The Dashwood Sisters’ Secrets of Love

Product Description The Walker sisters have always lived a privileged life in their beloved Holly House in Sussex. Even though their father, Max Walker, has left the family to live with his new macrobiotic-food-obsessed trophy wife, Pandora, he has always doted on his girls. But then one day, reality crashes down around them when Max has a heart attack and passes away, uncovering the truth that he was knee deep in debt. The Walkers discover that their home is actually in Pandora’s name and she decides she wants it back. So the family has to uproot their lives and move to the seaside town of Norfolk in an old cottage. What happens then…? From School Library Journal Grade 8 Up-Ellie, Abby, and Georgie Dashwood dislike their father’s new wife and the effect she is having on him. When he dies suddenly, the girls and their mother learn that Mr. Dashwood left enormous debts and no inheritance, and the sting is even greater because he changed his will to leave the family’s ancestral home to the new Mrs. Dashwood. The girls must leave their private school near London and the only home they’ve known and move to a small cottage in the country. The sisters and their mother cope with their reduced circumstances in different ways. Ellie, the oldest, is the practical one who worries about everything but finds love. Abby, the drama-queen middle child, falls in love with the rich bad boy and ends up hurt, and Georgie, the youngest, is the tomboy who doesn’t realize the effect she has on a local boy. The girls’ mother just does a lot of hand-wringing. If the plot seems familiar, it should because the novel is presented as an “homage” to Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. The author does a decent job of modernizing the tale, but the writing lacks Austen’s subtlety and reads more like a movie script. In addition, the story is predictable, and the characters are all fairly static. However, the novel is enjoyable in the way that “beach books” are, and it will appeal to teens looking for something light and entertaining. The cover is eye-catching and au courant as well. -Cheri Dobbs, Detroit Country Day Middle School, Beverly Hills, MI Copyright (c) Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Gr. 6-9. Their parents’ divorce, followed by their father’s remarriage and sudden death, have forced Dashwood sisters Ellie, Abby, and Georgie to leave their posh family estate for a hayseed burg–a transition that feels “like finding yourself in the middle of a Jane Austen novel.” Indeed. In chronicling the sisters’ ensuing romantic entanglements, Rushton plunders freely from Sense and Sensibility, with alterations as necessary: conventions of Empire courtship give way to text messages and pub parties, and the replacement of the original’s selfish half-brother heir with a shrewish stepmom will prove more resonant to today’s readers. Other results of Rushton’s tinkering are less successful; for instance, the girls’ tender relationship with their father makes the frothier plot points following his death seem a bit discordant. Even so, this clever homage to a progenitor of chick lit will be snatched up as greedily by anglophiles as by readers who swear by Ann Brashares but don’t know Austen from Bronte. Jennifer Mattson Copyright (c) American Library Association. All rights reserved