Myself when Young – Daphne du Maurier (1977)

The week has really flown by and suddenly there are only a couple of days left of #DDMreadingweek, don’t worry however if you will be posting reviews after the fact – it really doesn’t matter. I still look forward to seeing what you’ve been reading and what you thought. I’m still catching up with other people’s reviews this week anyway. 

The second book I decided to read for DDM week was Myself When Young: The shaping of a writer. It is a memoir Daphne du Maurier wrote about the first twenty-five years of her life, when she herself was nearing seventy, using the diaries she had kept between 1920 and 1932. According to Helen Taylor in her introduction to this edition, DDM wrote the book with some reluctance as part of the commemoration of her seventieth birthday and out of a depression and writers block. At this time she was going through some personal difficulties – worry over two of her children, and a wrangle with Richard Attenborough over how her late husband was to be portrayed in a film he was making. 

This memoir begins with some of DDM’s earliest recollections. I always really enjoy childhood memoirs of the sort of period DDM was writing about – she was born in 1907. Her memories of this time include stories of the family nurse who took care of the children while they were young, the women who came to the house to teach them, her older sister Angela and her younger sister Jeanne. Her parents are portrayed with less affection than I had expected, though as the book progresses we see something of the difficult relationship she had with them. Other relatives like Aunty Billy and Big Granny crop up in stories of various visits and holidays that took place throughout what was a very privileged upbringing. 

“We are all ghosts of yesterday, and the phantom of tomorrow awaits us alike in sunshine or in shadow, dimly perceived at times, never entirely lost.”

Gerald du Maurier, Daphne’s father, was a famous actor-manager in the London theatre – his world was not one that Daphne particularly enjoyed. The portrait of Gerlad here is fairly benign, though  I have read other things in the past that suggest a much more complex, even disturbing relationship may have existed. Apparently her own biography of her father shows him in quite a different, unflattering light. The young DDM grows up absurdly sheltered, knowing nothing of sex for instance until she is around eighteen. There was also a strange relationship the adolescent Daphne had with an older, married cousin ‘nothing happened’ as the saying goes – and yet, there’s something distinctly inappropriate, and one wonders at Gerald’s anxious watching of them that DDM describes, fatherly concern or jealousy? The older Daphne gets, the more we get the sense that she needs to get away from her family, she certainly had more freedom than many young women of that time, yet she craved ever more. 

“I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that freedom is the only thing that matters to me at all. Also utter irresponsibility! Never to have to obey any laws or rules, only certain standards one sets for oneself. I want to revolt, as an individual, against everything that ‘ties.’ If only one could live one’s life unhampered in any way, not getting in knots and twisting up. There must be a free way, without making a muck of it all.” 

She spends a lot of time in Paris, finishing school first, which she enjoys and later spending time with her friend Fernande – her former teacher. She becomes increasingly fed up with London life, she has no time for the theatre and is fairly horrified when persuaded to do a screen test. She is determined to write from a fairly young age, but struggles with the form, trying poetry and short stories. Then she is allowed to spend time alone at the family’s house in Cornwall and her love affair with the county begins. She wishes she could stay there always, she takes up sailing, she has a boat commissioned for her – she carries on writing. Her efforts are continually frustrated – until someone in publishing tells her to forget the short stories and just write a novel – and she is off. Writing her first novel The Loving Spirit in just ten weeks. 

The book ends at a good, happy period of DDM’s life, a published author of two novels and newly married to her husband Tommy. Luckily for us, there was so much more to come too. 

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I’ll Never Be Young Again – Daphne du Maurier (1932)

The first book I read for this year’s #DDMreadingweek was I’ll Never Be Young Again, DDM’s second published novel. Daphne du Mauier fan though I am, I’m not above recognising that not everything she wrote was of the same standard. This early novel is certainly not a favourite, and I think inferior even to her first novel The Loving Spirit. There is still plenty to enjoy in this novel however, and the reader can easily spot that early promise that would be so brilliantly realised in novels like Rebecca and Jamaica Inn. 

The narrative is divided into two main sections, the first in which our narrator Dick develops a friendship with an older man, has some adventures and begins to learn something about himself and the world around him. The second section set mainly in Paris deals with the relationship Dick has with a young woman he meets there.

