There were “few openings for women in the nineties” and, so, Mary Wakefield is forced to consider work as a governess in the 1890s. She is fortunate, in fact, that Ernest Whiteoak is seeking a governess for his brother’s young son (nine years old) and daughter (seven years old). Their mother
As is fitting for the opening story of Mavis Gallant's second published collection, My Heart is Broken, many themes feel familiar. The question of what constitutes a "good" woman, particularly when she is not a wife. The dilemma of trying to live an interesting life while maintaining a sheen of
Exploring in the back country of Santa Barbara County California, Margaret Millar discovered a group of abandoned buildings on top of a ridge of the Santa Ynez mountains. The view was incredible: the Pacific Ocean, the Santa Ynez valley, Lake Cachuma, and the San Rafael mountains, along with a main
When you've looked up a book title, have you ever been tempted by the other books you've found with the same title as the book for which you were searching? In adding Lori McNulty's debut short story collection to my online TBR list, I discovered several other books with the same
Although the last of the Jalna books written, Morning at Jalna is only the second in the sequence. It is set while the civil war is raging in the southern United States, and readers are immediately informed that the Whiteoaks are sympathetic to the southerners. In school, during the 1970s
