Voices

by J.E. Buckrose

Judging from the three novels previously published of J. E. Buckrose, one has grown accustomed to expect an uncommon story from this author told in vigorous language: fiction which was described by a recent reviewer as not unworthy of Jane Austen. The present novel, "Voices," is a powerful story with everything uncommon about it-the plot, the heroine, and the writer's rare distinction of style.
* * * *
J. E. Buckrose has produced a very able study of characters and motives.
Esther Moor is a woman of ordinary abilities, but with a determined will, and she is possessed with the ambition to distinguish herself. This ambition is made the keener by the fact that she has a very pretty sister who commands without effort, and even it seems, without a wish, the admiration of her little world. (The relation between these two is drawn with remarkable skill.) The opportunity of distinction comes with an accidental suggestion. The girl has had from childhood something "uncanny" about her, something that suggests the popular conception of the witch. So the "voices" come in. They are half imagination, half pretense. Here we have the writer's work at its best. The career of Esther Moor as an interpreter of a new revelation and a. faith-healer, and the way in which the half-consciousness of deception grows fainter and fainter, but still revives again and again, are admirably described. And the love complication is contrived with skill and good taste.
--The Spectator, Volume 101

354 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1908