Set in the early 1980’s, Lady Jane and Melanie are childhood friends who know each other’s deepest held secrets. Lady Jane escaped her past by marrying into a prominent British family and Melanie focused solely on her love of music to the exclusion of family and friends. In Spring, they reunite as adults, each trying to accept and support the life paths they have chosen.
“Both ladies would have to be careful and always watch what they said whenever there were others around. But Lady Jane was prepared to do so with her usual sense of purpose and poise befitting the noble lady that she had become. She realized that she had missed her friend. The benefits and joys of her old friendship far outweighed the risks involved.”
Using Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons as the backdrop, in Spring, Emily-Jane Hills Orford focuses on Melanie's story. Melanie is a headstrong young woman who had put her love of music before all else refusing to take the traditional role expected of a woman. Instead she traveled all over the world with absolute freedom, like the season of spring - a time of birth, growth, and adventure.
As Melanie’s life matures, mirroring the seasons as they turn to a more aged and wizened time, she returns home to find she must “face the music” she has made of her life. Melanie is forced to both acknowledge and make peace with the choices she has made and the resultant losses.
A touching story with believable and compassionate characters, Orford does a wonderful job of bringing us into the lives of two close friends who have both made unconventional life choices. We are privy to the secrets and stubborn actions of these women that must be kept hidden and controlled to ensure that current life styles are not disrupted.
The great attention to period detail makes this book a pleasure to read. Orford, by referencing the music and art of the time, makes Spring a believable and compelling story that draws you into the women’s secretive lives and which makes you want to follow them to their resolutions. Exciting and evocative, Spring brings us two new independent, intelligent, and feisty women characters which whom you’d love to sit down and share a glass of wine or two. Highly Recommended by reviewer: Wendy Thomas, Allbooks Reviews. www.allbookreviews.com
Title: Spring
Author: Emily Jane Hills Orford
ISBN: 978-1-4560-9465-2
Price: $25.16
For more info: www3.sympatico.ca/mistymo
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