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The Native Heath
Published in the US as Julia Comes Home
A widow, at an age when birthdays are best forgotten, with no children to occupy her mind, can be very lonely. Julia Dunstan knew she was more fortunate than most widows, not merely because she was prosperous—as widows go—but because she had always taken an interest in other people.
And from the moment Julia moves to Goatstock, where she has inherited a house, there are plenty of people for her to take an interest in. For a start, there’s cousin Dora, who might just as easily been left the house herself and who instead becomes Julia’s companion.
Then there’s Lady Finch, the local expert on Fresh Food and the victim of a deception so dastardly that even her attractive but irreverent niece, Harriet, is indignant. This distracts Harriet for a while from the rather thankless task of planning the futures of her friends, Marian and Robert. And all are concerned with news that the village will be made into a “New Town”. However the old values, at least those of Elizabeth Fair’s fiction, remain: wit, charm, and romance.
231 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1954
72 people are currently reading
248 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Fair
14 books70 followersElizabeth Mary Fair was born in 1908 in Haigh, Lancashire, a small village not far from Wigan.] Her father was the land agent for the 10th Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, whose family seat, Haigh Hall, was nearby. Elizabeth and her sister were educated by a governess. Her father died in 1934 and the family moved to Hampshire, where they had a small house and a large garden in New Forest.
During World War II Fair served for five years as an ambulance driver in the Civil Defence Corps in Southampton. In 1944 she joined the Red Cross and spent eighteen months in Ceylon, India, and Belgium.[3]
After returning to England in 1947, she moved to Boldre in Hampshire.
Fair wrote six novels of English village life that humorously and gently dissected the "polite social politics" of village denizens while managing to incorporate a romance or two. Reviewers typically compare her work to that of Margery Sharp or Angela Thirkell, with Stevie Smith and other reviewers noting that her work has affinities with Trollope. Of her novel All One Summer, the author wrote that it was meant for people like herself who "prefer not to take life too seriously". Writer Compton Mackenzie said of this novel that it was "in the best tradition of English humour".
Fair's third novel, The Native Heath (1954) was published with a jacket design by Shirley Hughes.
Fair published her last novel in 1960 and died in 1997 (Taken from Author Bio in her books, added in other information from online resources)
During World War II Fair served for five years as an ambulance driver in the Civil Defence Corps in Southampton. In 1944 she joined the Red Cross and spent eighteen months in Ceylon, India, and Belgium.[3]
After returning to England in 1947, she moved to Boldre in Hampshire.
Fair wrote six novels of English village life that humorously and gently dissected the "polite social politics" of village denizens while managing to incorporate a romance or two. Reviewers typically compare her work to that of Margery Sharp or Angela Thirkell, with Stevie Smith and other reviewers noting that her work has affinities with Trollope. Of her novel All One Summer, the author wrote that it was meant for people like herself who "prefer not to take life too seriously". Writer Compton Mackenzie said of this novel that it was "in the best tradition of English humour".
Fair's third novel, The Native Heath (1954) was published with a jacket design by Shirley Hughes.
Fair published her last novel in 1960 and died in 1997 (Taken from Author Bio in her books, added in other information from online resources)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
November 27, 2022
In a quaint English village, a number of people of varying levels of eccentricity get into tizzies for reasons, mostly needlessly.
March 14, 2021
Julia, a widow, has been left her Uncle's house at Goatshead in his will. She has moved back from the colonies and this seems meant for her. She is interested in people and looks forward to getting involved in village life, (or is that interfering)?
There are quite a few characters to get to know early on, but it was fun once I had them all sorted out. On the surface, this is a cosy village comedy, but it has it's sharper edges. Written in the 50's, big changes have taken place and more are on the way; rumour has it that the village will become a New Town, some people look forward to the change but others fear the loss of their way of life. The titled characters have all down-sized and are now managing without (much) help.
