TWO LOVE NOVELS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 108, 3 November 1923, Page 17

TWO LOVE NOVELS

'■Green Dusk for Dreams," and "Happy Chance.' 1 Cecil Adair. London: Stanley Paul and Co.

Cecil Adair as a writer of "Joy of Life" novels has become quite a favourite . among readers who thrive on the "love element " in fiction. She possesses insight, keen observation, a wide human sympathy, and a clear judgment as to what her countless readers like. In these, -her latest . novels, she has given her public two charming romances, both' set in the war period but away, from-jts stress-and turmoil. In "Happy Chance,"- a war-shattered hero finds solace in a country place in France, where his sister presides over a. stately home, set in exquisite i surroundings. Love for ■the ward of an' austere neighbour comes to the man, ,but she is a mere child, and Cecil Adair pictures his despair vividly. As in all good staries, though^ the two are brought together, and a twofold love drama, not without its comedy relief, is worked • out to a happy conclusion. The romance between the ' scion of an old French house and a" convent-bred seamstress is told in " Green Dusk for Dreams,' 1 a story almost fairylike. The girl who has come to the ancestral house to work on its famous tapestries meets the son, who has returned from the'war with an English"chum. The French boyis. a: dreamer, and his "more practical friend presents a striking cdntrast. In ■an. idealistic, spiritual fashion the girl and boy love, and they marry, but war injuries', confine the youthful, husband to his bed, ;'and-there he remains a cripple .till death' claims Jiim. The Englishman cares for ihe fragile widow. . tenderly, and from "their/association, hallowed by the memory of the true friend they both knew, grows a .love which is a combination of many excellent qualities. There is no real plot, but the pen picture Miss Adair paints is wholesome in its purity.