There is something positively delicious about indulging in a half hour of reading before getting out of bed in the morning. At home, I treat myself to this on the occasional Saturday or Sunday; here in Maine, it’s a daily occurrence. Today I finished reading the latest by Jacqueline Winspear, The Care and Management of Lies. It’s a departure from her Maisie Dobbs series (which I love).
This is a quiet novel with the mostly pastoral setting of a small farm and village in the English countryside. Tom’s educated, somewhat sophisticated wife Kezia discovers a talent for cooking and prides herself on setting a proper table with tasty food. When Tom enlists in the war, Kezia is left to run the farm with only two farmhands and a neighboring girl for kitchen help.
Writing to him at the front, she describes in loving detail the dishes she is creating to serve him. Her letters are sweet sustenance to him and his comrades in arms. Threaded through the tale of Tom and Kezia’s marriage is her strained friendship with his sister Thea. This is a novel that starts out slowly, but gains in intensity as the war goes on and on and on.
As might be expected, the centenary of the start of WWI has resulted in a spate of new nonfiction books. But these war years are also a time period of interest and appeal for mystery, novel and TV writers. Think about Downton Abbey. And there are the two engaging series, featuring nurse Bess Crawford and Inspector Ian Rutledge set during the war and post-war years. The author is the mother son team known as Charles Todd. And a WWI series of mystery/spy novels by Anne Perry, better known for her Victorian era mysteries. I’ve not read these, but will add them to my list.