I do love her novels and I'm very glad she has been brought back into print for us to enjoy, it's just a bit of a shame she wrote so few books.
There are quite a few characters to get to know early on, but it was fun once I had them all sorted out. On the surface, this is a cosy village comedy, but it has it's sharper edges. Written in the 50's, big changes have taken place and more are on the way; rumour has it that the village will become a New Town, some people look forward to the change but others fear the loss of their way of life. The titled characters have all down-sized and are now managing without (much) help.
I do love her novels and I'm very glad she has been brought back into print for us to enjoy, it's just a bit of a shame she wrote so few books.
May 25, 2024
It’s always a mistake, I feel, for an author to take a patronizing view of a book’s protagonist. As a reader I want to have somebody I can attach myself to in a story, someone whose tribulations I can feel as if they were my own, someone to root for.
Elizabeth Fair writes charming stories about English village life, with an Austenesque eye for human quirks. Ordinarily she anchors her story in the consciousness of a perfectly reasonable person, allowing the reader to feel comfortably superior to the other characters. But in The Native Heath, everybody is fooling themselves, and I found that distanced me from the action and left me a little bored.
It’s the story of a widow, Mrs. Dunstan, who had to live overseas while her husband was alive; she is comfortably off after his death but sentimentally longs for a real home—by which she means a large house in the countryside. Fortuitously, an uncle dies and leaves his property to her. Fond of good deeds, she brings along an old family retainer and a less-well-off spinster cousin.
At first I thought the down-to-earth cousin might take over as protagonist, when she began to expose Mrs. Dunstan’s little foolishnesses and self-deceptions, but she never developed into more than an irritant for Mrs. Dunstan. An idle young nephew and a shady employee add to the serpents in Mrs. Dunstan’s paradise.
There’s a largeish cast of secondary characters in the village to make things more entertaining, along with one who might have become heroine naterial had she had more of a hero to work on. And there’s a bachelor cousin nearby to create shivers of anticipation for our widow, thiugh he’s scarcely a romantic paragon either.
It’s a pleasant, mild little story, but it never quite rose to the level of delighting me. The author’s odd quirk of making most of the chapters discontinuous in both action and point of view was a curiously amateurish move for such an accomplished writer. I was reminded of the old Firesign Theater line, “A walk through the ocean of most souls will not get your feet wet.”
Elizabeth Fair writes charming stories about English village life, with an Austenesque eye for human quirks. Ordinarily she anchors her story in the consciousness of a perfectly reasonable person, allowing the reader to feel comfortably superior to the other characters. But in The Native Heath, everybody is fooling themselves, and I found that distanced me from the action and left me a little bored.
It’s the story of a widow, Mrs. Dunstan, who had to live overseas while her husband was alive; she is comfortably off after his death but sentimentally longs for a real home—by which she means a large house in the countryside. Fortuitously, an uncle dies and leaves his property to her. Fond of good deeds, she brings along an old family retainer and a less-well-off spinster cousin.
At first I thought the down-to-earth cousin might take over as protagonist, when she began to expose Mrs. Dunstan’s little foolishnesses and self-deceptions, but she never developed into more than an irritant for Mrs. Dunstan. An idle young nephew and a shady employee add to the serpents in Mrs. Dunstan’s paradise.
There’s a largeish cast of secondary characters in the village to make things more entertaining, along with one who might have become heroine naterial had she had more of a hero to work on. And there’s a bachelor cousin nearby to create shivers of anticipation for our widow, thiugh he’s scarcely a romantic paragon either.
It’s a pleasant, mild little story, but it never quite rose to the level of delighting me. The author’s odd quirk of making most of the chapters discontinuous in both action and point of view was a curiously amateurish move for such an accomplished writer. I was reminded of the old Firesign Theater line, “A walk through the ocean of most souls will not get your feet wet.”
September 24, 2017
The Best So Far
I am working my way through Fair’s books and have also read the only one of her aunt’s books I have been able to find. I really like these delightful tales of life in England in the 1950s, as they give a peep into a time that many think of as the end of a way of life, before the world roared into the 1960s of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.