The world of this novel was a contemporary one to that which DDM was living in, her first novel had been set in the previous century. It is also the first of five novels which would have a male narrator – many of her short stories have male narrators too, something she was able to do very successfully. The writing is good of course, full of atmosphere, rich in description.

“The smell of coffee, white dust, tobacco and burnt bread, flowers with a fragrance of wine, and the crimson fruit, soft and overripe. A girl looking over her bare shoulder, with a flash of a smile, gold ear-rings showing from thick black hair brushed away from her face, long arms, a cigarette between her lips. Night like a great dark blanket, voices murmuring at a street corner, the air warm with tired flowers, and a hum from the sea.” 

 DDM knew the places she wrote about, having herself visited the Norwegian fjords, while Paris was somewhere she knew very well. The problem for many readers may be that Dick is not a sympathetic character – and I suspect he isn’t meant to be. I am happy to read about an unlikeable character – but something about Dick really got under my skin, and I seriously wanted to give him a shake. DDM was still only twenty-three when she wrote I’ll Never Be Young Again, and we can see something of her own challenges in the character of Dick, especially in his relationship with his father. 

As the novel opens and we first meet Dick, he is standing looking out across the London docks, miserable and in despair he is determined to throw himself in. Though only twenty-one he feels life has nothing for him. The son of a famous poet, he feels unloved by his father, who thinks he will never make anything of himself. He is saved at the last moment by a passing stranger, who speaks to him, offering friendship. The stranger is Jake, a man several years older than Dick who has recently been released from prison, thus both men are at a turning point in their lives. The two men form an immediate bond, and decide to set out together, signing on to a rickety old ship they work their passage to Norway.  

In company with Jake, Dick becomes accustomed to hard, physical monotonous work, adventure, travel and a host of experiences. He sees places he had never thought to go to, and as he learns more about Jake, he begins to learn something about the world. There are times though when we see Dick as rather selfish, thoughtless and naive – he has much to learn, something Jake understands but Dick himself doesn’t quite see. 

“Jake, I don’t want ever to be old. I want always to get up in the morning and feel there’s something grand lying just ahead of me, round the corner, over a hill. I want always to feel that if I stand still, only for a minute, I’m missing something a few yards away. I don’t want ever to find myself thinking: “What’s the use of going across that street?” That’s the end of everything, Jake, when looking for things doesn’t count any more. When you sit back happily in a chair, content with what you’ve got – that’s being old.’ ‘There’s no need to get that way. It’s your own thoughts that keep you young, Dick. And age hasn’t anything to do with it. It’s a question of your state of mind.”

He makes rather a fool of himself with an American woman, part of a group of young wealthy tourists they meet. Each place they go, each experience they have Dick embraces it eagerly with the enthusiasm of a spoilt child. His time with Jake doesn’t last and in time he finds himself alone in Paris. 

The old obsession comes upon him, to be a great writer – to show his father that he can write, can be just as successful. He finds a place to live, embracing the bohemian culture of Paris. Here he meets Hesta, a young music student. Poor Hesta really doesn’t deserve Dick, but their relationship lasts for around a year – and the reader senses there will be no happy ending for this pair. Dick throws himself into his writing, after persuading Hesta – against everything she believes in – to live with him – he is quick to take her for granted – to lose sight of what she might want from life, forgetting that she too once had ambitions. 

We see Dick return to England, and as we all must, face up to the reality of life and move forwards. All his errors and stupidities behind him, as if they never were. I wondered if perhaps DDM wasn’t making the point that men do that sometimes, sowing their wild oats, having adventures, behaving rather idiotically with no consequences for them afterwards.  I couldn’t quite forgive him though. Overall though a very interesting novel that I am glad to have read.  

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Welcome to #DDMreadingweek

It’s finally come around again, the week when we can celebrate the life and work of Daphne du Maurier – whose birthday (along with mine) falls later this week. 

I’m afraid I might be a bit quieter this week than in previous years, I wasn’t sure at all whether I could even commit to hosting this week. My struggles with blogging continue – fatigue is probably the biggest issue, and I haven’t felt great the last few days (typical!) However, here I am giving it a good go. At the end of this post, I will explain how Liz will be helping to gather all the reviews together in one place. 

