Happy Ever After

After I blogged recently about Adele Geras' Apricots at Midnight, she very kindly sent me another of her books, Happy Ever After. I'm so glad she did, as I've had a really enjoyable time reading it. While Apricots is aimed at younger readers, this one is intended for what we call these days 'young adults'.

One important pre-requisite for a writer is having really good ideas, and Adele seems to have this in abundance. Happy Ever After is a collection of three stories, each of which could be read separately, but they are linked in two ways, by characters and by theme. The three stories all concern the same three girls, Megan, Alice and Bella, but each story is narrated by a different girl, whose story it is. Not only this, but also each of the three stories, though set in the mid-20th-century, is based on a traditional fairy tale. So Megan's story is an update of Rapunzel, Alice's of Sleeping Beauty, and Bella's of Snow White. But this is so cleverly done that it never seems crude or intrusive. So, in Megan's story, the three girls are at boarding school and sharing a room at the top of a tower. The school is also Megan's home, as she is an orphan and has been adopted by the (slightly witch-like) schoolteacher Dorothy. A young man, Simon, comes to work at the school, falls in love with Megan, and climbs up to her room via scaffolding which has been put up against the wall. But Dorothy has also fallen for Simon, and when she discovers the relationship she drives him away in a fury. Megan runs away to join him, but ends up lonely in another tower-like room in London while Simon works every day. She cuts off her long golden hair and eventually, unhappily, returns to school while Simon, hurt, goes off to America, possibly forever. Beautiful, delicate Alice lives in a grand mansion surrounded by a glorious rose garden. She has a  number of eccentric aunts and great aunts, who have all given her very special presents at her christening. But her unpleasant great-aunt Violette arrives from Paris and, furious at not having been invited, wishes ill on her, to befall on her 18th birthday. And sure enough, at her birthday ball, she suffers a horrendous attack and takes to her bed, refusing to speak or move, much to the distress of her parents. Bella, whose mother has died when she was a baby, has a bad relationship with her stepmother. She leaves home during the summer holidays and moves into a house in London inhabited by the seven members of a band, whose singer she becomes.  Several curious and worrying incidents occur which endanger her life, and she suspects her stepmother may in some way be responsible though she can't prove it. Of course this book is called Happy Ever After, so you may guess that these girls' stories will turn out alright in the end. They are such fun to read! As they stand up perfectly well in their own right, but have a huge added charm in that you keep recognising elements which link up with the original fairy tales, often used with great ingenuity and wit.

Comments

[adele geras]

Very pleasant to appear on this blog once again...thanks so much, Harriet. For anyone who's interested, I should add that the detail of the school (Roedean, 1962) is 100% accurate, right down to the texts we studied and the teachers and so forth. I did, indeed, share what we used to call the THREE ROOM at the top of my House while I was there...

[Harriet]

How really interesting, Adele. I did think it was incredibly authentic. Thanks so much for that info!

[Ruth]

Can you believe I haven't even SEEN an Adele Geras yet? I must do something about this oversight. Maybe I should just spend less time tethered to a computer and just pick up a book? First I wanted to read AAM and almost went to Borders one lunchtime but I have this puritan streak that stops me buying books unless they are £1.50 or less and lurking in a charity shop or at a jumble sale.

[Lyn Baines]

Harriet, the blog looks gorgeous - and music too! I've read about this AG novel somewhere else recently, do you think the book gods are trying to tell me something?

[Ruth]

I popped into Borders today in my lunch hour. I was going to treat myself to Apricots at Midnight & Happy Ever After. They didn't have them so I deduced that I wasn't "meant" to have them just yet!

[adele geras]

Very nice of you to try and find my books, Ruth, but they are NEVER ever in the shops. These buy one or two copies when the book first comes out; those get bought and are not replaced. So it goes for anything that isn't core stock....When the mood strikes you again, go to Amazon marketplace where you can find copies for pennies, literally! Good luck. And there is also the still-wonderful library service. I hope you will forgive this blatant self-advertisement!

[Harriet]

Thanks, Adele! Susan Hill has recently blogged about the book, did you see this? She bought it at a car boot sale for 20p! and put a nice picture on her blog.