We meet the widowed Julia Dunstan, and her first cousin, Dora Duckworth, who haven’t seen each other for many years. Julia has invited Dora to her comfortable, but impersonal, flat in London to ask Dora if she will live with her as a companion in her recently-inherited house in the country, as Julia doesn’t want to live alone. They sit talking at cross-purposes, and that, combined with fuddled memories of their childhood, provides some light humour and sets the tone of the book. The story then moves to Goatstock village, where we meet Miss Pope, the vicar’s sister, and Mrs Prentice, the mother of Marion, who is engaged to Hubert, a missionary currently somewhere in Africa. Continuing on her way home, Mrs Prentice meets up with Mrs Minnis, her next-door neighbour, and shortly thereafter, the pair are caught in an extremely embarrassing situation, a faux pas that could have humiliating social consequences.
Marion Prentice is a student nurse in a hospital somewhere, and she and Harriet, niece of the eccentric Lady Finch, are very good friends. Their conversations, as well as the thoughts of each, but especially Harriet’s, provide the reader with some very amusing insights into the characters of these two. This is the village where Belmont House is, the house Julia inherited from her uncle, and this is the village she and Dora knew well as children, and where Julia is hopeful of finding a permanent place for herself to live out her days. These are just a few of the residents of Goatstock, and the rest are waiting in the pages of the book to be discovered.
The homes of the characters are described with a few well-chosen words, so each is easily visualised by the reader.
This is the third book of Elizabeth Fair’s I have read, and I think this one is more “Jane Austen-like” than the first two. The author writes with a deft hand, a knowledge of social strata, and with an acute perception of human nature. This book is easy to read, well-written, grammatically correct, and provides the reader with a few hours of reading pleasure. This is another book by this author that I can recommend to those who like witty, amusing, gently-satirical, entertaining observations on a microcosm of an era that many look back on with nostalgia.
I am working my way through Fair’s books and have also read the only one of her aunt’s books I have been able to find. I really like these delightful tales of life in England in the 1950s, as they give a peep into a time that many think of as the end of a way of life, before the world roared into the 1960s of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.
We meet the widowed Julia Dunstan, and her first cousin, Dora Duckworth, who haven’t seen each other for many years. Julia has invited Dora to her comfortable, but impersonal, flat in London to ask Dora if she will live with her as a companion in her recently-inherited house in the country, as Julia doesn’t want to live alone. They sit talking at cross-purposes, and that, combined with fuddled memories of their childhood, provides some light humour and sets the tone of the book. The story then moves to Goatstock village, where we meet Miss Pope, the vicar’s sister, and Mrs Prentice, the mother of Marion, who is engaged to Hubert, a missionary currently somewhere in Africa. Continuing on her way home, Mrs Prentice meets up with Mrs Minnis, her next-door neighbour, and shortly thereafter, the pair are caught in an extremely embarrassing situation, a faux pas that could have humiliating social consequences.
Marion Prentice is a student nurse in a hospital somewhere, and she and Harriet, niece of the eccentric Lady Finch, are very good friends. Their conversations, as well as the thoughts of each, but especially Harriet’s, provide the reader with some very amusing insights into the characters of these two. This is the village where Belmont House is, the house Julia inherited from her uncle, and this is the village she and Dora knew well as children, and where Julia is hopeful of finding a permanent place for herself to live out her days. These are just a few of the residents of Goatstock, and the rest are waiting in the pages of the book to be discovered.
The homes of the characters are described with a few well-chosen words, so each is easily visualised by the reader.
This is the third book of Elizabeth Fair’s I have read, and I think this one is more “Jane Austen-like” than the first two. The author writes with a deft hand, a knowledge of social strata, and with an acute perception of human nature. This book is easy to read, well-written, grammatically correct, and provides the reader with a few hours of reading pleasure. This is another book by this author that I can recommend to those who like witty, amusing, gently-satirical, entertaining observations on a microcosm of an era that many look back on with nostalgia.
