Apologies to all of you who are sick of Monica Dickens by now. I promise that this is my last book from her for a little* while.
I think I started reading The Happy Prisoner
The story is very much a fly on the wall of a house where a soldier son, Oliver, has returned home from the war having lost a leg and with a slightly dodgy heart. His sickroom becomes the hub of the house and we join Oliver just as he gets a new nurse in the form of Elizabeth – a enigma of a woman if ever there was one. Being stuck in his bed Oliver throws himself into family life as best he can, and he soon discovers that always being where family members can find him means that he soon becomes someone they all want to share secrets with.
After hearing that the tenant farmer has proposed marriage to his sister Violet – a woman that no one thought would ever marry, herself included – Oliver convinces her that this would actually be a fantastic thing. The result being a woman who is normally more interested in horses than hair-dos suddenly being transformed into a blushing bride, with some hilarious consequences.
The book is a very gentle insight on life in Oliver's room and the plot does move at a reasonably sedentary pace (much like Oliver's recovery), yet at the same time it is one of those books that I found very hard to put down. By the end the characters seemed very much like a bunch of friends or family members that I didn't want to leave. That's the thing that I like about Monica Dickens' books; they're not going to leave the reader upset or jarred in any way, instead you are just taken on a short comfortable journey with friends. The sort of thing that most of us enjoy, even if it's not a thrilling experience. Almost like an old pair of slippers.
* Please note that I'm not going to even try to define "little" here, just to be on the safe side!
I loved that book – one of her best, in fact I might have to go and find it to put on the pile to read again soon