Princess Pamela

I read Bishop's Daughter by the same author before I read Princess Pamela, although PP was written first. Bishop's Daughter is about Melissa Wright in Regency times, and PP is about her daughter, Pamela, in Victorian times. (Princess is a nickname). Russell's technique in PP is to say that he found this diary, so there's a lengthy afterword about how it was found and where, etc. He uses the same technique in BD (albeit with an anonymous manuscript), but much more effectively. PP is an excellent book about a 17-year old coming of age. It's bawdy, confessional, and just what we'd hope for from a real girl's diary from that time. There are the at-home teas, but there's also a guy she met at one of them that climbs in her window one night and things get a little heated up. Pam obliges us with a detailed description the next day. Her sister and best friend has inexplicably married someone she doesn't love, when Pam knows well that she's in love with someone else. Phoebe tells her through post that she's pregnant, and it's not her husband's. Subsequently, Phoebe disappears, and that's a whole story line that leads to Pam's engagement. The book was great, well written, and very entertaining. I found myself laughing outright in several places, and also talking to her, sort of like we talk to sports figures on television. In any case, when the actual end arrived.....I don't want to spoil it, but I'll tell you it was as cheap as the deux ex machina technique. The book was worth it, but someone needs to finish the story. As an aside, Russell takes a bit of liberty with history. At one point, Pam gets to wondering about what is, essentially, quantum physics. She embarks on a thought train about parallel worlds. So in the afterward, he does a bit a speculation, relative to his playing with historical events, about whether or not Pam ended up in one of those parallel worlds. (She's given to some interesting thoughts and comments throughout her diary) That's not really here nor there. You can pretty much take that or leave it. But the ending just totally doesn't cut it - and it's got nothing to do with happy ending or otherwise.