Lionel Young and his sister, Imogen, set out for the picturesque but remote High Valley in Colorado, leaving their hometown in Devonshire, England behind. Lionel wants to take the share in Geoffrey Templestowe’s cattle business. Imogen, owing to her prejudices against America and the American way of life, finds it hard to adjust to life over there.
Clover Templestowe, now happily married and living in the High Valley, at first finds it very trying to get on with Imogen.
A lot of events ensure in the course of which we meet again with Rose Red, get news from Cousin Helen and of course meet Katy again…
MY THOUGHTS:
Warning: This is the last book in Susan Coolidge's 'What Katy Did' series. Plot spoilers of events that happened in or directly after the former stories are inevitable, because of where this one picks up from.
Oh gosh, this is as cheesy a story as you could stumble across, yet a must-read for anyone who has finished the rest of Susan Coolidge's Katy Chronicles, because it provides some lovely closure for the rest of the Carr siblings, wrapping things up nicely for Clover, Elsie, Dorry, Johnnie and Phil.
First off, I'm a great fan of the Elsie/Clarence match which we're simply dropped into. I'd been a little disappointed when Clover didn't choose him, but this is so much better! I'm certain these two former misunderstood and overlooked kids must have bonded over shared stories about the woes of being younger siblings. That's my guess, but all we're really told is that he swept her off her feet and now they have a baby daughter. Whoa, talk about tantalizing major story gaps. I liked both Elsie and Clarence a lot, even though they each had their difficult moments, as the little we got of them was always larger than life.
So Geoff and Clarence are still ranch partners in the High Valley, while Clover and Elsie are equally busy on the home front, keeping their communal house beautiful and popping out offspring for the boys. It's quite restful reading about their pastoral lifestyle, sixteen miles from civilization, beneath all those mountains, and among all those fragrant flowers.
Their nearest neighbours are a young brother and sister duo named Lionel and Imogen Young, who have come all the way from Devonshire. They were neighbours of Geoff Templestowe's family. Lionel has worked as a sort of teenage apprentice with Geoff and Clarence before, and now he's all set to buy into a share of the ranch himself, while Imogen is going to keep house for him. According to the narrator, many sisters make this sacrifice for their brothers, but I can't imagine myself being one of them.
Imogen is homesick for the British coast and predisposed to look down her nose at all things American. We're also told she's sort of frumpy, a little jealous of Clover, and would have preferred moving to somewhere such as Canada or Australia, for colonial reasons we assume. A bit slow on the uptake, Imogen lets out a lot of unintentional racial gaffes which mildly shock her nineteenth century neighbours and probably appall many of her twenty-first century readers. Put it this way, Susan Coolidge would never get this story past a sensitivity editor in its current state.
There are visits from several old faces from earlier books, including the awesome (Rose Red), the annoying (Mrs Watson), and the closest family members (Dorry and Johnnie, and later Katy and Papa). Hold onto your hats for the romantic roller coaster at the end. Coolidge justifies all that happens by saying, 'In a retired place like the High Valley, intimacies flourish with wonderful facility and quickness.' I'll say they do, to such an extent that the boys ought to consider setting up their ranch as some sort of love shack on the side, for a secondary income.
It's all good fun, and reminds me a bit of The Enchanted April in some ways. It's probably a two star read, but I'll add another one because of Elsie and Clarence.
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