No Holly for Miss Quinn

This is another pleasant story of life in England by Miss Read. Her books are unique because she's able to take the reader into a world, where life seems ordinary, but somehow, totally interesting. Miriam Quinn has never married. She's a kind, but unsentimental lady. By today's standards, she's still young, but fifty years ago she would have been called an old maid! She's an efficient office manger and has a well ordered life that she enjoys. Her plans to spend a quiet and unadorned Christmas holiday painting her new home are abruptly interrupted. Her brother, a minister with a busy schedule calls upon her to come and help out his family. His wife is in the hospital and he needs someone to care for his two children. Her winter holiday turns out to be filled with her duties as chief cook, housekeeper and substitute mother for her two nieces. She meets the challenge, but gains new respect for her sister-in-law when she realizes the amount of work that a young mother has to do. Miriam also makes a wonderful Christmas for everyone and meets an old friend from her past. I enjoyed reading about some of the English Christmas traditions and recommend this story for a cozy Christmas read.

How could anyone who loves to read resist a book by someone named Miss Read? I discovered Miss Read last year in a Christmas display at the library and have now read ten of her books. Miss Read is the kind of writer you want to read lying in a hammock on a summer day or wrapped in an afghan on a winter evening or in the spring or fall when the sun is making patterns on your wallpaper.There are no dysfunctional people among Miss Read's characters, no sex, and no crime. But these omissions do not make Miss Read's stories sappy or sentimental. Miss Read's characters are ordinary people living ordinary lives, and they are delightful. Her stories are completely satisfying and full of simple pleasures. (This sounds disgusting, doesn't it?) But Miss Read has a bit of an edge that keeps her characters from becoming excessively sweet.If you like Jan Karon, you may like Miss Read. I myself could not read Jan Karon because she was too treacly.

This is one of those genteel, easy-going books that you can read leisurely while on vacation, on a rainy night, or anytime you just need a good escape. It has a gentle pastoralism ("Beech Green...is extremely pretty, with flower-studded banks or wide grass verges, clumps of trees, and a goodly amount of hawthorn hedging") somewhat reminiscent of Kenneth Grahame's writing in "The Wind in The Willows." Although the pace is slow, and the excitement minimal, Miss Read retains your attention with her relaxing yet vigorous prose, her keen observations and precise descriptions, and her loving devotion to the English countryside and its inhabitants.The characters and plot are somewhat predictable. Miss Quinn, a fastidious and introverted administrative assistant, rents a room in beautiful "Holly Lodge" from recently widowed Joan Benson. She hopes to settle there comfortably when she learns that her sister-in-law (of whom she is not especially fond) is in the hospital. Mrs. Miniver-like, Quinn rushes to the house and bravely takes on the house, the children, and her own prejudices about her sister-in-law. Despite her domestic triumphs and the briefly described attentions of a young man, she decides (perhaps prematurely, perhaps not) that "spinsterhood" (and no children) might best suit her temperament.A feminist tract this is not; in fact, it seems to have been written at least two generations ago. Therein lie its appeal and its flaws. Some readers may grow frustrated (or weary) with the lack of excitement, the old-fashioned treatment of the children (the author seems to imply that the children need a slap on the arm from Miss Quinn, even though the parents don't approve), as well as an unfortunate analogy with concentration camps. They may wish that Miss Read had slightly more modern sensibilities. Other readers will likely ignore this and delight in the carefully wrought little village that is so simply and beautifully rendered.

I have read this book more times than I can remember!Every Christmas I read it and it warms my heart. Miss Quinn drops all she has planned to care for her brother's family at the Christmas season and rediscovers her own child hood in the process. This is truely a lovely story and I would recommend it to anyone who has lost their christmas spirit.