A dear person from the Well Trained Mind Book a Week group suggested this author, D. E. Stevenson, as a comfy, cozy read in times of feeling blue and overwhelmed. So I took her up on it and she was right!
Amberwell is a light, lovely novel about a family of five children growing up on their beloved estate of Amberwell. The original builders were bourgeois merchants in India who made their fortune and then came home to Scotland to settle down. They began building Amberwell and each generation after would add a bit. The couple the book focuses on are stuffy and narrow and let their five children be raised by Nannie and the servants. But the children create a wonderful world of their own under the kind and loving eye of their servants. As they grow begin to change, naturally; things happens to pull them apart. And then World War II comes along bringing dread and deprivation.
The story is charming and sweet without any crassness, even though the hardships of life and the flaws of each character are not ignored.
This book is the first in a trilogy. I plan to read them all.
For more book reviews, go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.
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