Customer Reviews

Enchanted Barn

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is not a true copyrighted version of The Enchanted Barn. It is scanned and copied. There are many, many missing pages and the last several pages of the book are not included!!! How does it end? If you care, don't buy from this supplier.
Absolutely appalling that this lousy copy would make its way to Amazon!

This is the first GLH book I ever read and it remains my favorite, after having read most of the others. Again, we have a poor family--father deceased, mother very ill, numerous children--being taken care of by the oldest daughter on her small stenographer's salary. The dilemma is that their cheap rented house is about to be torn down so they must move in a few weeks. But how can they do this without money? Taking her only savings (10 cents), the oldest daughter takes advantage of an unexpected afternoon off from work to ride the train out to the country in the faint hope of finding something suitable and affordable. Once well out in the country, she overhears a conversation between other travelers about a barn in sight from the train tracks, and decides to get a closer look. Impossible though it seems to her at first, the lovely setting seems to be just what is needed to regain her mother's health and provide the children with space to play outdoors. Quickly tracking down the owner, she meets with his handsome son and timidly proposes the rental of the barn for their home. He is immediately sensitive to her dignity and hesitancy and need, and goes out of his way to help her and her family. The description of the barn remodeling is fun, with several side stories and characters. The romance is slow in developing, but results in the usual GLH happy ending.

I love the Grace Livingston Hill books. The woman says things in books that I've never ever heard anyone talking about. I love her boldness. I own two shelves of her books. If I heard of any more of them, I'd buy them in a heartbeat. But not this edition. I was so disappointed with all the rotten work that whoever put into it to get it into digital shape. I even wrote a letter to Amazon to complain. They sent me back a letter telling me to write them a letter, noting each page and line position telling them what the type actually said, and what it should be changed to. (I may not be remembering accurately here...but it was something "like" that. So I began to read the enchanted barn story all over again. I made many notations. But then I suddenly realized that my job is not as an editor. I am not a typesetter. All I am is a customer. Phooey on them!

I thought by putting it on my Kindle that I was in seventh heaven. Putting my favorite author into a format that was easy to read and to have always in good condition without having to be concerned with the pages coming out of the spine. Or old paper being fragile.

But this book? Lousy. thank you. It is not the author. I repeat: it is not the author. It just makes me super sad that whoever did such a bad job on the book actually got paid good money for doing it. Amazon, you took an excellent book and allowed somebody to really do a very poor job of making it digital.

I suggest that you go ahead and spend the money and buy an actual paper book. Then when it gets old, and the pages start falling out, just buy another paper book. I am quite tolerant of bad typesetting. But when it happens up to several times a page....I'm done with it. This is bad.

This is my favorite GHL bookI have read it five times ormore the story is just as fresh as it was the first timeI read it. It is a wonderful story of family life and how they stick together in the time of adversity, even if they have to live in a barn. Their faith in God and each other makes it a very heartwarming story in the style that GHL is famous for.

I've been reading and rereading Grace Livingston Hill novels since childhood, and they're the literary version of comfort food for me now. I was super excited when I started seeing Kindle versions of her work, only to run into the worst part of Kindle publishing--poor formatting and grammatical errors and typos so bad the work is completely unreadable. This is one of those versions. I had sent myself a sample of this novel that was eminently better, but I accidentally bought the wrong version. And even at $.99 this is NOT WORTH IT. Skip this version and find the one that costs $1.00. It has a couple of typos, but it is much much better.

As for the book itself, it is well worth the trouble of seeking out the better version. Shirley Hollister is responsible for finding a place to live for her family, fallen on hard times after the death of their father. On a drive out to the country one day, she comes upon an empty barn. It's a magnificent old stone barn, deserted now because the house on the property burned down. Shirley seeks out the owner and finds out she can rent it for a pittance. How she and her family move out to the country and turn their barn into a home (and how Shirley finds true love along the way) truly make for an enchanted tale.

Note: The book is certainly dated. It's contemporary for its time, but it was written several decades ago. It requires a considerable suspension of disbelief, and it's more fairy tale than traditional romance novel. It would also be considered Christian fiction now. But if you're into this kind of niche novel, then it is like wrapping yourself in a warm sloft blanket.

The book itself is wonderful, especially if you're a Grace Livingston Hill fan, or if you like sweet, old-fashioned love stories! But this edition, which is WAY too expensive, is also very very very poorly scanned copy--there are egregious errors on every single page, some becoming almost unreadable. Do not believe their hype about "preserving this important cultural item" You can get the regular paperback from Amazon, or undoubtedly from an auction site.

the story is sweet and charming, but the copy is of poor quality, with missing and misplaced words as well as misspelled words and odd symbols and missing passages.

I have always enjoyed any book by Grace Livingston Hill; been reading them since I was a girl. It always amused me at the Depression-era descriptions (five-cent crackers, a dime for carfare) but did remind me that things used to be that way. I have this book in paperback, very worn.

I was excited to order it for my Kindle. Only the love of the material is what gives this review the 3 stars. This edition is riddled with typos to the point that it is almost an effort to read it. Only my knowledge of how it is supposed to read (from numerous readings)kept me from deleting it from the Kindle. I would recommend that whoever is responsible for setting this up in Kindle format learn to type, or whatever.....the book deserves a better format than it is in now.

I am a young college student and picked up a 1st ed. copy of this book just because it looked so lonely in the library here. It is a typical G.L.Hill story about a poor girl and a rich man, but the writing and immagry, along with the fantasy of living in a abandon barn, is so touching that one learns to overlook the dated language and spelling (probably updated in the new ed.) It is in no way heavy handed and would make a fun black and white movie if anyone ever had the courage!

This is my favorite Grace Livinston Hill book, close tie with "Marcia Schuyler." You can find this story also in Collection Number 5, enter "Grace Livingston Hill, 5" to search on Amazon.com to find it in one paperback book with three other stories. That is the collection I own.

In this story, Shirley Hollister is the oldest daughter, supporting her ill mother and younger siblings after her father passed away. They are being evicted from their city home as it is to be torn down for bigger buildings, and Shirley does not know what to do. She uses her spare dime to take the longest city train ride she can find in hopes of spotting a place to live, which takes her out into the country where she spots a beautiful old stone barn surrounded by trees, a stream, and beautiful landscape. She decides to see if they could live there for the summer, and goes to talk to the wealthy young owner, Sydney Graham, to see if it can be rented. Sydney makes many improvements on the barn prior to the arrival of his new tenants, including adding partitions, a fireplace, windows, a pay phone, and running water, while being sensitive to Shirley's pride and her desire not to be an object of charity. Shirley and her siblings then fix the barn up with their old furniture, and surprise their ailing mother with a story of moving into a "shanty." The mother is overwhelmed with joy when she finds herself surrounded by such a lovely home in the country, and she begins to grow stronger. The children enjoy playing in the country after being shut up in the city, the youngest boy is separated from friends who were starting to be a bad influence on him, and the baby Doris endearingly watches the birdies. Things are going well until Shirley is called to Washington DC to assist with some important governmental papers for her employer, and a group of evil men kidnap her. You will have to read the story for yourself to discover the rather predictable happy ending. I love the part of fixing up the barn, and the sweet idealism of the story.