SUMMER READING
The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow
Anyone who’s read Austen’s Pride and Prejudice may recall Mary, the youngest Bennet girl and the one who gets the least positive attention. She is smart, but she’s plain and outspoken, and she wears glasses. In this novel, Hadlow takes up Mary’s cause and projects a life for her after the death of her father and the marriages of her four sisters. Part I mostly sets the stage by recapping the events leading up to sister Jane’s marriage to Bingley, and her sister Elizabeth’s bumpy road to becoming Mr. Darcy’s wife and the lady of Pemberley. In a little like Goldilocks looking for the perfect resting place, Mary spends time on lengthy visits to Jane, then to family friend Charlotte Lucas and Mr. Collins, and then to her aunt Gardiner.
This aunt takes Mary under her wing, sees that she has the proper attire for evening affairs and dinners, and oversees her developing friendships with two young men. In time, Mary comes into her own, blossoming into an assured and self-confident individual who has much to offer and the opportunity for a more fulfilling life.
I found this novel both successful and satisfying. Hadlow remains mostly true to the mores of the day, and Mary’s transformation from ugly duckling to poised woman is convincing. I might quibble that the third and fourth parts are longer than they need to be, but the expedition to the Scottish Lake Country is finely wrought and moves the story forward in the right way. I found myself rooting for Mary from the get-go. Recommended! (~JWFarrington)
Secrets in Summer by Nancy Thayer
Nancy Thayer is not as popular an author as Elin Hilderbrand, but she too sets her novels in Nantucket and has written a slew of them. Darcy is a fulltime resident living in the house she grew up in and inherited from her grandmother. A children’s librarian, she has a dream job which she loves, but is distressed when her ex-husband and family rent the house next to hers for the summer. The houses are close together, and she becomes entangled in the affairs and secrets of his teenaged stepdaughter, Willow. Add to this, Darcy’s attraction to both carpenter Noah, working on house repairs for her, and musicologist Clive, in town to work on a book, and you have a stew of romance, misunderstandings, and miscommunication. The Nantucket details are fun, and the story is perfect beach reading—even if you’re reading from home!
GRANDDAUGHTER DIVERSIONS
The Chief Penguin and I are fortunate that we are in Maine (very low Covid-19 numbers and no cases in this county) and lucky that our granddaughters, 4 and 8, are here for a long visit. Equipped with laptops and borrowed card tables, their parents can work while Grandpa and Grandma are on duty. We have done a lot of the obvious things with the girls. Exploring the rocks and sandy coast for shells and sea glass, taking walks out and about, reading books together, baking and icing cupcakes, and assembling blueberry pancakes, an annual tradition.
Besides the drawing and coloring they can do on their own, two purchases I made are providing hours of fun and diversion. I don’t usually tout brand name products, but the tablecloth map of the United States from Uncommon Goods is simply fabulous! Every state is labeled with its name and state capital and its state bird, state flower, and state animal are there to be colored in. The cloth comes with a set of washable markers and can be decorated and then washed and colored all over again. I printed out a list of state birds and flowers as a reference. We talked about the states we live in and have visited, the best route to get from one place to another and so on. That then led to a discussion of other countries and how far away they might be.
The next day we talked about Norway and the other Scandinavian countries and found them on a map on the computer, but how much more fun it would be for them to color all the countries of the world! The U.S. tablecloth is so popular that I will definitely order the world map version.
My other smart purchase for their visit was a handy travel case of Classic Legos. Included are the small Legos in a variety of colors and shapes along with a booklet of ideas to make. Between the suggestions and their imaginations, the girls have stayed occupied for long stretches. They also had fun spreading out the U.S. tablecloth on the floor and then inventing scenarios with their Lego creations—car, castle, house, lighthouse—and placing somewhere on the map.
READING IN PROGRESS
When not engaged with my granddaughters, I’ve been poking my way through a quirky biography from 1970 and have just started a memoir about the biographer’s art that was published three years ago. I expect to have a few thoughts about these two works in my next blog, at which point I will identify them. Curious, yet?
Note: All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).
