I started off semi-excited about reading this. I enjoyed The Little White Horse and was looking for something light and "storyish". It took awhile to get into, then I started liking it a bit in the middle, then the last third or so was just not good at all and I found myself liking it less the more I read on.

The plot twist was predictable but sweet in places, and I did appreciate the themes of forgiveness and the mercy of God. Unfortunately, the author has no problem mixing in all kinds of pagan traditions about Christmas, Christianity, walking out the Bible, etc. and treats it all rather flippantly and on the same level. Poetic portions that are meant to be supernatural end up sounding pagan and humanistic.

This extremely imaginative author often makes one wonder to what audience she is writing. The child/teen characters are, in the author's own words, extraordinarily mature. Ugh, yes, and not at all believable. The John and Rosalind storyline was distracting and the "big revelation" was extremely anticlimactic. This was not one of my favorites, for sure.

I did learn quite a bit, though. Mummers = play actors who put on a Christmas pageant show. Bullroarer = an obnoxious but common primitive noise maker. Shipmen are usually portrayed with a scarf tied around their heads because they used it to help stifle the sound of the guns. I'm also quite curious about the planting chant and plan to research that a bit.

Favorite quote: "It's not the mark of a good patriot to hate the enemy...it's the mark of a patriot to love his country." ( )

The romance that grows between a young girl and a young man as they are separated and eventually come back together. Goudge likes to describe things in too much detail. I don't care how the elderberry bush looks as it waves in the wind next to the potted gardinias that are riot in full bloom in the 17th century pot that is pure white with an image from a legend about a Saint in the Crusades who... and on and on.

I am thinking I will read The White Witch and then be done with her. Even still, I'm going to need a couple of months break before tackling it. ( )

This is a historical novel, set in Devon, based around a legend which is told in the book. The main character is a ten-year-old girl called Stella, who lives at a farmhouse but knows she is 'different' from the people she calls mother and father. She's a dreamer, full of wisdom and also full of questions.

Stells learns something about her past, and she meets two people who change her life: a boy a few years older than herself who has deserted the Navy, and a rather remote Catholic priest. Her vision sees further than what is obvious to others, and she recognises kindred spirits in both.

It's a slow-moving book, not one to be read in a hurry. There are battles to be fought - both physical (the book is set in the time of Napoleon and Nelson) and psychological, as characters struggle to overcome their internal fears. There's a very gentle romance, and also the unfolding of a mystery - easy to guess the outcome early in the book, but beautifully written.

Not for those who like fast action or realism, but for anyone else a most delightful book. ( )

les contrées de l'Ouest de l'Angleterre, la nature, teintée de mystique et de magie, la famille, l'amour, la mer ( )