The sequel to I'll Bring You Buttercups. Daisy is born in 1920, the daughter of gamekeeper Tom and Alice, once a servant whose life has been rocked by the aristocratic Suttons. Now they return to Yorkshire, where the secret sins of one generation will taint the next.
I'm enjoying re-reading this series. World War I is over and everyone is settling into everyday life. For some the losses of the war years are unbearable, for others the joy of having their loved ones home again is all they hoped for. In this one we are meeting the next generation of the Rowangarth and Pendeny families while also seeing what the older generation are getting up to. It can be overly sentimental at times but like with the first book, there is a good story behind all that and it's well worth a read.
WITH PAIN COMES JOY The legacy of the Great War has haunted and changed the lives of both Upstairs and Downstairs society. For spirited and resourceful Alice Hawthorne, ex-sewing-maid, ex-Lady Sutton and now happily married to gamekeeper Tom Dwerryhouse, fortune shines on that union and brings forth an adorable daughter, Daisy. But will the complex life of her mother affect Daisy's future? WHEN OLD WAYS GIVE WAY TO NEW Brilliantined bounder Elliot Sutton has been ordered to mend his wayward ways by his dominant mother, Clementina. Will marriage to Anna Petrovska, the beautiful Russian aristocrat, produce a much needed Pendenys heir? And will dignified and genteel Julia Sutton pick up the pieces of her shattered life? THE FOUNDATION FOR THE FUTURE Now there's a new generation of Suttons who must look life in the eye. Will the sins of one generation be visited upon by the next? Post-war Britain, did not seem like a country that had just experienced a great military triumph. Various political, economic and social problems ensured that the return to peacetime conditions was not a soft landing. The experiences of the war in the west are commonly assumed to have led to a sort of collective national trauma afterward for all of the participating countries.It was the end of innocence and optimism.Those who fought became what is known as "the Lost Generation" because they never fully recovered from their suffering. For the next few years, much of Europe mourned privately and publicly; memorials were erected in thousands of villages and towns.This social trauma made itself manifest in many different ways. Some people were revolted by nationalism, so they began to work toward a more internationalist world. Pacifism became increasingly popular. Many thought capitalism and imperialism were over,so communism and socialism gained more popularity.Others felt that only military strength could be relied upon for protection in a chaotic and inhumane world that did not respect hypothetical notions of civilization. Certainly a sense of disillusionment and cynicism became pronounced.Nihilism grew in popularity.
Daisychain Summer, like almost all other Elgin's novels, is a good long summer read with a predictable plot. I'm done with Elgin. I've read most of her best sellers, but they're all the same. They always seem to be about star-crossed mismatched lovers in the great wars who join the army, and spend all their freetime worrying about each other and writing to their families. Once you read two books by Elgin, you understand the way she thinks,her line of thought, the inspriration of her immagination and what kind of person she MUST be. The stories don't seem researched and that's probably because she lived in that period. That's an advantage though. You get to see some of what life was like through the eyes of a real witness, but you're stuck in the forties with no excitement, no blood rush, no adrenaline. But if you're into long sappy romances, this one's yours!
Book 2 of 5, following The Sutton family after World War 1 - births, deaths & marriages galore. At the end, Britain is just about to head into World War 2.