I have already read two books in preparation, books I hadn’t read before. First was I’ll Never be Young Again – DDM’s second novel first published in 1932. I then read Myself When Young: the Shaping of a Writer (1977) a very readable memoir based upon the diaries that DDM kept between 1920 and 1932. I will do my very best to review these this week – but I will be honest – it may not happen. I am now re-reading Rebecca (1938), my third reading of it – I decided to read it again, just for the sheer pleasure of it. If there was ever a novel designed to make a reader want to curl up with a hot drink and a blanket then this is it. I am loving it all over again, but I don’t think I will feel the need to write about it.

It’s always great seeing what everyone else decides to read – whether it be novels, short stories, biography or nonfiction. DDM was certainly prolific, and has left us with quite a variety to choose from – there’s pretty much something to suit every mood, I would think. I always rather envy those discovering Rebecca or Jamaica Inn for the first time, though there will be other readers like me, who return happily to an old favourite.  

Whatever you’re reading by or about DDM this week, please let me know, you don’t need to be a blogger to join in, a Tweet using the hashtag #DDMreadingweek is just as good, especially when it comes with a photograph of the edition or reading divice you are curled up with. I’m afraid I have rather given up on Instagram – feel free to post things there, of course, I just won’t see them. 

When it comes to gathering all the reviews that come in during #DDMreadingweek, together, I usually have a dedicated page here on my blog, which I edit throughout the week and the days following, as reviews get put up. Finding them can be an issue so using that hashtag on Twitter really helps. However, this year, I can’t manage that as well, so my lovely friend Liz has stepped in to help. She has created a page on her blog where she will gather all the reviews from blogs and perhaps Goodreads as they come in. You can find the page here but to ensure your post doesn’t get missed, you could pop a link to it in the comments section of the page on Liz’s blog yourself. 

Happy DDMreadingweek everyone who is joining in – whether you’re reading along with us, or cheering from the sidelines, hoping to be inspired for next time. 

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March in review

March ended quite damply here, but I am still looking out for signs of spring. I had a few days away in a hotel earlier this month, which was a lovely change of scene, and I also became officially medically retired. It was also a good month for books, the number I read, not particularly dramatic. Seven books read in March, though a couple were fairly fat books – the quality was excellent. 

I started the month with The Fawn (1959) by Magda Szabó translated from the Hungarian by Len Rix. It is a complex piece, narrated by Eszter Encsy, an acclaimed actress. Throughout the novel Eszter is speaking to her lover, explaining her past, seeking forgiveness, reliving key moments. 

Despite being a large heavy hardback, I was excited to read Agatha Christie an Elusive Woman (2022) by Lucy Worsley, it was a Christmas present from Liz. It didn’t disappoint. I found this such a compelling biography, especially those  sections detailing that infamous year of 1926, when Agatha went missing for eleven days, before being found in a hotel in Harrogate. We are given a tantalising glimpse of a woman who was very private and who as the title of the book suggests, remains a little elusive.  

I read Cheating at Canasta (2007) by William Trevor on my Kindle, for #ReadingIreland month – but I haven’t managed to review it. I have loved several of his brilliant novels in the past, but this was my first collection of his stories. One of his later collections, it is predictably excellent with themes of opportunities not taken and memory, stories set in both Ireland and England. 

Another Christmas gift was The Book of Form and Emptiness (2021) by Ruth Ozeki. I haven’t written about it because I felt I couldn’t – it is so brilliant. I perhaps over-thought it, but convinced myself I couldn’t do it justice, so didn’t try. There’s a wonderful cast of characters, a story that is poignant, often heartbreaking, some of it narrated by a book. It’s philosophical, wise and hugely compelling. I loved every word, and I will be reading more Ruth Ozeki on the strength of it. At around 550 pages it’s another bigger book than I often read, and this time, my hands objected strongly. I bought another copy for my Kindle, so I could carry on reading uninterrupted. 

It was Simon’s review of Babbacombe’s (1941) by Susan Scarlett that prompted me to read it. My first Susan Scarlett, the alternative name under which Noel Streatfeild wrote. I absolutely loved it, such a cheery, delightful novel about a department store and some of the people who work there.

The British Library kindly provided me with one of their latest offerings, The Home (1972) by Penelope Mortimer. A brilliant novel, with a very 1970s feel. It explores a woman’s life as she leaves a broken marriage and sets up a new home for her grown up children, who come and go throughout the novel. I will write a full review soon, so don’t want to say too much here. 

