From This Day Forward

by Connie Monk, Monk Connie

When Jane Bradley elopes with one of her father's employees, she soon realizes that she had a romantisized view of married life. When Ian is disappointed with her in more ways than one, Jane finds comfort with the local doctor, who is drawn to her, but has to conquer his own troubles first.

Genres: Historical

Paperback

Published February 1, 2002

Reviews

[Glenys · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jane (Brewery owners daughter) falls in love with the out of town cooper who is working at the brewery while settling his mothers affairs. They elope following Janes Father forbidding her to see him thinking he is just a chancer... Quite a step down for Jane going from adored daughter living in ancestral home with servants and an allowance to living in a rented cottage with items left by the previous tenants. Will her dad come around and accept her marriage? How will she cope in these surroundings, have to read the book to find out.

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t really find many of the characters sympathetic or really believable in this book. I could sympathise with the main character (Jane) to some extent; her husband turns out to be a distinctly unpleasant person at times. But she makes little effort to make things better despite huge amounts of introspection. Other characters are caricatured: too good to be true, or typecast by their roles.

Still, it paints a good picture of life at the turn of the last century in the working classes in the UK; the settings felt authentic, as did the language, although parts of it felt sordid, and there was too much emphasis on lust. From a social history point of view, it’s quite interesting. Other than the odd, stream-of-consciousness introspection, it’s mostly well written too, although towards the end it feels more stilted. The ending is predictable, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the final scenes happen rather too rapidly.

For people who enjoy novels written in this era (1905-1907) it could make good holiday reading: easy to put down, easy to pick up again. Despite disliking most of the cast, they are memorable enough that I never forgot who was whom.