read full post >

Shortly after I started reading this book, I thought I recognized the standard hero and heroine of a Grace Livingston Hill novel-- the beautiful, angelic, unspoiled but well-educated and refined Minister's daughter, Lynn; the tough but sweet, good-looking neighbor boy, Mark Carter, who grew up with her but is now in some kind of trouble and estranged for her (of course they must be meant for each other); the spoiled rich boy, Laurence Shafton, who may be a slight distraction for the good girl-- she won't care for his money or fine things, but he will be drawn to this beautiful, religious girl and maybe it will change him for the better. That story does play out rather like I expected (although the characters have more depth than the caricatures I've suggested), but I was pleasantly surprised by this story: as much as it is about Lynn and Mark and Laurence, it is really Billy's story-- the young, tough neighborhood kid who looks up to Carter (or "Cart", as Billy calls him) and loves Miss Lynn's Sunday School lessons. In trying to earn some extra cash, Billy gets tangled up in some bad business and messes things up for others around him-- and as he tries to make things right, he seems to learn and finally understand true grace.

Read more...

read full post >

A young girl in a lonely part of Montana buries her younger brother, who had been the last living member of her family, says the prayer her mother said over the other family graves, and then sets out on horseback by herself fleeing from the rough young men her brother had been hanging out with-- in particular their leader, the man she suspects killed her brother, and who wants to claim her for himself. On her second day of travel, she sees another man on horseback pursuing her, and she flees him as well because her mother had told her all men are the same, dangerous drunks. While she sleeps, the man catches up to her-- but he is in fact a city boy who had come out West with some friends to get away from his troubles (the society girl he was in love with wouldn't have him), and he had gotten separated from his party and lost in the wilderness. She has some food and the survival skills to get them through to civilization, and when he hears her story of the man she is running from, he naturally wants to help and protect her. They travel together for a while, once even drawn to a Christian Endeavor meeting by the music, which keeps them hidden from the ruffians who go by while they are inside, and the girl is encouraged by words from scripture of the religion she had scarcely known anything of. They make it safely to a city big enough to have a train station and the young man, George, learns via telegram that his mother is seriously ill, so he sells his horse and returns-- he encourages his young friend, who he has come to admire, to come with him, but she refuses because she believes he is promised to another, and a kind woman at a farm where they stayed overnight had told her it wasn't proper to travel alone with a man. They go their separate ways, and he only knows her first name-- Elizabeth.

Read more...

read full post >

The title of this book is a bit misleading. I've owned it for years, but apparently never read it, because somehow I thought it was a collection of fictional short stories about the Salvation Army during the war, and it's really nothing like that. Instead, it is a factual, anecdotal account of the work of the Salvation Army with the soldiers in France during World War I, pieced together from journals and letters from the people who were over there. Most of the anecdotes are very brief, a page or two at most, so there's not a lot of continuity; stories are organized by region and apparently by some kind of chronology, although this is not obvious. At times it feels like propaganda, as anyone who speaks ill of the Salvation Army soon comes to love and respect them, and the "lassies" are all pure of heart and motive-- and apparently most of their work involved making doughnuts and pies to give the lonely soldiers a taste of home. Still, it was interesting to get a very different perspective on the war and the living conditions near the front-- as Hill points out repeatedly, the Salvation Army workers went as near to the front as they were able, and endured the hardships along with the "doughboys" rather than associating with the officers.

There's a section at the beginning about "Commander" Evangeline Booth raising money and support to send her people to Europe (when someone asks where the Salvation Army is, she somehow correctly intuits it is a spy trying to find out where the American troops are), a bit at the end about the work of the Salvation Army for soldiers returning home, and then a long section at the end full of letters from presidents and governors endorsing the Salvation Army, and then from military people of every rank thanking them for their work. These are interesting, but they also make the book feel even less consistent.

