O. Douglas

For adolescents.

Emma Penelope Clay was only twenty, and inexperienced in most things except the care of the pedigree Alsatians in whose world she had been brought up - and it might have seemed like leading a lamb to the slaughter when she went to work at the Kennels of the rich, spoilt Marian Mills. But there was an unexpected streak of firmness in Emma's character, which at least helped her to hold her own with her imperious employer. But the vet, Max Grainger, was a different kettle of fish indeed. Nothing in Emma's limited experience had taught her how to regard his enigmatical attentions - and when Miss Mills sharply ordered her not to get ideas about 'her' property, Emma had not enough self-confidence to disobey. But Max Grainger had not yet had the last word....

The pleasant story of the heroine of a previous book bringing her children back to spend the winter in the town where she grew up. (I think the book stands nicely alone if you haven't read Penny Plain, but if you have it is fun to catch up with the news of old friends.) An interesting contemporary story of life at the end of the 1920s. It is basically a story of domestic life (for somebody with no money worries), but through the heroine's friends and charitable interests we do see something of the problems in the wider world. A happily married heroine, but romance touches some of the other lives. A mostly light-hearted story with a little bit of tear-jerking, and a little bit of fun poked at some of the characters. This is a sequel to "Penny Plain", and we see glimpses of the heroine in "Pink Sugar" set in the same district, so the three books have sometimes been packaged as an omnibus.