July 28, 2024
I enjoyed this one immensely. It was the perfect lazy weekend read when hiding from the humidity of July. I was looking for an escape into a quintessential small English village full of foibles, eccentricities, gossip, matchmaking machinations, and humor. This book brought all of that and more.
Julia Dunstan finds herself widowed and inheriting a house in the quaint town of Goatstock. She magnanimously invites her cousin, Dora, to stay with her. Both to soothe the flittering of guilt of inheriting the house and Dora did not; but also, to bring companionship into her life. Thus begins a cascade of events that involve purloined prize honeycombs entered into the Honey Exhibit under false pretenses, an idle nephew, renewing friendships, a garden party reminiscent of one thrown in a Mapp and Lucia novel, and anxieties over being combined with another town to create "New Town". Overall, a delightful escape from the summer heat that is guaranteed to generate smiles and few laughs.
Julia Dunstan finds herself widowed and inheriting a house in the quaint town of Goatstock. She magnanimously invites her cousin, Dora, to stay with her. Both to soothe the flittering of guilt of inheriting the house and Dora did not; but also, to bring companionship into her life. Thus begins a cascade of events that involve purloined prize honeycombs entered into the Honey Exhibit under false pretenses, an idle nephew, renewing friendships, a garden party reminiscent of one thrown in a Mapp and Lucia novel, and anxieties over being combined with another town to create "New Town". Overall, a delightful escape from the summer heat that is guaranteed to generate smiles and few laughs.
December 11, 2017
So many hilarious lines! But I didn't really love any of the characters, hence the three stars.
Here's a sampling of the deliciously funny writing:
"No one contradicted this statement, though no one agreed with it."
..........................
“First we’re going to be swallowed up, then we aren’t,” she said. “It makes one wonder what will happen next.” Life was like that, Mrs. Minnis declared; it sometimes seemed as if one was living on the edge of a volcano, didn’t it? Mrs. Prentice thought for a moment and then said no, it didn’t.
..........................
She was—as she often proclaimed—a woman who could be friends with everybody, and it did not worry her that her friendships were sometimes one-sided affairs.
..........................
“I am not acquainted with the ingredients of a cocktail,” Mr. Pope said, smiling at his own ignorance. “But I think one may take it that these contain a fair proportion of orange juice and are therefore, to some extent—ah—beneficial.”
...........................
A picnic without food would have been like an opium den without opium, only—for a man of his temperament—much worse.
Here's a sampling of the deliciously funny writing:
"No one contradicted this statement, though no one agreed with it."
..........................
“First we’re going to be swallowed up, then we aren’t,” she said. “It makes one wonder what will happen next.” Life was like that, Mrs. Minnis declared; it sometimes seemed as if one was living on the edge of a volcano, didn’t it? Mrs. Prentice thought for a moment and then said no, it didn’t.
..........................
She was—as she often proclaimed—a woman who could be friends with everybody, and it did not worry her that her friendships were sometimes one-sided affairs.
..........................
“I am not acquainted with the ingredients of a cocktail,” Mr. Pope said, smiling at his own ignorance. “But I think one may take it that these contain a fair proportion of orange juice and are therefore, to some extent—ah—beneficial.”
...........................
A picnic without food would have been like an opium den without opium, only—for a man of his temperament—much worse.
February 11, 2024
My second Elizabeth Fair and I enjoyed reading about the residents of Goatstock. Like the first Bramton Wick, it's another gentle and witty novel full of village gossip and budding romance and I loved the descriptions of the houses and gardens, clothes and food, picnics and parties.
A lovely relaxing weekend read.
A lovely relaxing weekend read.
