A Mislaid Magic - Hardcover

A child's-eye view of sex and sexuality among Britain's elite that has a tone coy enough to turn off all but the most rabid Anglophile. This first novel opens in 1937 with 18-year-old narrator Amity Charlotte Augusta Savernake and her sister Claudia watching as their stepmother, Sonia, flees from the arts festival that she herself established at the family seat, Gunville Place. Amity, more commonly known as Amy, quickly flashes back to 1924 when her mother dies and her father marries Sonia, who had been his secretary, choosing her over Amy's beloved nanny. Social-climbing Sonia is delighted to become the Countess of Osmington, and Amy and the rest of her family are unkind to her. Then, in 1927, on a trip to London with Amy, Sonia runs into an old acquaintance, Rudi Longmire, who incites Sonia to organize the arts festival and throws their quiet country home into a tizzy. Youngsters Amy and Claudia (a few years her senior) are very curious about the facts of life (which they call ``doing sex''). By eavesdropping on the artists preparing for the festival, they learn a lot but understand little. Amy overhears one man telling another that, although he's a ``dedicated `so,' '' he's not blind to Sonia's charms. When Sonia acts in a play with some racy scenes, Amy reports, ``I went all hot, and Claudia gave me a great nudge. We had no doubt that this was exactly how SEX should be done.'' The high point for Amy is when her great aunt finally explains sex clearly and honestly. Stuffiness and back- stabbing run rampant among the guests and family. When Claudia asks desperately ``Is it going to be like this when we grow up, Amy? Having to mix with our own class however stupid and boring,'' it is all too easy to agree with her judgment. A hasty ending brings events up to date through the end of the war and ties storylines up neatly. Suffers from a bad case of the cutes. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Since Windsor's first novel finds an assured voice only about halfway through, its title is ironically appropriate. The plot, set between the two world wars, concerns the struggles of a lonely, motherless English girl, daughter of an earl, to forge her own identity amid insular surroundings. In 1926, eight-year-old Amy Savernake is desperately hoping for some excitement at her family's solemn Dorset estate. Her wish is granted when Rudi, an arts promoter and acquaintance of her stepmother, Sonia, offers to stage a theater festival there. The festival brings thrilling outsiders into the girl's world and irrevocably changes it as, under Rudi's tutelage, Amy for the first time experiences a sense of belonging. Windsor's storytelling is marred by thin characterizations and stiff dialogue, but she captivates through her use of symbols-for example, evocatively melding Sonia's longings for a child of her own with the mythic powers of a giant fertility figure carved into a nearby hillside. Though the novel seems episodic and disjointed at times, it finally coheres around a moment when Amy grasps that fulfillment grows out of charting one's personal destiny: "Life as it passes seems a muddle, all unconnected bits and pieces, but they come together when we get things right." Windsor seems likely to get things right with her next effort.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.