Michelle Cooper
Autor/a de A Brief History of Montmaray
Sèrie
Obres de Michelle Cooper
Etiquetat
Coneixement comú
- Data de naixement
- 1969
- Gènere
- female
- Nacionalitat
- Australia (birth)
- Lloc de naixement
- Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
- Llocs de residència
- Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
- Professions
- speech and language pathologist
author
Membres
Ressenyes
Llistes
Premis
Potser també t'agrada
Estadístiques
- Obres
- 6
- Membres
- 1,220
- Popularitat
- #21,044
- Valoració
- 4.0
- Ressenyes
- 86
- ISBN
- 39
- Llengües
- 1
- Preferit
- 2
Another book bullet, but I didn't realise that it is the first of a trilogy.
Sophia FitzOsborne, a princess of the royal family of Montmaray, starts a journal which she was given for her sixteenth birthday in October 1936 so each chapter heading is a date. It sounds grand but Montmaray is a rocky, weather-challenged island in the Bay of Biscay which, for those as geographically er... knowledgeable as me, is off the west coast of France. This fictional island was claimed by an earl escaping Henry VIII's wrath and did well from whaling, as a waypoint between France and England and negotiating treaties. In modern times, living there is a struggle and they barely have enough to eat. Most of the male population was lead to their deaths in WWI by the current king, now a broken man who keeps mainly to his room. The other eight inhabitants (three of whom are also part of the royal family) are his daughter Veronica and his nieces Sophia and tomboy Henry as well as their housekeeper Rebecca (who seems to be exceptionally bad at housekeeping) and, in the village, Alice, Mary, elderly George and young Jimmy. Sophia's brother, Toby, and Rebecca's son, Simon, are away in England at school and work respectively.
This was a gentle story, told from the point of a girl on the verge of adulthood and on the eve, more or less, of World War II. Though she is not interested in politics, Veronica and Simon are and so she is not unaware of events in Europe especially since they are connected to European nobility, especially from Spain. And those events - such as the Spanish civil war and the rise of Naziism in Germany - do affect them personally, even though they are isolated, when people come to or leave the island. Although it is Sophia's journal that we read, Veronica is working on writing a history of Montmaray.
Essentially, the island kingdom with its decrepit castle is managed by the three teenaged girls, which is to say Veronica deals with the practicalities while Sophia helps her though they haven't managed to teach Henry how to read. I enjoyed Sophia's narration of their everyday lives with their unusual lifestyle. It was, necessarily, gently paced; when they had to deal with crises (such as finding a room for guests with a bed and a roof that didn't leak or splinting a broken bone), they got on and dealt with them because there was no other option and they were used to doing so. The pace picks up a bit towards the end as the war and its fallout comes closer but I found the whole book very readable.
(April 2022)
3.5 stars… (més)