Holland Park Press sent me The Way to Hornsey Rise (2023) by Jeremy Worman and I am delighted they did, it’s an excellent novelised autobiography. Worman’s memoir explores his childhood, adolescence and private education in Windsor. However, in the 1970’s he came to reject that upbringing, taking up residence in the hippy squats of Hornsey Rise. Tracing how and why Jeremy made that transition, it’s a wonderfully readable memoir. 

All in all a good month I think, and I am looking forward to April, too. Karen and Simon will be hosting the 1940 club – and I will be happily joining in with that. I did have one Dean Street Press book waiting in the wings but then I went off and bought a second yesterday, so I have two to look forward to. My book group will be reading Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel but beyond that I don’t have any definite plans.

The other day I had a little bit of a wobble about my ability to host #DDMreadingweek again. However, I had a chat with myself and I have decided I will do it after all, and having made that decision, I am now really looking forward to it again, and I have started to plan my reading. The dates this year will be 8th – 15th  May – though things may be a little pared back at my end, I can’t manage blog posts every day, and there won’t be a giveaway this year either. So, something for DDM fans to look forward to, I hope.

What brilliant things did you read in March and what are your April reading plans? 

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#DDMreadingweek roundup & Giveaway winners

First of all I want to say a very big thank you to everyone who took part in #DDMreadingweek in whatever capacity – review, photo, blog comment etc – I thoroughly enjoyed the week. By starting my reading very early, I managed three books too which I was pleased with.

A very brief roundup from me as you can find my event page here containing blog links – which I am still updating, and will continue to do so. Please hop on over and click through to the reviews written by bloggers taking part in the event this year.

I enjoyed some lovely conversations on Twitter and Instagram about Daphne du Maurier and her books – if you want to spot them, follow the hashtag. An English teacher on Twitter read some DDM short stories with her Y10s and shared some of their comments with us – I feel like we have some DDM converts there. Blogger Lisa has been sharing her experience of reading Jamaica Inn after abandoning it twenty years ago – it was such a joy to share her love of it. Some lovely photos of DDM books popped up on Instagram, it’s always lovely to see how much people still love DDM.

Now to the business of a certain giveaway – yesterday afternoon, I drew two random names from the comments on last Monday’s blog post. 

The first prize of the VMC designer edition of Rebecca and matching mug was won by Marina from Finding Time to Write blog.

The second prize of a print of The Birds cover to be supplied by Virago was won by Kate.

Winners have been contacted and address of the second prize winner has been sent to Virago.

I am still catching up with blog posts etc – bear with me, but please let me know if you think I have missed your post.

I think I will probably do this again next year. 😊

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The Glassblowers – Daphne du Maurier (1963)

My third and final read for this year’s #DDMreadingweek was The Glassblowers – an incredibly vivid historical novel based on the author’s own family history. Two other readers (at least) have written about this novel this week, and so I don’t feel it necessary to go into too much detail.

Set in eighteenth-century France, this is a novel of a family, their struggles, and tragedies during an extraordinary period in the country’s history. The novel is narrated by Sophie Duval – who now an elderly woman tells the story of the family history to her long-lost nephew, taking him back to the world of the glassblowers and the turbulent, frightening years of The French Revolution.

“Perhaps we shall not see each other again, I will write to you, though, and tell you, as best I can, the story of your family. A glass-blower, remember, breathes life into a vessel, giving it shape and form and sometimes beauty, but he can, with that same breath, shatter and destroy it.”

Sophie’s mother Magdaleine, married into a glass-blowing family in 1747, a world her own father warned her was a closed world, a world totally different to the one she had grown up in. Magdaleine comes to embrace this world, taking up a managing role, as well as raising five children. She is a formidable, respected figure around the glasshouse, a great help and support to Mathurin her husband. The family move between glasshouses, renting houses as their fortunes wax and wane. This is a world with its own ways and traditions and Magdaleine takes them all on as her own.

