The Pursuit of Love

There is a pile of books beside my bed that I have picked up read a couple of pages and then decided they need to be read when I have more time/can concentrate, a child free mini break perhaps? Lets be honest as a mum there is just so much else to read, endless, endless emails from school/cubs/scouts etc and of course dailymail.com.

The Pursuit of Love never made it onto the bedside table, it was devoured! Don’t be decieved by the title, this is not some sort of Mills and Boonesque romantic weep fest but a glorious romp written by Nancy Mitford and based losely around the infamous Mitford sisters early life.

As we are in an era of deep political unrest, when the 24hr a day media is trying to pursuade us that society and the world has never been in such a desperate state and the great Halloween debate now is ‘if I dress as a witch is some coven suddenly going to rear its head and accuse me of misappropriation?’, it is so refreshing to read a novel set in that unsettled time between the two world wars, with no political correctness, where in certain levels of society behaviours within marriage were not only accepted but expected. The girls in this novel were not fully educated, they were expected to marry within a set of guidelines that almost smacked of arranged marriage and the most feared and untrusted people were Germans.

I am not condoning any of the actions or behaviours in the book just like anyone who gets so much enjoyment from a murder mystery is condoning killing people but this book made me smile so much, usually the girls father who is of a generation, not bothered what he says or who he rubs up the wrong way.

So much was my enjoyment of this book that I quickly moved on to Nancy’s follow up novel Love In a Cold Climate, I was not disappointed.