Description

(from endpaper -- inside jacket is too spoilery) Mrs. Mason's Daughters, Over the Boatside, The Senator's Lady, Brief Seductions of Eva -- these are the brilliant, witty, and mordant novels which have made Miss Eiker one of our outstanding women novelists. In "Heirs of Mrs. Willingdon" she tells the effect of a woman's death on the lives of her family. Mrs. Willingdon's death revived a family scandal. She had been a gay and dashing woman who "held hands with her chauffeur with one hand while she thumbed her nose at the world with the other." It also has to do with Avis, her step-daughter, aloof, cold, so refined above Mrs. Willingdon's hearty zest for life that she almost lost the meaning of it. Through the clash of these two vivid personalities, Miss Eiker discloses the strange and twisted story of a great romance.

Notes

Mathilde Eiker is hard to place: she's more middle-brow than the light fare her dust jackets often suggest. And it sometimes feels that, like her female MC's, she's being intentionally difficult with her reader -- wondering, idly, if they can keep up and not really caring whether they do. Why else would you name four of your five significant male characters in Heirs Bagly, Burton, Blount and Ballard? Ayy. Her books are not straight romances, either, they're as much stories of self-discovery and working through past trauma for her beautiful, wealthy, tightly-controlled heroines. Heirs is very 30s, with lots of submerged angst, spilling over Golden Age Hollywood style but she's a good enough writer to carry it off, with you feeling sympathy for the characters you're supposed to and crossing fingers for their happy endings. I liked "Heirs" for its touch of mystery and for its portrayal of three love stories -- in different circumstances, at different stages of life. And one, in particular, unusual and affecting (but hardly twisted -- why would they say that?).

Flag: A silver fox fur plays a role in the story and is closely described. If you are sensitive to animal welfare issues, it may be worth being prepared for this. There is no active animal cruelty.

Tags

1930s, American, United States, Northeast, aunt, banker, beautiful/handsome, disciplined, f/m, female, marriage, saving, married, middle-aged, mystery, practical, recommended, reserved, romance, second chance, selfless, third-person

Flags

infertility