Three boys are born first, Robert, Michel, and Pierre, later two daughters, Sophie – our narrator – and her younger sister Edmé. The three sons are expected to enter the world of glass-blowing, following their father in the art to become fully fledged master glass blowers. The eldest Robert is the most gifted, he becomes a master glass blower, as does Michel in time. Pierre is less committed to this world – and is apt to take himself away from the glasshouse. Only Robert’s great problem is that he had his head turned by beauty, and a gracious way of living as a young boy. He aspires to wealth and prestige, to grand houses and fine possessions. Robert’s ambitions are set to be his undoing – his speculations costing him more and more each time. Robert is annoyingly optimistic, he never sees what he is doing to his family, he is always convinced of his own success. His wife Cathie and their son Jacques will in time become victims of Robert’s destructive, gambler like attitude.

Sophie tells the story of this family, of her siblings their glassblowers trade and the world in which they live, that becomes changed forever, as does France itself with the revolution. Sophie marries François in 1788, in a double ceremony, her younger sister Edmé marrying at the same time.

“Something within each one of us had been awakened that we had not known was there; some dream, desire, or doubt, flickered into life by that same rumour, took root, and flourished. We were none of us the same afterwards. Robert, Michel, François, Edmé, myself, were changed imperceptibly. The rumour, true or false, had brought into the open hopes and dreads which, hitherto concealed, would now be part of our ordinary living selves.”

The peaceful world of the glassblowers is coming to an end – the country is seething with discontent following a terrible winter, hunger, and poverty the driving force. Rumour and gossip help to fan the flames of revolution. They all hear about the storming of the Bastille in Paris – and it is said that brigands roam the countryside, ready to steal goods and damage property. The whole of France are entering into uncertain times.

 “‘Where do they go, Sophie, those younger selves of ours? How do they vanish and dissolve?” “They don’t,” I said. “They’re with us always, like little shadows, ghosting us through life. I’ve been aware of mine, often enough, wearing a pinafore over my starched frock, chasing Edmé up and down the great staircase in la Pierre.”

While Sophie tries her best to hold the family together, Pierre finds his calling as a notary, Michel and Edmé both great patriots, become revolutionary leaders in their community. Robert continues to speculate – and is declared bankrupt, more than once – and his way out of the mess, is to leave the country, a decision which horrifies his brothers especially.

In telling the story of the French Revolution du Maurier moves her characters around quite a bit – from place to place, house to house – similarly to the way she did in The King’s General. It allows her characters to see and experience more, creating movement and drama in the story.

The descriptions of the fear unleashed at various times over the years of revolution are well done, du Maurier understands, the loss, the rage and patriotic fervour unleashed at such times. There are many incredibly vivid scenes. The historical detail is extraordinary, I learned the other day (via a Twitter conversation), that she spent years researching this – it shows. The one thing I missed rather was a strong sense of place – something I always associate with Daphne du Maurier – I really didn’t get that in this novel. Nevertheless it is a really ambitious novel, in fact so much happens it is difficult to write about. Recommended to those who like a good historical novel with a large strong family at the centre of it.

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The Doll: short stories- Daphne du Maurier (2011)

My second read for this year’s ~DDMreadingweek was the story collection The Doll, a collection of mainly very early short stories by Daphne du Maurier. These previously lost stories brought back by Virago are very good. No matter how early in her writing life they were penned they show du Maurier’s remarkable talent at the short story form. As Polly Samson writes in her introduction to this edition, many of the themes in these stories were very much du Maurier’s own preoccupations at this time. She had escaped the claustrophobia of her father’s house in London, for Cornwall – her relationship with her parents was complex and often distressing. These are stories of obsession, innocence lost, and human frailties.

The collection opens with The East Wind, set on a small, isolated island, an island rarely come across by sailors. The inhabitants are almost childlike in their innocence – generations of inbreeding have left them a quiet, peaceful people, who get on with their daily lives and think nothing of what might lie beyond their shores. The main occupation is fishing, the sea and the island’s tiny harbour a focal point for the island. One day, the wind changes, and with the storm comes a ship, obliged to weigh anchor in the harbour, the men from the ship come ashore and make themselves known to the island’s population. The sailors bring brandy with them, they also bring lust and sexual desires, never felt before in this little Eden are unleashed leading to violence and death.