I felt like this would have been a much stronger and more compelling story if Hill had taken all the anecdotes and stories and threaded them into a fictionalized account, creating a few characters that the reader could follow throughout, rather than jumping back and forth to unnamed people. And the moments when she talks about the Salvation Army "lassies" and heroes the way she describes the heroines in her fiction-- in spite of their blond curls and pretty faces, if you look into their eyes you just know how sweet and dedicated they are, etc. These kind of descriptions are silly enough in her fiction, but here in what is otherwise almost too dryly factual, it stands out even more.

Couldn't figure out how to classify this one-- it's not fiction, but I'm not sure it really counts as history either.

Title:	The War Romance of the Salvation Army
Author:	Grace Livingston Hill
Date published:	1919
Genre:	History ?
Number of pages:	327

Read more...

read full post >

Christobel Kershaw is a bit different from most Grace Livingston Hill characters. She comes home from boarding school for her step-mother's funeral, and she is a rather angry young woman, and not sure what she believes in or where she thinks her step-mother has gone now that she's dead. Christobel and her brother Randall are practically strangers from her father because of this woman he married who immediately shipped them away to school and started enjoying her new husband's wealth. Everyone thinks Mr. Kershaw is quite wealthy, but they don't know that his wife was profligate in her spending and his business is starting to founder (I believe this is set near the beginning of the Great Depression). This doesn't prevent his wife's stylish servants from trying to steal all the silver and expensive dresses (Christobel figures this out and helps catch them), and eventually Randall is kidnapped and a ransom is demanded.

In some ways, Christobel is more interesting than many of Hill's other heroines, because of her uncertainty and her questions. However, it seems that Hill only does this in order to have another character share his faith in Christ with her, and the way this is written dragged me out of the story pretty abruptly. There's something similar in the second part of the book, too. Roughly half-way through, the story shifts to the kidnapped Randall who is being kept in a remote cabin in the woods. Randall notices a little book hidden in the chinks of his room, and because it has an endorsement by a famous athlete (not to mention he has nothing else to do), he begins reading it first to himself and then to his captors. The little book is the Gospel of John, which none of them have ever heard before, and they are convicted by it. The Gospel effectively becomes Randall's ransom, because when their hiding place is discovered and they flee, the kidnapper who is ordered to kill Randall lets him go instead, and Randall eventually escapes back to his family.

This is not really much of a romance, and with the plot ingredients it should be a more exciting adventure than it actually turns out to be. Hill seems to be orchestrating the plot and her characters' lack of belief purposely so that she can overtly share her faith through the book, which to my mind makes both the story and the gospel she's attempting to share less engaging. The Gospel being someone's "ransom" in a life-or-death situation is a compelling idea, but it seems to be handled rather clumsily here.

Title:	The Ransom
Author:	Grace Livingston Hill
Date published:	1933
Genre:	Romance/Adventure
Number of pages:	238
Notes:	repeat reading

Read more...

read full post >

One of my favorite Grace Livingston Hill books, yet another variation on the story of a man and a woman who get married first and fall in love later. The Schuylers are all caught up in the preparations for the wedding of Marcia's older sister Kate, but Kate-- beautiful, whimsical, charming, and selfish-- decides to elope with another man the night before the wedding. To save face for the family and the groom, Marcia agrees to marry David in her sister's place. In an age when transportation was expensive and slow, none of David's family or neighbors have actually met or seen or met his fiancée, so if he brings home a bride he doesn't have to tell everyone how he was jilted and disgraced. Marcia is just beginning to grow into a young woman and has never been in love before, but has always admired and respected David. Without realizing it, she gradually grows into love with him, all the while he is heartbroken about his sweet Kate (not understanding just how selfish she is) and treating Marcia like a child (even though she is more thoughtful and better educated than Kate, and actually interested in his work). Eventually, of course, circumstances bring them to both recognize and admit their love to each other, and they discover they are better suited to each other than David and Kate would have been.

This book has quite a bit of adventure, a couple of real out-and-out villains, and an unusual amount of historical detail. David is a journalist, and for a while he goes to New York to help lobby for a steam engine train, and then later he and Marcia attend the beginning of the first steam engine trip in NY; also referenced are the "home sweet home" song which was popular in New York at the time, and Andrew Jackson in the senate.