July 7, 2017
My review for all of the Elizabeth Fair books I've read so far (and I just started a new one and then have only one left to go) remains the same. Charming, "gentle read" book told with wit re the daily domestic lives--including gossipy neighbors, threatened-to-be-thwarted budding romances, vicars and tea parties--which make me want to sit and sip my own cup of tea while enjoying every minute as I'm being transported to an earlier place and time.
March 24, 2018
I think this may be my favourite Elizabeth Fair book so far. I love the characterisation and the gentle humour. Characters are all wrapped up in their own foibles and thoughts, interpreting the words and deeds of others as if everything is about themselves. I actually think I have to move to a 1960s village and become a widow - and inherit some wealth from a distant uncle. The pace of life may suit me!
May 10, 2018
Pleasantly reminiscent of Angela Thirkell's writing, Elizabeth Fair writes about the quiet life in a small English village.
Julia Dunstan has fond memories of her childhood visits to her uncle's home in Goatstock. Left a comfortably-well-off widow, she is surprised to find she has inherited Belmont house and invites her cousin Dora to live-in as companion (and help). Julia is even more surprised when she begins to meet her neighbors and discovers that the quiet English life may not be all that it's cracked up to be.
Julia begins to foster hopes when Francis makes a visit and has plans for his improvement and, (to her), well-being.
"A dinner party? What fun! Of course we'd love to."
He had not really intended to give a dinner party, but now he was committed to it... He flipped over the pages of the engagement book; Julia, standing beside him, could not help seeing that they were all blank for weeks and weeks ahead, with apparently not even a visit to the dentist or a tailor to break the dreadful monotony of his life.
'I must change all that, she thought... She found her own little book, and held it so that he could see what an engagement book ought to look like. It was true that a lot of the squiggles were books for her library list or the telephone numbers of shops, but the general effect was crowded and impressive.'
There are small village intrigues, jaunts to the beach for a picnic that turns out disastrously, and difficulties with servants. Julia's quiet life is interrupted with foreboding as she notices Francis enjoying his talks with Dora and the village vicar is accused of theft. Lighthearted and spattered with dry wit, this was an enjoyable read.
"The native heath, at that moment, might have been a heath out of Macbeth. Belmont House was simply a roof over other people's heads, supported by her money and benevolence."
Julia Dunstan has fond memories of her childhood visits to her uncle's home in Goatstock. Left a comfortably-well-off widow, she is surprised to find she has inherited Belmont house and invites her cousin Dora to live-in as companion (and help). Julia is even more surprised when she begins to meet her neighbors and discovers that the quiet English life may not be all that it's cracked up to be.
Julia begins to foster hopes when Francis makes a visit and has plans for his improvement and, (to her), well-being.
"A dinner party? What fun! Of course we'd love to."
He had not really intended to give a dinner party, but now he was committed to it... He flipped over the pages of the engagement book; Julia, standing beside him, could not help seeing that they were all blank for weeks and weeks ahead, with apparently not even a visit to the dentist or a tailor to break the dreadful monotony of his life.
'I must change all that, she thought... She found her own little book, and held it so that he could see what an engagement book ought to look like. It was true that a lot of the squiggles were books for her library list or the telephone numbers of shops, but the general effect was crowded and impressive.'
There are small village intrigues, jaunts to the beach for a picnic that turns out disastrously, and difficulties with servants. Julia's quiet life is interrupted with foreboding as she notices Francis enjoying his talks with Dora and the village vicar is accused of theft. Lighthearted and spattered with dry wit, this was an enjoyable read.
"The native heath, at that moment, might have been a heath out of Macbeth. Belmont House was simply a roof over other people's heads, supported by her money and benevolence."
January 18, 2018
I liked this book a lot, though not as much as her other novels. There seemed to be a lot of characters to keep up with, and I didn’t have time to read it straight through.
May 23, 2022
Мені дуже подобається світ English countryside, який авторка старанно створила у своїх романах. Тут затишні будиночки, цвітучі сади, пікніки, порцеляна Spode, коргі і local community.