The title story The Doll was apparently written when Daphne du Maurier was just twenty. It’s definitely the creepiest story in this collection – it seems surprising that this young woman would have conceived of this story in the 1920s. It makes the reader wonder what was going on in her life around the time. A waterlogged notebook is washed ashore. The notebook tells the story of a jealousy and obsession. The woman at the heart of the story is called Rebecca – that name creating a frisson of recognition where Daphne du Maurier is concerned, but of course she isn’t that Rebecca – that is all in the future. The narrator of the story develops an obsession with Rebecca – who he meets at a party. However, even at their first meeting there is something darker in the narrator’s first thoughts of her.

“Her throat was very long and thin, like a swan’s. I remember thinking how easy it would be to tighten the scarf and strangle her. I imagined her face when dying – her lips parted, and the enquiring look in her eyes – they would show white, but she would not be afraid. All this in the space of a moment, and while she was talking to me. I could drag very little from her. She was a violinist apparently, an orphan and lived alone in Bloomsbury.”

(The Doll)

Yet it is Rebecca’s own obsession that we are most surprised by. A life sized, mechanical doll called Julio. The images that du Maurier leaves us with here are rather disturbing, she creates atmosphere so well though. A story that may give the reader chills, but a fascinating, memorable early piece, nonetheless.

Du Maurier’s subjects vary considerably. In Now to God the Father – a society clergyman, very definitely doesn’t practice what he preaches and a young woman will suffer for it. While in the stories Piccadilly and Mazie – we are witness to the depressing realities of a life of prostitution. In Tame Cat – a young woman travels home, excited to be finally grown up. Now she believes life will begin. She is hurt therefore, and rather bewildered when her mother begins to see her as a rival – and Uncle John, who her school friends had once joked was her mother’s tame cat, is not quite what she thought. It is a rude awakening.

“And the chair was still empty, and the room looked lifeless and dull, and she was a little girl whose mouth turned down at the corners, who bit the ends of her hair, who wriggled with hunched shoulders, sniffing in a hankie, ‘It isn’t fair.”

(Nothing Hurts for Long)

One story I especially liked was Nothing Hurts for Long. A woman awaits the return of her husband after three long months working away. She begins to prepare herself in the morning, excited and happy, her pet canary sings cheerily in its cage. She imagine exactly how her husband’s home coming will be, arranges with her cook what food will be eaten. Then a friend rings up in great distress, and she runs over to console her, only half there, constantly thinking of the evening and her husband’s return. Later she will have cause to remember her friend and her words when her husband’s home coming isn’t as she had envisioned it. He arrives much later, has already eaten. Suddenly there’s a sense of everything being changed.

Du Maurier also shows us several incompatible relationships. In Frustration, a young couple marry in some haste, but then life isn’t as easy as they imagine, and really, they end up no better off than before. In A Difference in Temperament a young couple clearly love one another, yet she can’t bear for him to be away from, starting to imagine all sorts, while he is resentful of her needing him to be always there. We see the beginning of a relationship, that heady, excited middle bit and then its sudden collapse in the story Week-End. Similarly in And His Letters Grew Colder we see all stages of an illicit relationship – through to its bitter end, through the letters of the man. It’s a clever little story, because although we don’t hear from the woman herself, there’s enough context for us to almost hear her between the lines.

There’s a strange dream-like quality to The Happy Valley – in which a woman experiences a recurring feeling of déjà vu. Her recurring dream starts to feel as if it is coming true – and the world around her begins to have an other worldly feel to it. The final story in the collection is The Limpet – originally published in 1959, it is a much later story than the rest. It concerns a woman who blames the ill fortune that she feels has followed her through life – on her habit of always putting others before herself. Of course, as the reader sees immediately she has done no such thing. She is completley unaware however of how manipulative she has always been, and how ultimately she has ruined the lives of several people around her.

As early stories go, these really are good, I thoroughly enjoyed this collection. Here du Maurier shows us many flashes of the writer she would become, and all in all it was a pretty good start.

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The Loving Spirit – Daphne du Maurier (1931)

My first read for this year’s #DDMreadingweek was The Loving Spirit – Daphne du Maurier’s first novel. It’s an impressive debut – revealing her talent for weaving compelling stories together with her love for Cornwall.

The Loving Spirit is the story of a family across a period of about one hundred years. The family are the Coombes a family of boat-builders in Plyn a small coastal town in Cornwall. The boat yards and harbour of Plyn are a hive of activity in the early nineteenth century – it’s a place that du Maurier brings breathtakingly to life, place being so important in her writing.

