The Undone Years
Jenny Haworth
Wily Publications, $34.99, pbk
New Zealand historic novelist Jenny Haworth takes the immediate period after the end of World War 1 as the setting for her story about the travails of the central character, Caroline Allen, a young Christchurch arts student who finds love and adventures in Europe.
Caroline, in the care of husband-hunting friend Judy Wilson and her snobbish mother, revels in exploring the art-rich purlieus of Paris.
Her heart is smitten when she meets Ashley Carrick-Jones, a British army officer and journalist who, an observer at peacetime gatherings, meets perils in the vanquished cities of Berlin, Vienna and Budapest.
This is a distinctly wooden romantic novel, in which the characters resemble cardboard cutouts, and the plot is unimpressively simplistic.
Dialogue sample: "When they had found a seat he said, `You taste, feel and smell wonderful . . .'" Ashley to Caroline.
Annoyingly, the author has ignored completely the usual rules of punctuation, a deficiency which her editor should have remedied.
- Clarke Isaacs is a former chief of staff of the Otago Daily Times.
