The Fountain of Delight [Hardcover]

Anne Weale (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

No fountain splashes in this overwritten, unrealistic second book about the English Longwarden estate and its inhabitants, sequel to All My Worldly Goods. Some half-dozen subplots, each concerning a couple's relationship--beginning, in full swing or in decline--drown the reader in details and obscure the main plot. On the long list of characters are the count and countess of Carlyon, new owners and restorers of Longwarden, and their extended family. The plan for renovating the establishment includes importing specialists from London to live-in: a garden planner, an architect, a French chef, a secretary--in addition to the local villagers who work in the manor house and grounds. Everyone in this overly class-conscious story is a perfect specimen of his or her social caste. Enumerations of the house furnishings, the renovation process and the progress of every relationship, whether casual or serious, slow the pace of the book to a crawl. The mystery of an arsonist in the area--who may be a good guy gone bad--doesn't much affect either characters or action, and is resolved predictably and painlessly. After an inordinate amount of time and ink is spent, each subplot concludes happily--no surprise to the benumbed reader.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 457 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1St Edition edition (December 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312050909
• ISBN-13: 978-0312050900
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,546,573 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Actually, a great story sequel, January 6, 2005

By 

Sample Reader (Rochester, MN, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fountain of Delight (Hardcover)

Despite the negative review from Publisher's Weekly, I enjoyed this sequel to All My Worldly Goods. I enjoyed reading about the characters' lives in the first book, and I wanted to hear what happened next.
There are several story lines in Fountain of Delight, all of them involving people connected with the Carlyon's home. The story jumps from one story to the next, often in alternating paragraphs even, which was rather distracting sometimes when something significant was happening in one story line, and it skipped to another line after only a couple paragraphs of the first, and then back and forth, but it did give a sense of the simultaneous progression of the people's lives. Each person is treated as a whole person, with their individual histories explaining why they talk and feel as they do. Being part Asian and part white myself, I particularly liked the parts dealing with mixed relationships.

I was reviewing what else Amazon had by Weale because I was hoping to find a book about these characters' further adventures. I didn't want the story to end, because people's lives don't end neatly and cleanly, and I still wasn't satisfied that I'd read all I wanted to when the story ended.

Weale gives enough of past history so the reader doesn't have to have read All My Worldly Goods to understand this story, but it helps to understand why the story starts out as it does.