MARGOT*S NOVEL.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 165, 14 July 1928, Page 2 (Supplement)

MARGOT*S NOVEL.

No one could accuse Margot Oxford of reticence, and those who have read with perhaps mixed feelings the intimate accounts of her girlish experiences are somewhat prepared for the story of <3ctavia in the novel of that name. That the authoress sees herself seventeen again in the character of Octavia, and that she likes what she sees, is plain to read. The prominence of her nose, "a little insolent," but its effect "softened by the beauty of her eyes," her prowess out of doors, especially' l on horseback, her half-wild life on the Scottish estate, her somewhat unconventional habit of entertaining men friends in her bedroom—these ana many other characteristics point to antobiography. There is much romance in the book, and for those who are interested in hunting a good many days with the hounds are described with spirit. But there are too many wearisome descriptions of characters 'and, as usual in all the writings of "Margot," too little reserve. Octavia also, though individual and attractive by reason of her youth and pluck, strikes one as being somewhat too sure of herself, and the reader does not fall to her charms so readily as the many suitors who gather round her. She has the whole field to herself, for, with the exception of' one or two elderly women, it is a book of men, and the men, in spite of quite glaring lack of principle, are presented favourably to the reader. Taking it all together, the book is unsound ethically, and very uneven in style. "Octavia" is a Cassell's book, and comes to us through Whitcombe and Tombs.