Robert M. (shotokanchef) reviewed on + 813 more book reviews
Despite the title, the novella is not too provocative. The prose, I felt, is rather choppy and unpolished, as if it were to be an outline for a larger work. For example, the opening sentence is THE NEXT WEEK it poured again with rain. What else but rain could it be? Possibly this is because it was only discovered after the author died. Reviewers seem to have done a great deal of reading between the lines, but I guess that is just a sales pitch. There is a rather poorly worded disclaimer following the end of the text. The characters are introduced in some detail, but the setting of the rectory is not. Did I fail to mention that this is yet another English novel that revolves around a vicars family? Complete with several servants and daughters who can attend finishing school in France and all. Werent there enough of these already? It seems to have been the major vocation in merry old England. The climaxa floodhit me out of the blue. That the vicarage stood by a river is barely mentioned 100 pages earlier. I guess that I dont read carefully. Anyway, our heroine, Yvette, is finally free from her grandmother as the story ends.
