.
(Giphy)

In the midst of these domestic upsets, Rowena's Tower of Lies begins to crumble. She show-jumps her way to an outer paddock and Forrest is upset to find that she pretended not to know which end of a horse was the fertilizer factory. He uploads his rage right into her lips and then has the cheek to say, "Don't bottle things up. You could always slap my face! They do it in all the best films."

She takes his advice and drops some truth bombs on him. Her list of grievances is long enough to form the better part of a Declaration of Independence.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that you are a Scoundrel of the Highest Order. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world:

• You fire people without cause. 
• You are stupidly sentimental about killing hawks. 
• You behave like a feudal lord and are a big meanie about letting people on your land.

She is in the wrong on all counts. Oh, how she is in the wrong. When she discovers that he won't let climbers use his land if there is a winter storm brewing because he lost his brother and sister-in-law while they were rescuing two such fool-hardy people, the coals being heaped on her head look more like the lava flows of Mount Kilauea.

Spokespersons for Miss Kilauea issued a statement
denying any involvement in Miss Fotheringham's hot mess.
(Giphy)

Editorial Note (Oh I have notes): But this speaks to the problem with the characterizations in the book. Forrest is raising three young people, has given up a life he loved (at sea), carries a heavy burden of estate management and cares for an aging relative. These are recommendations of his integrity, aren't they? But, finding Rowena's been keeping a tally sheet of his perceived faults comes off as intensely petty. 

After these contretemps, they agree to be friends and for a short time life at Tawhai Hills is idyllic. Rowena wants to say, "You know that oddly specific artist I spoke of? He wants to seduce Lindsay but I'm a woman of taste and distinction so he's always triggered my gag reflex!"

But she never quite manages to say the words. Instead, she is discovered in the worst possible way (meeting them on the street after an awesome day with Forrest at the Beechington sea-cottage), while never doing a thing to prevent it--I mean, the arrow of Dirk was loosed from her own bow and was headed for Tawhai Hills. Did she never think he would actually see her and say "Oh yeah, we met on the boat"?

Forrest is furious and even trots out some outdated pejoratives. He says, "What is your type, Miss Fotheringham? A type like that dago Lindsay is with?" Meep!

dago:noun

informaloffensive

1. an Italian, Spanish, or Portuguese-speaking person
2. 
   

Using that word is very off-brand for the racially broadminded Ms. Summers. (I only call her Ms. Summers when I am cross.) I am not sure Forrest will be forgiven.

Lindsay's children were this close to
inheriting a rich linguistic heritage.
(Giphy)

At Tawhai Hills, Dirk isn't quite the spork Rowena hoped he'd be. He rides well and paints nicely and isn't backing Rowena into semi-private closets while waving a switchblade under her chin. But he misses Lindsay's birthday so...I guess he's just the worst? (She spends her time dancing with John-Macrae-who-is-going-to-be-a-politician someday. Let me tell you. That is not the recommendation it once was.)

Forrest, meanwhile wants the truth from Rowena. She's been circumspect-ish around Dirk but walks into Lindsay's party wearing an actual Emerald of Museum Quality. He pulls her aside and asks for answers and when the only one she cares to give him is that she has never wished for a wealthy husband, he softens and kisses her. (At last, you guys!)

A feathering of unease washes over me as I check the page count. One-hundred and thirty-six. I don't suppose we could get fifty-five pages of No-Expenses-Spared Wedding Planning and a short but poignant Forrest-Meets-Lord-Ainsley-In-England interlude? Because I have had it with misunderstandings.

Time enough for the groomsmen
to perfect their dance number.
(Giphy)

Alas. Alas for all of us. Helen has arrived home from her Travels Abroad. Helen was once engaged to Forrest's OTHER deceased brother (What bad witch cursed the Beechingtons?) and lots of people think it would be a cracking good idea of she married Forrest...because Dear Child, in New Zealand at that time, if you were gorgeous and going places, no one at all would marry you. Aunt Lavinia did not find Helen a kindred spirit. Rowena told herself she must have a nasty nature to feel glad about that. 

Rowena has a chance to perform heroics when she spots sheep coming off the mountain in an historically significant way and rushes off to tell Forrest. He alerts the community and thousands of sheep are saved (not to mention all the sheep farmers bank accounts). They dig the sheep out together and then, not long after, he tells her that he got Dirk a job on the southern island. Torrid cheek touching and elbow cupping ensue. 

