Book review: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Winifred Watson

A charming novel written in 1938 about a frumpy, down on her luck governess who is sent by mistake to apply for a job as a lady's maid for a singer. The singer immediately takes her into her confidence and Miss Pettigrew spends the next 24 hours helping the lovely artiste and her friends with their love lives, being made over and being surprised at her own attractiveness, going to a party and night club, and emerging with a new life. The original pen and ink drawings add to the appeal.

There's an interesting theme of making one's self over, since everybody Miss Pettigrew meets has changed their name or appearance, and most everyone has crossed class. So why not Miss Pettigrew?

Be warned: Since it's written in the 30s there are anti Semetic things like references to a man not being a suitable husband because he has traces of Jew, and an Italian not being fit to be in the room with a white woman.

Book review: The Camomile Lawn, Mary Wesley

A novel about a group English cousins at the eve of WWII and what happened to them in the war, with flash forwards to the present day. We see much of the action through the eyes of Sophy, kind of the odd girl out because she's much younger than the others and because of her Anglo-Eurasian race. As in other England at war novels, the war gives these young people opportunities for adventures - sexual ones - that they wouldn't have had in conservative pre-war days. There are some interesting twists in their emotional lives and several of the characters end up in places they never expected to go. I like that one of the women who finds herself behaving unconventionally is a woman in her 40s who had been the model of a good wife.

I have some quibbles with some of the plot - there's a dramatic subplot that doesn't go anywhere either plot-wise or emotionally, and nearly every character is revealed to have some sexual quirk. What a family! I had some skepticism about how the story ends, too, but I admit that it is simply a door opening to possibilities and not a "they lived happily ever after" false note.