REREAD: Deborah's Secret Quest
Jun. 24th, 2015 07:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllDeborah’s Secret Quest: Cecilia Falcon The Thames Publishing Co.
This is a reread – I was uncertain as to whether I already owned this book, but the copy before me was lovely and irresistible. I didn’t really remember the story, anyhow. It has a little of the feel of a serial story brought together within covers of its very own: occasionally chapters start with an unnecessary recap and it stretches a little beyond most book length school stories in terms of genre. Although new girls who ought to be heiresses to the building a school has just moved into are not uncommon in girls own, especially earlier stories, this book has a Gothick feel to it. There’s an emphasis on atmosphere and some character types and dynamics that belong more to suspense thrillers for adults.
I wouldn’t describe it as entirely successful, for there are gaping plot-holes. What happened to heroine Deb between her beloved Uncle Charles’s death and the start of Strathmore School’s tenure at Lyon House and, indeed, term? Why does Deb take such big breaks between continuing her investigations? Characters stay unconvincingly quiet or make simple deductive leaps at the plot’ convenience, not realism’s.
However, it was reassuring that Deb had the perennial schoolgirl’s blind-spot. (See the Wells and Wong mysteries.) For all that it dresses up in Gothick romance’s clothes, it is a school story, also.
Deb Arden is a new girl at Strathmore, which has just moved to Lyon House, picturesquely located by the island of Black Rock off the North Sea. She is no ordinary new girl, for she was brought up at Lyon House by her Uncle Charles, the last of the Delaneys. He promised to leave her home to her, but after his sudden death, no will was found, meaning the house’s ownership fell to Mr Durbin, a cousin and widow, who has let it out to his daughter’s school. Natalie is a prefect and big fish at Strathmore, and the living resemblance on an ancestress, Natalie Delaney, whose portrait hangs in the house and who is chiefly remembered for her involvement in a mystery regarding family treasures.
Convinced that her uncle’s will will prove that she is the rightful owner, Deb is iffy about the school, but definitely unwilling to be friends with Natalie, her sense of honour forbids it when she is setting against her in her search for the will.
Some of the usual tribulations of being a new girl befall Deb, who was taken out of her old school to her new one rather high-handedly by her new guardian. She butts head with sneaky Lavendar Rose, and her secrecy about her past and connection with Lyon House cause trouble with popular Jo Caspar, but gradually school life and the companionship of other fifth formers takes Deb up. In searching for her uncle’s will, Deb stumbles upon clues to the two century old mystery that led to a still extant feud between the Delaneys of Lyon House and the Kerruishes of Black Rock – a feud that has not stopped Deb from striking up a friendship with young Donald Kerruish. It is this that becomes the secret quest of the title.
There’s an ill-thought-out (and dated) attitude towards disability to put up with.
This is a reread – I was uncertain as to whether I already owned this book, but the copy before me was lovely and irresistible. I didn’t really remember the story, anyhow. It has a little of the feel of a serial story brought together within covers of its very own: occasionally chapters start with an unnecessary recap and it stretches a little beyond most book length school stories in terms of genre. Although new girls who ought to be heiresses to the building a school has just moved into are not uncommon in girls own, especially earlier stories, this book has a Gothick feel to it. There’s an emphasis on atmosphere and some character types and dynamics that belong more to suspense thrillers for adults.
I wouldn’t describe it as entirely successful, for there are gaping plot-holes. What happened to heroine Deb between her beloved Uncle Charles’s death and the start of Strathmore School’s tenure at Lyon House and, indeed, term? Why does Deb take such big breaks between continuing her investigations? Characters stay unconvincingly quiet or make simple deductive leaps at the plot’ convenience, not realism’s.
However, it was reassuring that Deb had the perennial schoolgirl’s blind-spot. (See the Wells and Wong mysteries.) For all that it dresses up in Gothick romance’s clothes, it is a school story, also.
Deb Arden is a new girl at Strathmore, which has just moved to Lyon House, picturesquely located by the island of Black Rock off the North Sea. She is no ordinary new girl, for she was brought up at Lyon House by her Uncle Charles, the last of the Delaneys. He promised to leave her home to her, but after his sudden death, no will was found, meaning the house’s ownership fell to Mr Durbin, a cousin and widow, who has let it out to his daughter’s school. Natalie is a prefect and big fish at Strathmore, and the living resemblance on an ancestress, Natalie Delaney, whose portrait hangs in the house and who is chiefly remembered for her involvement in a mystery regarding family treasures.
Convinced that her uncle’s will will prove that she is the rightful owner, Deb is iffy about the school, but definitely unwilling to be friends with Natalie, her sense of honour forbids it when she is setting against her in her search for the will.
Some of the usual tribulations of being a new girl befall Deb, who was taken out of her old school to her new one rather high-handedly by her new guardian. She butts head with sneaky Lavendar Rose, and her secrecy about her past and connection with Lyon House cause trouble with popular Jo Caspar, but gradually school life and the companionship of other fifth formers takes Deb up. In searching for her uncle’s will, Deb stumbles upon clues to the two century old mystery that led to a still extant feud between the Delaneys of Lyon House and the Kerruishes of Black Rock – a feud that has not stopped Deb from striking up a friendship with young Donald Kerruish. It is this that becomes the secret quest of the title.
There’s an ill-thought-out (and dated) attitude towards disability to put up with.
