Customer Reviews

Spanish 1 Expresate!

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

 

 

I enjoyed this book and I'm coming to enjoy Mary Rinehart's style of writing. It's a shame she's been sort of forgotten nowadays when she was a best selling author way back at the beginning of the 20th century.

The story is a comedy of errors among the privileged class. Society gal Kit McNair tries to do her friend Jim a favor by posing as his wife so his aunt (who holds the purse strings) won't know he's divorced. A small dinner party at Jim's house quickly falls apart when the servants run for the hills after the butler is initially diagnosed with smallpox and the entire house is quarantined. Things are made even more difficult when Jim's actual ex-wife invades the scene and is forced to be cooped up with the now helpless group. (The men don't even know how to shave themselves!)

As they attempt to survive the week, and each other, to see if anyone will come down with the disease, there's a minor mystery of some missing jewelry. But we're not here for that, we're in it for the romance. For Jim, who's still in love with his ex, is trying to woo her back, making it look like he's cheating on Kit when he's really not since they're not married. Meanwhile, Kit is developing a soft spot for Tom, one of the other guests, but he thinks she's married to Jim and Tom is livid at Jim's blatant infidelity.

Add to the melee demanding Aunt Selina, who doesn't like Kit but expects her to fight for her man (which really _isn't_ her man), a group with cabin fever determined to break OUT of the house, a swarm of reporters and cops determined to keep them IN the house, and the struggle to figure out how to make an omelette and you have a pretty funny book with loveable characters and a quick pace.

Very much in the style of Wodehouse. A delightful comedy about a bunch of silly rich people who get stuck quarantined in a house with no servants for a week. Complications include a jewel thief, a rich aunt, the main character pretending to be married to the nephew and a jealous ex-wife. A quick read and lots of fun.

I really loved this book. I thought it was very well written, full of humor and wit. Definitely a must read! I can't wait to read more books by this author!

This book took off slow, then never really moved much at all. It was a bit too corny. I like a good comedy, but this was not it, at least not for me. I could not finish it. I read a good 20 pages before giving up.

I do understand why earlier reviewers here liked this book. But I must confess that the artificiality of the main characters -- they are rich, idle, silly, useless nincompoops -- turned me off. I had heard of Mary Roberts Rinehart all my life and recalled my mother reading her later novels. But I had never read anything by her, even though I knew she was a pioneer American mystery writer. It was the setting of this novel that irritated me and maybe I'll give Rinehart a try again in the future. And I will admit that this locked-room mystery (or, rather, locked-house [because of a smallpox quarantine]) is fairly neatly plotted. Hence three stars rather than the one-star I would have given it if it hadn't been for the plot.

When I bought my house that was built in 1861 I had a final walkthrough with the owner.
I pointed out to him he had left a book on the library shelf.
"The house wants it there"; he said with a very serious face.

In the three years that I owned the house, it did indeed want it there.
Taking it down resulted in all sorts of strange things. For me,it caused a bloody nose at night.
For the house, strange things happened. Pipes would leak, circut breakers would blow, stuff would fall.
On winter the pipes froze, even though it was not that cold outside.

Putting it back made all the strange things stop.

When I sold the house I didn't tell the new owners. I didnt want them to not buy the house.
The day after they moved in I got a bloody nose. After two whole days I called them and asked them to please put the book back on the library shelf.

I'll be moving 400 miles away. Hopefully that is the end of it.