I don't recall a lot of Hill's books having outright villains who are clearly evil, but here we have two. Harry Temple is in David and Marcia's small town for business (although he seems to do very little work), and decides that this pretty new bride would be a delightful conquest. Marcia is so naive she doesn't realize what he's up to at first, but the moment he makes a move she runs out of the house and away across the fields into the woods (giving a friendly young neighbor a chance to help and David the opportunity to rescue Marcia, and begin to see her as a desirable woman). Similarly, when David is in town he runs into an unhappy, poor Kate (disappointed in her marriage and in her father's lack of forgiveness), and while David is oblivious, the reader is shown Kate's deliberate choices that lead her down the path of evil as she attempts to manipulate and seduce David. Eventually, Kate and Harry Temple meet and join forces, and their villainy culminates in an attempt to kidnap Marcia and make it seem that she abandoned David. Their plot is foiled by the feisty and hilarious neighbor Miranda who goes out of her way to look out for the naive Marcia.

A delightful story with wonderful characters. I've read it many times and will no doubt read and enjoy it again.

Title:	Marcia Schuyler
Author:	Grace Livingston Hill
Date published:	1908
Genre:	Romance
Number of pages:	375
Notes:	repeat reading

Read more...

read full post >

Not your usual Grace Livingston Hill book, this is a love story of a sort, but it's not a romantic one. The title character takes in her nephew, Dick, after his mother dies. Dick was the son of Victoria's beloved brother who married a poor woman and didn't have much contact with his family afterwards. (A little funny to read this after reading Crimson Roses, which ends with a marriage a bit like that.) Victoria Gracen is a beautiful, wealthy older woman, respected by her neighbors and loved by her servants. But after she takes Dick in, she finds herself spending more and more time with Dick and the other young men of the town-- boys that her fellow church-goers think are disreputable and "bad," and they come to believe Victoria is "obsessed" with boys. Of course, she is loving and nurturing them, educating them about culture and faith; and the more she comes to know them, the harder she finds it to believe that these boys are as bad as everyone thinks. I'm sure the title characters name was quite intentionally chosen by the author, and I don't know how I missed it when I read this book the first time-- this is a wonderful picture of victorious grace, taking a rough outcast into a beautiful home, making him feel loved and that he belongs, and transforming him.

This is an enjoyable book, and it's fun to watch the characters change. Victoria grows to love "her boy" Dick (that's how she thinks of him) and his friends, and opens up her house more and more to the boys and girls. The boys don't know what to do with themselves on Sundays, so she invites them over and finds a good entertaining (but moral and educational) story to read to them. She serves them food on her china dishes and lets them lounge on her good furniture. She plays piano and sings with them-- they like the ragtime, but she gets them to sing hymns, too, and gets them going to church (as part of the deal for the Sunday entertainment). One young man is poor and his family disgraced because his father is in prison for embezzling, but he is thoughtful and kind, and has a beautiful singing voice. As she associates with the boys, Victoria gets younger and more childlike in some good ways, too-- she goes out boating with the boys, and sledding on the hill behind her house (to the shock and chagrin of an old friend and neighbor).

It is moving when others finally see the change in these boys. The old neighbor, who's a bit of a gossip and meddler, gets injured and Victoria asks the boys to look after her. Even though Lydia Bypath abuses them and insults them (assuming they are hired hands Victoria has paid for), they keep on doing the work because they are doing it out of their love for Victoria. Eventually Lydia overhears them and discovers their dislike for her, and yet their generosity inspired by love for Victoria. There's a similar arc for the pastor who had about given up on his "wild" oldest son, but sees him transformed by his association with Victoria and the other boys.

A nice change from the regular, romantic Hill novels, and not overly preachy but entertaining and a bit inspiring to think of how love and grace can transform people's lives.

