Επιτέλους μόνοι

by Faith Baldwin

Όταν η Λώρη παντρεύεται τον Χανκ, ξέρει ότι εκείνος είναι ακόμα ερωτευμένος με τη Ντόλλυ, που τον παράτησε για χάρη ενός πολυεκατομμυριούχου. Αλλά και η Λώρη είναι ακόμα ερωτευμένη με κάποιον άλλον, τον Κιτ Τζέννινγκς, που δεν ήθελε να χάσει την ελευθερία του για χάρη της. Ο Χανκ και η Λώρη δεν κάνουν πια τρελά όνειρα - ελπίζουν μόνο σ' ένα γαλήνιο γάμο, βασισμένο στην κοινή εκτίμηση, δίχως έρωτες, ζήλιες και πάθη. Δυο χρόνια αργότερα μπορούν να πιστεύουν ότι το πετύχανε. Έχουν ένα όμορφο σπίτι, αγαπάνε ο ένας τον άλλο, λατρεύουν το μωρό τους. Και τότε, απρόσμενα, η Ντόλλυ και ο Κιτ ξαναγυρίζουν...

285 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 1940

About the author

Faith Baldwin attended private academies and finishing schools, and in 1914-16 she lived in Dresden, Germany. She married Hugh H. Cuthrell in 1920, and the next year she published her first novel, Mavis of Green Hill. Although she often claimed she did not care for authorship, her steady stream of books belies that claim; over the next 56 years she published more than 85 books, more than 60 of them novels with such titles as Those Difficult Years (1925), The Office Wife (1930), Babs and Mary Lou (1931), District Nurse (1932), Manhattan Nights (1937), and He Married a Doctor (1944). Her last completed novel, Adam's Eden, appeared in 1977.

Typically, a Faith Baldwin book presents a highly simplified version of life among the wealthy. No matter what the difficulties, honour and goodness triumph, and hero and heroine are united. Evil, depravity, poverty, and sex found no place in her work, which she explicitly intended for the housewife and the working girl. The popularity of her writing was enormous. In 1936, in the midst of the Great Depression, she published five novels in magazine serial form and three earlier serials in volume form and saw four of her works made into motion pictures, for an income that year in excess of $315,000. She also wrote innumerable stories, articles, and newspaper columns, no less ephemeral than the novels.

Reviews

[Ceejay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 1934 novel by Faith Baldwin is another little gem. The Depresion has hit.Despite this, two young folks, Hank,a lawyer, and Laurie, a secretary, believe that they have found love, and a future with their respective fiances. It's not to be. So Hank and Laurie decide that love is a problem, and decide to marry and approach it an honest way as two friends rather then lovers. Will it work? Knowing that many of Faith Baldwin's novels were made into black and white melodramatic movies in the 1930's and early 40's should tell you that the plot will present a number of interesting problems for Hank and Laurie.This really is an enjoyable novel.It may be classified as a romance, but it is much more then that!

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

In which FB entertains domestic abuse as romance: "It wasn't that she believed he would humiliate her physically. He wasn't that sort. Or was he? Perhaps. She would probably never know whether he could bring himself to the common, hearty, explosive level of the man on the street who knocks his wife down and then raises her to kiss the bruise his careless fist has made. But the very fact that he was capable of thinking that he could--"

[Grete · Rating 3 out of 5]

Harmless romance.