Christmas at the Keep: A moving and uplifting festive novella to escape with at Christmas

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Marcia Willett 's early life was devoted to the ballet, but her dreams of becoming a ballerina ended when she grew out of the classical proportions required. And the ending is entirely satisfactory, with a kind of postscript that tells us what was going to happen to some of the characters in the future. You really do care about these people, who seem to be like real people, in these novels and what is going to happen to each and every character. In my meandering, gradual read-through of the lengthy Chalet School series by Elinor M Brent-Dyer (with a few extra fill-ins) I reached ‘Jo to the Rescue’. It’s essentially character-driven, and the author clearly has tremendous empathy, able to get under the skins of a variety of different folk.

Nathaniel is quite fond of them both and has been generous to them in the past, although he regularly quarrels with them. He was seen so quickly after referral by our GP, seen by a dermatologist on the Saturday and the procedure done the following Friday. TOTNES author Marcia Willett, who died aged 76 in June, was best known for her books set in South Devon. I love picking up the threads and learning what happened to people I had started to care about, but sometimes need a reminder as I don’t generally read one author’s books one after another.

The balance is extremely well done, without in any way detracting from the serious nature of living with anxieties and immense stress, of not fitting in with society, or of trying to make a good life for one’s children despite a difficult childhood of one’s own. She says, too, that despite all the horrors in the world and in many people’s backgrounds there are moments of joy, times for celebration, reasons to be thankful. My copy is a hardback original; this has also been published by 'Girls Gone By' as well as the somewhat abridged Armada edition. Their respite is complicated with various tricky relationships, secrecy, angst, and marital appraisals. I’m sure I’ll re-read the others at some point and am pleased to note that they have all been re-published regularly as well as being widely available second-hand.

The house they converge on may be fictional, but everywhere else they go is likely to be very familiar – the Dartington Hall gardens and Cider Press Centre, the Cott Inn, Buckfast Abbey, various galleries and cafes in Totnes. Overall I didn’t like the book as much as the first in the series, and don’t plan to read any more right now. He gets caught in the crossfire between Putin's army and the Wolves, a rogue team of Ukraine partisans. Yes, the leaves are now falling from our walnut tree, lots of sweeping will be done I expect in the coming weeks, but much depends on how husband’s health is for this strenuous job. However, would like to know if she is contemplating a sequel to The Summer House as clearly there is the potential for another novel ?Willett — but sadly she died of ovarian cancer several years ago — but these books always make me think of her and how much I miss her. Rosamunde Pilcher is one favorite author of this genre, and I’d tried other authors said to be like her, but some of them were really not on her level.

Although I’ve read it twice, the last time being just six years ago, I had pretty much forgotten the story, and had no recollection of who committed the crime, or how it was done. Definitely recommended if you want a quick, light and engrossing read that doesn’t take more than a few hours. Inspector Hemingway has a sense of the ridiculous and a great deal of insight, and gets considerably more information from everyone - including the household staff - by his friendliness and sympathetic attitude. Recommended to younger teenagers who want a good adventure story - no need to have read any earlier ones, although I feel it adds to the books to do so - or to nostalgic adults like myself who remember the books fondly from our teenage years.

I have read all the books that Marcia Willett has written over the years and have never been disappointed. It’s poignant that one significant character has cancer; I didn’t know that Marcia Willett had it in the past, or earlier in the year. When I last saw her in February she was able to say the book was with the publisher and in the acknowledgements she thanked all those who had supported her career over the years, including me for that first review.

And while there are certainly lessons to be learned about courage, integrity and kindness, which are shown in the book, the girls (other than Darrell and Sally) feel rather too caricatured. Definitely recommended if you’d like a low-key way of exploring some well-known (and some lesser-known) passages of the Bible. While it’s not spelled out, it appears that they have been in Japan, and they’re discussing whether or not they want to visit China. Separated amicably from his wife, with adult children living away from home, he lives on his own in a village in Devon where he has many friends.Willett is obviously channeling Maeve Binchy and Rosamund Pilcher, but her style and plotting lack the grace and and natural flow of those two. Since that first novel Marcia wrote 30 more under her own name as well as a number of short stories. She has also written four books under the pseudonym " Willa Marsh", and is published in more than sixteen countries. I have just finished Heidi Swain’s A Christmas Celebration and it’s a delightful Christmas novel, I think you might enjoy that. It sounded ideal, and I hadn’t read it since 2009 so I started on January 1st and have finished it today.