Hana’s Comments (group member since Apr 17, 2015)

Hana’s comments from the The Enchanted April group.

Haha! I thought of that one, too. Let's hope it was buried in a pile of bills and junk mail ;)

Well said! I think the bathroom blow-up did quite a bit of good, but even more the fact that Lottie is coming into her own. Mellersh is probably quite good at his work and if he can team his skills with Lottie's intuition I think they would make a formidable pair. And just think of all the high-end clients Mrs. Fisher and Lady Caroline will refer to Mellersh. My guess is they'll be well able to afford more than one holiday in Italy :)

Lottie's insights are quite something, aren't they? Perhaps she's always had that kind of ability--shy people are often very good at reading others since they tend to watch and listen more than they talk.

I'm perfectly prepared to believe that she'll be able to hold onto her self confidence, especially now that she's found a friend in Mrs. Fisher. And perhaps Mrs. Fisher really will become a client of Mellersh's and that will make him extra happy :D

Interesting point in your spoiler about Briggs and Lady Caroline, Jaima. Now I'm going to have to watch the movie! I'm watching the BBC's Wives and Daughters now and loving it.

I know, I had the same reaction, Tadiana. Kim makes some good points about the men's reaction to their changed womenfolk in her review and she's not wrong, but the romantic in me just loved it ;)

I missed the new posts somehow, but great comments. I loved that scene, too, Ashley and Mrs. Fisher blocking the door to the terrace really got to me!

Tadiana's post about the insta-love for Caroline reminded me that I have know two women who had that effect. I could never figure out quite how they did it, because it wasn't that they were so particularly beautiful, they just had this amazing magnetism.

Great photo, Jaima! Ashley, I sniffled a little over that passage about Mrs. Fisher. Poor thing, she had spent so much of her life thinking and talking about dead poets that she's forgotten how to live.

I'm only just getting started here, but I really love Mrs. Wilkins and for some subconscious reason I'm rebelling at her newly revealed nickname of Lotty. She seems much more of a "Charlotte" to me--more serious, more intuitive--and her nickname doesn't say that to me.

Okay, maybe I'm "seeing things" ;D

I have exactly the same conflicted sensibility about Mr. and Mrs. A. I'm wondering how on earth they ever got together!

Truthfully, Mr. A's books sound like the sort of thing I gobble up without shame for lunch, dinner and afters :D

I love how happy Mrs. Wilkins is: "Such beauty; and she there to see it. Such beauty and she alive to feel it. Her face was bathed in light. Lovely scents came up to the window and caressed her. A tiny breeze gently lifted her hair."

Diane Lynn, I was also taken aback at Mrs. A's age. Von Arnim has a way of dropping these little surprises into the story. When we first meet Mrs. A she is given to citing the vicar, whom I immediately assumed was her husband. Then in the second chapter I realized that was wrong and discovered, quiet shockingly, that her husband, and Mrs A's trial, is quite something else.

Even though I laughed, I don't at all like the sound of those "two rooms near the British Museum, which were the scenes of his exhumations, and there he went every morning, and he came back long after his wife was asleep." Hmmm....

lol Tadiana! I'm just getting started, but I'm having those same sensations of wanting to race ahead to see what happens.

Having read Elizabeth and Her German Garden last year, I was expecting, or at least hoping for some of the same acerbic wit and deft characterization and I'm finding it again. But it's even more delightful this time because I'm sensing a compassion for her characters--what Kim describes so well as "a lovely yearning quality."

Thanks for the note on the Kindle freebie. It would drive me a little crazy too. I'm going to start with my print edition tonight and use my kindle edition as backup :)

So how was that trip to Italy?

On the fifth day of the third week Rose wrote to Frederick.

The sweet smells that were everywhere in San Salvatore were alone enough to produce concord.

It was cloudy in Italy, which surprised them....

One rainy February afternoon....