Re-read, July 2022: Enjoyed the writing on this second time through, but a little more struck by the melancholy tone of the book, and impatient with the trivial maneuvering and plotting at the Institute where Lucy goes to work.

Original review follows:

This was just great. Unfortunately I kept putting it down and picking it up, so it took a long time to finish, but it has placed a new author squarely on my radar and I hope I can enjoy more of her books.

Lucy Carmichael is left at the altar on her wedding day. Is her life over? Far from it. She may be a little numb, but life goes on, and she isn't destroyed. Her future feels completely undecipherable, but she marks time by accepting a teaching post in a second-rate institute that has a lot of social politics going on. Lucy throws herself into the life and finds a surprising amount of interest in it. The people she deals with cause her to face a certain question that is now a part of her life...is it wrong to "settle" for an inferior type of happiness?

I really like Lucy, who is a nice balance of strength and wounds. She's emotionally honest with herself, which is very mature. I really like her best friend Melissa, who is fun, but also anxious and keeping a strong grip on her own feelings. It's actually difficult to describe these people, because they feel very complex on the page, which means excellent writing. Yes, the writing is of high quality, with a good combination of dialogue and inner thoughts.

Oh, and did I forget to mention, the ending is all that it should be and then some.

If this book sounds like possibly your cup of tea, read some of the other reviews. Some of them bring out other very nice points. ( )

This book was a pleasure to read.

This is the first book I have ready by Margaret Kennedy, and it was a fantastic read.

I really loved the letters that were written to introduce new characters in Part two. After that she went into the story. She did the same to wrap up some the character’s story lines in Part seven. In doing this it set a good pace for the book. Letter format is a nice way to give details of the story, without going in depth on each and every single person. I believe if it was done any other way the story would have dragged on and book would have never been finish.

I did wish that Lucy didn't meet Hump at the end of book. Not that I didn't like Hump, but it would of been nice if Lucy stated unmarried at the end. I don't know how to say exactly why, but she was happy and enjoying just being in that moment. After the emotional up and down it nice just to be at the quiet place and accept what happen and to breathe a little. I would of been satisfied with that ending. It didn’t need a tidy bow.

I also wish that publishers stop referencing Jane Austen in the jack covers or any other famous author. I find this distracting. I find that I pay more attention to making connection with Austen book, then I do enjoying the story itself. I think it takes away the writers accomplishments and I don't think writers want to be though as an imitation, but as themselves and the story they are telling.

( )

The story of Lucy Carmichael, written and set in the early 1950s, opens with high drama. Lucy is getting married to the man of her dreams, and Margaret Kennedy captures her excitement, her nerves, her energy, her joy, quite beautifully.

I was inclined to love Lucy just as much as her best friend Melissa did. This is how Melissa describes her friend to her own fiancé:

“She is incautious and intrepid. She will go to several wrong places and arrive at the right one, while I am still making up my mind to cross the road. She is cheerful and confident and expects to be happy. She taught me how to enjoy myself … Lucy forced me to believe that I might be happy. I don’t expect I’d have had the courage to marry you, to marry anybody, if it hadn’t been for Lucy”.

There was no wedding: Lucy was jilted, and of course she was devastated.

She knew she had to carry on, and she knew she had to get away. She hated watching people being tactful, knowing she was being talked about, seeing reminders everywhere. And so, when she saw on opening for a drama teacher at an arts institute, she grabbed it with both hands.

Lucy made a wonderful success of the job, she built wonderful relationships with students, colleagues and townspeople, and she became part of a community with principles and values that she really admired. But she soon found that she was in a minefield, having to deal with the machinations of one or two ruthlessly ambitious individuals, and aspersions cast by certain individuals who thought she was rather too friendly with the aristocratic patrons. Lucy fought the good fight, but in the end she realised that it was a fight she could not win.

She found another job, revitalising a community centre, and she made a success of that too.

It’s a relatively simple story, but Margaret Kennedy tells it so very well. A quarter of a century after her greatest success – The Constant Nymph – her understanding of characters and relationships was in full bloom. She understood that Lucy would hide her heartache, that she would tell the world that she was alright, but of course she wouldn’t be. Every aspect her character was just a little muted, and there were certain things, certain situations, that she found difficult to deal with. She understood that the friendship between Lucy and Melissa would be strong, but that the would both be treading warily as Melissa made her own wedding plans. She understood every character, every relationship, every nuance, and that made this book a joy to read.

Along the way Lucy was offered a second chance of love and romance, but her experiences had made her realise that she wanted more. She still wanted to be married, she still wanted a family, but she wanted a life and she knew that she should not, could not, accept second best.

I do wish that Virago had published Lucy Carmichael along with the four books by Margaret Kennedy that they republished. She is out on the world again as a Faber Find, which is lovely, but I can’t help thinking that she could have – should have – been in the first rank of Virago heroines.

When I began reading Lucy Carmichael I thought that I would be writing that this is my favourite of the four books by Margaret Kennedy that I’ve read over the last twelve months. I’m not sure that it is now. That drama at the start of the story was so very, very well done that what followed couldn’t quite live up to expectations that were raised sky-high. The rest of the book was a quieter, more subtle, pleasure.

I can’t help thinking that Lucy’s story would dramatise beautifully, and make wonderful Sunday evening television.

Though they were apart for most of the story, exchanging letters and meeting just occasionally, the friendship between Lucy and Melissa was the finest, most beautifully wrought aspect of this story.

And Melissa wrote about Lucy to her brother, Hump. He wasn’t sure that he liked the sound of her, but when they finally met, by chance, towards the end of the story he thought he might change his mind. Though I was inclined to think that Lucy changed it for him.

There was the suggestion of a happy ending, but no more than that. And that was exactly right.

And now I’m thinking that this might be my favourite Margaret Kennedy novel after all. Though I think that same when I recall 'The Fool of the Family' and 'The Feast.' I just know that the book that was by far her greatest success – 'The Constant Nymph' – is my least favourite.

But thank goodness I liked that enough to want to read her other books. And that I have a good few more still to read … ( )