The novel starts on the day that Janet Coombe marries her cousin Thomas. Janet had grown up with a fierce love of the sea, an untamed spirit that made her long for the kind of sea-faring adventures only reserved for men. She has always longed for the freedom of the sea, and spends many hours gazing out across the sea from the cliffs, dreaming of what it might feel like to sail off to new places, at one with the ocean.

“Now the mist had lifted, and Plyn was no longer a place of shadows. Voices rose from the harbour, the gulls dived in the water, and folk stood at their cottage doors.

Janet stood still on the hilltop and watched the sea, and it seemed that there were two sides of her; one that wanted to be the wife of a man, and to care for him and love him tenderly, and one that asked only to be part of a ship, part of the seas and the sky above, with the glad free ways of a gull.

Then she turned and saw Thomas coming up the hill towards her. She smiled and ran to him.”

Janet knows that can’t be her life, she puts aside her dreams and settles down to marry Thomas, a good kind man, a boat-builder who she loves and looks forward to sharing her life with. They move into an ivy-clad house standing away by itself – here Janet and Thomas raise their family. Thomas makes his living in the Coombe boat yard, a proud craftsman, looking forward to passing on his skills to his sons.

Janet has a deep love for her family, but that restless spirit remains a part of her, a yearning always for the waves. It’s this spirit that will be passed down through her children to her descendants.

“She gave to both Thomas and Samuel her natural spontaneity of feeling and a great simplicity of heart; but the spirit of Janet was free and unfettered, waiting to rise from its self-enforced seclusion to mingle with intangible things, like the wind, the sea, and the skies, hand in hand with the one for whom she waited. Then she, too, would become part of these things forever, abstract and immortal.”

Janet and Thomas have six children four boys and two girls. The eldest, Samuel will follow his father into the boatyard. Mary will stay at home, caring for her parents and later helping to care for the children of her siblings. Joseph is the third child born, a boy who looks like his mother and inherits that wild restless spirit, and yearning for the sea. Joseph’s wildness gets him into trouble time and again as he is growing up, only his mother can really calm him, only she really understands him, theirs is a unique bond. Joseph’s love for his mother is unsurpassed – he carries her with him always. From the time he is a little boy Joseph knows he will be a sailor. Younger brother Herbert will also, in time follow Thomas and Samuel into the Coombe boat yard. The youngest daughter will become a farmer’s wife, her husband a man that will show great friendship to Joseph and his children as the years pass. Philip on the other hand, is entirely different to the rest of the Coombe siblings. Philip has no interest in boatbuilding or sailing, he grows up to be a bitter, resentful man. He becomes clerk to a local shipbroking firm, intent on being a gentleman, he eventually rises to become the head of the company and a wealthy man by Plyn standards. His spite, and jealousy however will have a long and terrible reach.

A ship is built in the Coombe boat yard, built by Thomas and his sons – a ship that will be named the Janet Coombe, a ship which will be skippered by Joseph, taking goods from Cornwall all around the world.

As with so many Daphne du Maurier novels there is a lot that I can’t say for fear of spoiling it for others. What she does so well though, is to create a family, four generations are explored, their hopes, dreams, weaknesses, highs, and lows. The stories of the individual characters weave together across the decades, telling a story of the sea, boat building, family, and Cornwall.

The story follows Joseph, a renowned figure in Plyn, through the years of his tumultuous life. Joseph’s first love is the sea, but he marries twice and has four children.  His eldest son Christopher is the focus of the next generation and his fear for the sea and sea-faring will put him at odds with the father who loves him. The novel ends with Christopher’s daughter Jennifer at the end of the 1920s.

This is a wonderfully immersive novel, an escape that the reader really can’t help but be swept up by.

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Welcome to #DDMreadingweek 2022 – a giveaway!

Hello and welcome to the fourth #DDMreadingweek. It is that time of year again, which means that later this week, it will be Daphne’s (and my) birthday. That’s on Friday, when Daphne would have been 115 years old, I will be considerably younger.

I won’t be posting everyday – but I hope to get three book reviews up this week. Full disclosure: at the time of writing I have read two books, started the third and am behind on my review writing – so it’s possible review number three might be late. Anyway, I hope that won’t matter too much, as I know there are other DDM fans taking part this week, and I am so looking forward to seeing what everyone reads. As in previous years, there will be a dedicated page here on my blog – where I will be sharing other reader’s links to reviews. A way of finding great recommendations and maybe discovering new blogs to follow.

