DANCE
WITH ME
BY
VICTORIA CLAYTON
THE
BLURB:-
Viola Otway, young,
romantic and with little formal schooling, has been sent out into the
world by her guardian to earn her living. But her lack of education
and experience are no disadvantage for her job at the Society for the
Conservation of Ancient Buildings, otherwise known as SCAB.
Viola and her boss are
sent to access Inskip Park, a huge house with an incredible facade
and domes like Brighton Pavilion. The roof leaks, the walls drip
with damp, the food is terrible and the servants distinctly odd- but
Viola is enchanted. She loves everything about the house, the
garden, and the peculiarly eccentric Inskip family- particularly
Jeremy, the handsome, lazy and utterly charming son and heir.
Five days later, Viola
returns to London having made some life-changing decisions. Even an
unexpected marriage proposal fails to deflect her from her declared
purpose: to acquire an education...
THE
REALITY:-
An utterly charming
upper-class comedy romp, which is tailor made for fans of Four
Weddings And A Funeral. Although it's not that easy to work out
which era this novel is set in, somewhere in the middle it states that these events take place during the unbelievably hot
summer of 1976. Other reviews have stated that they cannot work out
out heroine Viola's age- it mentions quite clearly that she is nearly
twenty-one just a short way into the novel.
I took a long time to
read this book. That's not because it was boring, but simply because
I seem to have had so much going on in my life in the past few months;
from a holiday, to trying to sort out builders and repair dates for
my ruined cellar stairs, to job problems (i.e. the one I have is not exactly up to scratch and the company itself is not my cup of tea.) But when I did pick it up
properly it was thoroughly engaging and clearly written by someone
who knows their stuff where art is concerned. It's always good to
learn something new from a novel. The author also has an excellent
grasp on the English language and I managed to learn a few new words
(no, not swear words!) and also saw a few seldom used words creep in,
which is great for descriptives.
Nothing was totally
predictable about this work (apart from, maybe, who Viola ended up
romantically ensconced with) and the characters were certainly
colourful with some great and often hilarious traits. Inskip Park
was brilliantly depicted and certainly made for a gripping base to
the story and I especially found Lady Inskip's story moving and loved
her youngest son, Nicky.
With superbly
interesting, flawed, and often clumsy characters you can really feel
for (including a villain who has seemingly played a hand in
corrupting almost everyone at Inskip Park) and laugh-out-loud word
play, juxtaposed with a comic take on the lives of the aristocracy, I
would certainly recommend this light-hearted book as a summer read
(even though I read it as the nights pulled in!)
