REVIEW: Jersey Adventure
Aug. 20th, 2016 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllJersey Adventure: Viola Bayley, Dent, 1969
The back flap of this book’s dust jacket quotes the Junior Bookshelf stating ‘Miss Bayley is a sort of Mary Stewart for young readers’, which is an accurate description, I think. It is very much a suspense thriller for youngsters set in another exotic (for most readers) location – most of Bayley’s books are titled Location Adventure.
Heroine-narrator Deirdre is kicking her heels between school and training to be a nurse. She literally bumps into an old friend, Hugh, on a day trip in London – their history was a little more convoluted than it needed to be. He is trying to decide whether to take on a mysterious job he’s been offered. Mr LeMont wants Hugh to housesit at his home, a folly called La Tourelle on Jersey, and even offers Deirdre and her younger brother George holiday jobs at a nearby hotel he owns. As it’s a chance for a paid holiday in Jersey, they go.
Bayley has used the dynamic of a sister and younger brother and nice chap they know before, but the potential for romance is very understated, and the trio end up befriending some of Jersey’s young people too. The story contains an attractive depiction of Jersey’s Norman heritage, quaint traditions and ways. It’s evocative of its time, with characters carrying memories of the occupation and land lost to farming developments for outsiders attracted by the island’s tax regime. However, Jersey is also portrayed as a ‘primitive’ place, where a family feud and an old man’s superstitions can even infect Deirdre and co as well. So, it’s a combination of selling the location to the reader and making it the kind of place where an adventure could feasibly take place.
In trying to find out what’s going on with Mr LaMont, Deirdre and impetuous George do, indeed, have an adventure, trying to come up with all kinds of answers for the clues they stumble upon. It is fortunate that ‘Mary Ann’ and ‘Buttons’ don’t seem to have to work too hard at the hotel!
The story is fine with a neat plot. As I’ve read a lot of this type of thing written for adults, I could spot the red herring and detect the real baddie easily. I’d have liked a little more romance, frankly, for Deirdre and Hugh. In fact, Deirdre’s characterisation is a little too flat, perhaps because the writer is trying to emphasise her ordinariness. She’s kind so we like her and sensitive, which is handy for a narrator, but, more could have been done of her nurse training and her care-taking traits, for instance.
The back flap of this book’s dust jacket quotes the Junior Bookshelf stating ‘Miss Bayley is a sort of Mary Stewart for young readers’, which is an accurate description, I think. It is very much a suspense thriller for youngsters set in another exotic (for most readers) location – most of Bayley’s books are titled Location Adventure.
Heroine-narrator Deirdre is kicking her heels between school and training to be a nurse. She literally bumps into an old friend, Hugh, on a day trip in London – their history was a little more convoluted than it needed to be. He is trying to decide whether to take on a mysterious job he’s been offered. Mr LeMont wants Hugh to housesit at his home, a folly called La Tourelle on Jersey, and even offers Deirdre and her younger brother George holiday jobs at a nearby hotel he owns. As it’s a chance for a paid holiday in Jersey, they go.
Bayley has used the dynamic of a sister and younger brother and nice chap they know before, but the potential for romance is very understated, and the trio end up befriending some of Jersey’s young people too. The story contains an attractive depiction of Jersey’s Norman heritage, quaint traditions and ways. It’s evocative of its time, with characters carrying memories of the occupation and land lost to farming developments for outsiders attracted by the island’s tax regime. However, Jersey is also portrayed as a ‘primitive’ place, where a family feud and an old man’s superstitions can even infect Deirdre and co as well. So, it’s a combination of selling the location to the reader and making it the kind of place where an adventure could feasibly take place.
In trying to find out what’s going on with Mr LaMont, Deirdre and impetuous George do, indeed, have an adventure, trying to come up with all kinds of answers for the clues they stumble upon. It is fortunate that ‘Mary Ann’ and ‘Buttons’ don’t seem to have to work too hard at the hotel!
The story is fine with a neat plot. As I’ve read a lot of this type of thing written for adults, I could spot the red herring and detect the real baddie easily. I’d have liked a little more romance, frankly, for Deirdre and Hugh. In fact, Deirdre’s characterisation is a little too flat, perhaps because the writer is trying to emphasise her ordinariness. She’s kind so we like her and sensitive, which is handy for a narrator, but, more could have been done of her nurse training and her care-taking traits, for instance.