And then, when Forrest is gone, Helen rushes in. Oh Rowena, the hap-hap-happiest news!--Let me save you some time. Helen got herself engaged to an Aussie and Forrest was all for it. I hope I am as big a fan of free speech as anybody. But Rowena thinks she's engaged TO Forrest. If Helen drove a car as carelessly as she was yammering, I'd have pulled her to the verge and issued a verbal warning--maybe slap her with a two month suspension of chit chat and surprising declarations. 

Once that is resolved, Forrest chases Rowena into the Turret Room and all but proposes. Like an aged wife of a justice of the peace witnessing an elopement in the front parlor, my finger is hovering over the play button on the tape deck. The thready strains of Journey's Don't Stop Believing (For a String Quartet) are ready to bless this union. 

I am denied. 

It's Aunt Lavinia again, rushing in with news of a flash flood. Rowena saddles her horse and follows Forrest and it all gets very noblesse oblige-y here--the rich folk organizing armies of Poors to save their own possessions. I forgive everything though when Rowena fords a river with a child in her saddle. The horse looses its footing and she thrusts the young person at Forrest. "The child! The child!" she says as she is swept away. She is rescued but only after breaking her arm. 

This is such a huge moment that you think it would cut through everything else like a hot knife through butter. This is such sweeping proof of the good character of both parties that when one of them is tempted to think poorly of the other, surely (SURELY) they could:

• Stop 
• Think
• Shut-up

How can you waste my time with your petty dramas?!
(Giphy)

While she is recovering, Rowena thinks that Forrest is only willing to marry her because Aunt Lavinia has gifted her a sum of money and Forrest has one more chance to think Rowena only wants to marry rich men. 

Oh. And then, as though our Bubbling Stew of Misunderstanding isn't already boiling over, Lindsay-the-Dramatic (who will someday, nonetheless, fall backwards into a good marriage with an awesome man) attempts to elope with Dirk-the-Already-Married. Rowena manages to save her and hush it up but reputations are both salvaged and wrecked when Forrest sees her as she's giving Dirk the what-for.

Way too long later, Forrest writes to Lindsay that Rowena is not to be trusted and she writes back that, of course, she is. Forrest proposes and Rowena accepts...

And Betty Keira rolled her eyes.
The End.
(Giphy)

Rating: 5/10 A Crumbling Ledge. I feel terrible that I didn't like this more. I am rating it against other Essies but rated against other mid-century Harlequins, we're bumping it up to a 7 or 8. It might have had something to do with the way I read it--in drips and drops--but I knew that once I mentally started re-writing it that the whole thing was sort of a flop. Here are some things that really didn't work:
A) Rowena had twenty pounds, good clothes, the chance to call home for more money at any time and an ability to turn her hand to anything. I never really bought that she was on her beam-ends. It was more like Rich Girl Goes Slumming--which can be fun (see Cold Comfort Farm) but is not my favorite genre. Becky from Betty Neels' The Promise of Happiness (or Becky and the Baron, the Hot, Hot Baron) would have died and gone to heaven for such an auspicious start.
B) Time and again, Forrest is accused of terrible things only to be vindicated as some admirable cross between Superman and Jonas Salk. Time and time again, Rowena selflessly rescues half the community from financial and mortal ruin, only to have him doubt her character. I CANNOT WITH THESE PEOPLE.
C) This book desperately wanted to be stream-lined. Some of these misunderstandings only cropped up for a second but, there we were--side-tracked again. We could have cut some of those and spent more time reading about the home restoration which is always one of my favorite bits.
Things I liked (because I know some of you probably LOVE this book):
A) The premise. Essie took a classic romance trope (common girl meets and weds British nobility) and transports it to New Zealand. It's clever.
B) There are some fantastic lines. The plotting is my issue but, again, Essie Summers has a deft hand at description. At one point, a brassiere is hanging off a tree branch 'in a dissipated fashion'. When they go digging out the sheep (the first time it's described in The Essie Canon) there is magic in it.
C) Though the misunderstandings had grown silly, I liked the last third of the book. Rowena really doesn't like Helen and has no reason to feel that way. The unfairness of it is greatly humanizing.

Location: South Canterbury

Misunderstanding: Too many to count but, okay, the big one is that they both think everyone is out for their money.