OVERVIEW: 2019 highlights

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Gillian of the Guides was the best proper girls own book I read this year, with a genuine interest in character. Its heroine Jill is disappointed at the start of the book, but given an opportunity to show what she’s made of, grow up and find real friendship, while diffident new head girl Ivy and clever, mischievous Ruth, Jill’s sister, are nearly as important to the plot. Although Darch is clearly motivated by promoting the Guides, she never lets that get in the way of the story.

This was closely seconded by Dancing Peel (does it count as girls own?). It introduced ballet obsessive Annette Dancy, who lives in a former fortress cum vicarage. She’s portrayed vividly, warts and all, as is the setting, with tensions arising when a new vicar comes to the village with a son and niece childish Annette takes at face value at first.

Curtsies and Conspiracies by Gail Carriger, was probably the most enjoyable book I read all year. I thought it was a step up from the first book in the Finishing School series, with a brilliant heroine, a lot of wit and an author in control of what she was doing.

As part of my Eva Ibbotson reread, I reached A Song for Summer, which I enjoyed up to a point. Despite echoes of other books by her, the story didn’t quite go where I expected it to, most of all in hero Marek’s behaviour towards the end of the book, which never convinced me.

I read two Marston Baines books by Malcolm Saville and Eight Cousins/Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott. As part of Rereading February, something I hope to continue, I revisited L. M. Montgomery’s lovely The Blue Castle. Of the Big Four, I read a DFB Dimsie book and an Angela Brazil book. I also read a new-to-me Katherine L. Oldmeadow book, but as A Strange Adventure was aimed at younger readers, I found it slight, although its perspective of Shetland life in the Victorian era was interesting.

I went to see Crimes on the Nile, a farcical send-up of Agatha Christie’s output at the start of the year and an enjoyable musical adaptation of Mallory Towers in the summer.