На жаль, цей роман попри те, що він має всі вище згаданаі елементи і дотепний стиль авторки, мені сподобався значно менше за інші її роботи. Занадто багато персонажів, долею більшості з яких я так і не пройнялася.
На жаль, цей роман попри те, що він має всі вище згаданаі елементи і дотепний стиль авторки, мені сподобався значно менше за інші її роботи. Занадто багато персонажів, долею більшості з яких я так і не пройнялася.
April 22, 2022
I always like a book in which the protagonist moves to a new home and we are introduced to a neighborhood and community.
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March 5, 2018
Glimpses of the author’s flair here in her usual milieu of the English village (gossips, scheming widows, spinsters and batty, impoverished minor aristocracy) but I found the central character a rather smug do-gooder - yet the way her selfish household trespassed on her kindness and good nature was more dreary than funny. The engagement finale was a slightly different couple than initially expected, though not really a great twist. Altogether less enjoyable than earlier Fair novels.
September 16, 2021
Julia is a quite well off widow who has lived abroad for most of her married life, and inherits a house in a north country village from her uncle, with whom she used to stay as a child. She impulsively invites her cousin Dora, who is not well off, to live with her, and they get to know various people in the village, and become involved with their problems. This is quite an amusing story, though there are rather a lot of characters, some of whom don’t really seem to have anything to do or even anything to say. And I would have liked to know a bit more about what happened to some of the others.
January 5, 2023
This was a cheerful read with likeable characters and did make me chuckle. I enjoy these comforting old fashioned stories where ladies are quite often busy bodies and the men are easily led, this one has the added bonus of lots of picnics.
August 14, 2023
Another witty peek at post-WW2 England. Nothing much happens, really, but the writing is solid with a slightly edgier humor than Stevenson or Clavering usually employed.
February 24, 2022
Slow moving. Uneventful, dull at times. Surprise ending. Overall ok.
June 20, 2018
I'd give this a 3.5--I wavered between 3 and 4 stars. This is my least favorite of the three I've read so far, mostly because I found so many of the characters so unlikable. I'm not opposed to unlikable characters--some of the best books revolve around them--but in some cases I wasn't sure who we were supposed to like and who we weren't. The previous two books in the series contain a motley mix of flawed and even unlikable characters, but it felt to me more that we were seeing a panorama of the fixtures of the town and that each person, however flawed, had his or her niche and was therefore lovable regardless of likability. I couldn't feel that here. Julia is the central figure, but I found her so exasperating with her overthinking and her need to be the center of attention, it was hard for me to sympathize with her story. I didn't relate emotionally to several other of the key characters, though I did adore Harriet Finch with her quirky, practical way of thinking. One thing I did appreciate was the masterful intertwining of plot lines, something that's now become familiar to me in Elizabeth Fair novels. I love how the plot lines come together in the end and how the characters' fates are interconnected--as they would be, living in a small village. Also, I enjoy the author's subtle commentary on the differences between the sexes, which seemed more pronounced in this one than in the previous two. All in all, I liked this novel but did not have the same regret I did when finishing the other two. Looking forward to moving on to Seaview House.
January 14, 2022
Elizabeth Fair is like Barbara Pym. Laid-back English village life. Lovely
March 17, 2019
I think this might be my favorite of the Elizabeth Fair novels I have read so far. While it may be missing a bit of the charm or comfort of the others, it more than makes up for it in the cast of characters. There are quite a lot of them here, and many of them are true comic characters, making this book a deal more humorous than some of her others. I was not such a fan of the ending, because I had hoped the focus would end up on the younger set of characters. All in all, this was an entertaining and light read.
August 17, 2018
Truly the thing that delighted me most about this book was all the beekeeping and honey extraction tales dispersed throughout the novel, especially those of the eccentric Lady Finch. I felt the ending was weak and disappointing, but an overall decent summer read.