Title:	The Obsession of Victoria Gracen
Author:	Grace Livingston Hill
Date published:	1927
Genre:	Fiction
Number of pages:	261
Notes:	second reading

Read more...

read full post >

Sweet Marion Warren has unselfishly put her life on hold to care for her ailing parents-- first her mother and now her father. When her father dies, she is sad and lonely, but looks forward to pursuing her dreams of getting an education and perhaps becoming a teacher. They are not a wealthy family, but her father had intended to provide for her (knowing her ambitions and intelligence), but his will gets "lost" (with the help of a selfish sister-in-law). Marion lives for a while with her brother and his family, and even though she loves them and their children, they treat her almost like an indentured servant. They decide to sell Marion's beloved childhood home to attain their own dream of living in the country, but Marion knows that any chance she has of education and culture is to stay in the city. So she uses her contacts at church to get a job as a sales girl at a store, rents a cheap apartment, and stays in the city on her own. Her one self-indulgence on her meager income is to get season tickets to the symphony, and when she goes she discovers a single, long-stemmed dark crimson rose on her seat. At first she can't believe it's really for her, but then she finds a new rose every time, and like the music, she treasures the roses as one of the small bits of beauty in her bleak life. Marion doesn't learn for quite a while what the reader has inklings of much earlier-- that her innocence and real interest in culture and music has intrigued a young man who enjoys watching her at the symphony, and who slowly begins to get to know her through other avenues and mutual friends.

This is a sweet, romantic story-- but from a modern perspective, it's hard not to think of Marion's admirer as a stalker. He watches her at the theater, he sends flowers to her address and cleverly gets the delivery boy to find out her name; one night when it's pouring down rain after the symphony, he rides the same trolley home and carries an umbrella over her from her stop to her door (unseen in the dark). It's all very gallant and sweet, but seems so foreign in this day and age where a story like this would probably be much darker and scarier.

While I was reading the book, I debated with myself whether Marion wasn't too good, almost angelic. She loves caring for her dying father even though it means she has no social life and has to postpone her education. She puts up with her brother's selfishness (selling the house that was half hers, and should have been all hers if the will hadn't been lost), and even forgives her sister-in-law when she figures out what happened with the will. When Marion is working at the department store she gets to know the girls, but she's clearly different than them-- she doesn't bob her hair or wear bright lipstick or go out with the boys. The men at the store treat Marion with respect because they think she's too good for them, and the narrator pretty much says that they are right. Marion seems to always do the right thing, which does seem unrealistic, but on reflection I remembered that there are moments when she struggles-- to forgive the sister-in-law, or when dealing with the villain of the story, a spoiled, wealthy, society girl who has set her sights on the wealthy young man who begins showing an interest in Marion. I liked the fact that she does have to deal with natural, human emotions, and it makes her a little bit more accessible as a heroine.

Of course, this is really kind of a fairy tale story anyway, so I probably shouldn't expect it to be all that realistic.

There's also an interesting undercurrent about class and society. Marion's father is working-class and poor. The president of the Sunday School at their church is perfectly glad to give her a referral for a job as a shop-clerk, but he thinks that the wealthy Jefferson Lyman should be interested in his niece (a wealthy girl of his own station) and not a plain, poor girl like Marion. Likewise, some of these society girls know Marion from school (and the narrator suggests Marion's intelligence here by letting us know that she helped them with their homework), but now they hardly deign to speak to her because her clothes are out of date. However, Jeff sees that Marion is his "match" in spite of these differences, because of their shared interest in music and culture and their shared faith.

I recently got back a bunch of books that were in storage elsewhere, and decided on a whim to re-read my Grace Livingston Hill books. Hill generally wrote romance novels with a Christian flavor (the editions I have are labeled as "novels of enduring romance"), written in the 1920s and '30s, so they have a bit of a historical feel. This is a sweet and enjoyable one, although perhaps not the best, which is why I chose to read it first.

Title:	Crimson Roses
Author:	Grace Livingston Hill
Date published:	1928
Genre:	Romance
Number of pages:	238
Notes:	repeat reading

Read more...