How to join in

• You don’t need to be a blogger
• Read a DDM novel, short story, story collection, or biography.
• Tell us what you are reading on Twitter, or Instagram using the hashtag.
• Share photos of your DDM read or your DDM books using the hashtag on Twitter or Instagram – (I am a bit rubbish at Instagram, but I keep trying.)
• Post your thoughts about the book you have read on Goodreads – and share the link to that on my blog or on Twitter – use the hashtag so I don’t miss it.
• Post comments/links on my blog, or on the blog posts of others.  

Giveaway – UK only, due to postage costs, sorry int’l readers.

I seem to remember I did a giveaway on the first #DDMreadingweek – and haven’t done one since.

There are two prizes – a first prize that I have provided, and a second prize provided very kindly by Virago – which will be sent out by them. I will enter everyone for both prizes – and on Sunday do two random name draws, the first name drawn will win the first prize, the second name drawn will win the second prize.

For the first prize I went shopping, I hope you all don’t mind that I chose the prize myself.

First Prize – VMC designer hardback and matching mug – Rebecca

I decided to offer a special copy of my favourite DDM novel Rebecca and the matching VMC mug. I already had this edition of the book and this mug, so there was no danger of me deciding to keep it for myself. These vmc designer edition hardbacks are delightful, such a pleasure to hold, and read. Every year I am so tempted to reread Rebecca – I loved it so much both times I read it. However, there are still DDM’s I haven’t read for the first time. As for the mugs, I have the full set. So, whether you have never read Rebecca before – or you rather fancy a beautiful new edition of an old favourite I hope I can tempt a few of you with this prize.

Second Prize – Poster – with thanks to Virago

Virago are offering a lovely, professionally printed cover image from The Birds – which will make a lovely poster. I can just imagine that striking image in a frame on the wall next to someone’s bookcase. Unfortunately, I don’t have an image of the poster to show you, but if you know what that cover looks like you will get the idea.

To enter the draw for either prize – simply pop a comment below telling me how/when you first discovered Daphne du Maurier and why you love her writing.

Winners will be contacted by email or Twitter DM. The First Prize will be sent out by me within two weeks of the draw. The winner of the second prize will have their name and address sent to Virago who will send out the prize, if you’re entering the draw then I assume you are consenting to me sharing those details with Virago should you win.

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Announcing #DDMreadingweek 2022

It’s that time of year again – well nearly!

Daphne du Maurier reading week is back – which this year will be the week beginning Monday 9^th May.

I have loved #DDMreadingweek the last three years, so many people have joined in, discovered, or remembered a love of all things Daphne and shared that with me and each other. I was wondering if I could manage it again this year, my reading and blogging has been pretty slow – but with the help and enthusiasm of Daphne du Maurier readers, I think it will be fine. After all, it’s all about Daphne, not my blog, so I probably won’t be posting on the blog more than two or three times during that week, however, I will be reading Daphne, sharing, and reading everyone’s posts. I am also planning a cheeky little giveaway 😉 as I didn’t do one last year – watch this space.

I share a birthday with Daphne du Maurier, so during the week of our birthdays I like people to read and review Daphne du Maurier books – fiction or nonfiction, share thoughts and pictures on social media – and generally get enthusiastic. You don’t need to have a blog, just join in any way you can. Cake is optional.

For me reading the fiction of DDM ticks so many boxes – and I assume that is why she remains so enduringly loved by readers. Whether you want novels or short stories, mystery, chills or romance, historical escapism, or something a little more contemporary (to her time of course) Daphne has the book for you. If you need any inspiration for what to read – have a look at the event page on my blog for last year’s event – here. Her writing is excellent, her sense of place, and the relationship she has with landscape in many of her books quite extraordinary. Classic, are classics for a reason.

I promise to get myself prepared – so if you follow me on social media and see my reading DDM books weeks before the event – don’t panic – I’m just getting ready. I have more unread Daphne du Maurier books tbr than I can possibly read in one week anyway, so I will have to start early.

I will let you all know what I am reading nearer the time, for now just let me know if you think you would like to join in.

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