October 1, 2024
#FurrowedMiddleBrowClub on Litsy - July 2024
August 2, 2024
Julia Dunstan is a middle aged, well-off widow who unexpectedly inherits her uncle’s home in a country village. She has fond memories of many summers spent at Belmont House in Goatshead. Thinking she is doing her a favor, she invites her cousin Dora Duckworth, to live with her as a sort of companion. Also, nearby in Heswald is Julia and Dora’s other cousin, Francis, who lives in the lodge of his family estate and rents out the land and the hall to other, richer, folk, as a means of income. This is the core cast, but added to this are the wonderfully eccentric inhabitants of Goatshead, and a stray nephew and yet another cousin. Julia is one of those people who likes to meddle in other people’s lives, thinking she is being kind and munificent, though not everyone is so keen to be the recipient or takes in in kind, so many gently humorous events happen as the village of Goatshead learns to accept Julia and Dora and vice-versa.
My first Elizabeth Fair book but certainly not my last. This could end up as possibly one of my favorite DSP Furrowed Middlebrow reads yet. My only complaint is that the ending is a little bit abrupt. There were a couple more threads that could have been, if not tied up, at least hinted at more strongly.
My first Elizabeth Fair book but certainly not my last. This could end up as possibly one of my favorite DSP Furrowed Middlebrow reads yet. My only complaint is that the ending is a little bit abrupt. There were a couple more threads that could have been, if not tied up, at least hinted at more strongly.
August 7, 2024
I enjoyed the story, the setting being a small village in England with some typical, some eccentric inhabitants. The writer switched from one viewpoint to another, though, sometimes with no warning.
I couldn't get very enthused about the main character. She's often putting on her martyr pin, all the while praising herself for her tact, tolerance, and patience in dealing with other people's problems. I was waiting for the blow up, when her schemes would really backfire and she'd wake up to reality. The writer was letting readers in on the truth, dropping hints here and there that Mrs D's efforts to "guide" other people weren't so helpful or appreciated.
And when the story really got interesting and I wanted to see how it would turn out for all the characters, it ended. No loose ends, but rather abruptly, I felt.
I couldn't get very enthused about the main character. She's often putting on her martyr pin, all the while praising herself for her tact, tolerance, and patience in dealing with other people's problems. I was waiting for the blow up, when her schemes would really backfire and she'd wake up to reality. The writer was letting readers in on the truth, dropping hints here and there that Mrs D's efforts to "guide" other people weren't so helpful or appreciated.
And when the story really got interesting and I wanted to see how it would turn out for all the characters, it ended. No loose ends, but rather abruptly, I felt.
September 25, 2021
This was a perfectly enjoyable and funny book about a quirky English village. There were some truly funny moments, such as the misunderstanding at the Aged Animals’ Pension Fund gala that had me laughing out loud, and the feud/reconciliation of Lady Finch and Miss Pope. For me this book was not the strongest entry in my growing collection of books about quirky English villages. The characters were not very well developed, and everything seemed to move along at surface level. However, it was strong enough to keep me going with Elizabeth Fair, especially as it’s one of her earlier works, and authors usually get better as they get older.
May 11, 2017
Reissued by a press called "Furrowed Middlebrow", this charming story takes place mid -century in a small British town. Widowed Julia has inherited a lovely home, to which she brings along a companion, Dora. They become quite involved in the town- socializing, gossiping, and arranging marriages. An extremely pleasant and sometimes quite funny look at small town life.
July 4, 2018
The third of Fair's charming, sometimes snarky, novels sees widowed Julia returning to the village she visited regularly as a child, and becoming involved in the lives of some of her neighbors. Witty and thoroughly enjoyable, the Native Heath is well-written with believable characters.
July 30, 2018
Another delightful mid-century, middlebrow novel with soothingly familiar village characters and themes.
April 17, 2019
A sweet lite read that is perfect on holiday , or any day . I will be reading more of her books. Thank you Furrowed Middlebrow for republishing her work!
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