Madam, Will You Talk (1955) by Mary Stewart

Book Review by George S: Madam, Will You Talk (1955) was Mary Stewart’s first published novel, and it is obviously the work of someone with a gift for thriller-writing. It begins in Avignon, where Charity Selbourne, a youngish widow, is enjoying a relaxing holiday with a teacher friend, but Mary Stewart keeps the exposition from … Continue reading →

Mary Stewart – My Brother Michael (1959)

Book review by Jane Varley: ‘The contemporary thriller at its very best’, wrote the Guardian. ‘The result of my own visits to Greece and the impact of that wonderful country on a mind steeped in the classics, My Brother Michael was my love affair with Greece.’ Mary Stewart When I was in the first flush … Continue reading →

The Slaves of Solitude (1947) by Patrick Hamilton

Book Review by George S: This is a book about low-level nastiness during the Second World War. It is set in Thames Lockton, a town very like Henley-on Thames, where Patrick Hamilton spent the Second World War. In the Rosamund Tea Rooms – no longer tea rooms, but a boarding-house catering for people who have … Continue reading →

Green for Danger (1945) by Christianna Brand

Seven letters.  Old Mr Moon and young Dr Barnes, and Gervase Eden, surgeon, of Harley Street; Sister Marion Bates; Jane Woods and Esther Sanson and Frederica Linley, V.A.D.s.  Higgins shuffled the envelopes together impatiently, and wrapped them round with a piece of grubby tape and thrust them into his pocket, plodding on, wheeling his bicycle … Continue reading →

Aflame with love and revolt – Bhowani Junction (1954)

I came across Bhowani Junction years ago, in the shape of the spectacular 1956 MGM film starring Ava Gardner and Stewart Granger and directed by George Cukor.  I guess I first saw it on Sunday afternoon television, watching with my mother who was a great film fan and brought me up to be the same.  … Continue reading →

Uninvited Guests by Parr Cooper (1946)

This interesting novel is set around 1943/44 in a small settlement in rural India, which is dominated by an Army training camp. The soldiers, commanded by Colonel Davis, are awaiting orders to go overseas to fight, probably  in Burma. Apart from a number of officers and their families, the main characters are Dr Taussig, a … Continue reading →

Cloudless May (1943) by Storm Jameson

Review by Sylvia D For our women writers and World Wars One and Two session I read Storm Jameson’s Cloudless May (Macmillan, 1943 and still in print) which is a political and psychological exploration of the fall of France in the Second World War. The writing reveals a considerable knowledge of French landscape, culture and … Continue reading →

Tadpole Hall by Helen Ashton (1941)

This is a war novel which focuses on the home front rather than on active service. It is 1939 and the village of Lambscot is facing the threat and then the certainty of war. At the centre of the novel is Colonel Heron, a widower who lost an arm in the First World War and … Continue reading →

Penguin New Writing 1940-1950 edited by John Lehmann

Last week the reading group discussed The Penguin New Writing series, edited by John Lehmann. We’ve got a full run of this series, from number 1 in 1940, to number 40 in 1950. (See Penguin First Editions for cover images.)  At the reading group we looked at the first 8. They are, in my opinion, … Continue reading →

Love on the Supertax by Marghanita Laski (1944)

Review by Jane V: Lady Clarissa, daughter of a Duke, lives with her parents in their rundown mansion in Mayfair. All their servants have gone to join the war effort so the family is left living in squalid conditions, quite unable to cook and manage a household for themselves.  They have lost most of their … Continue reading →