I've just read this for the first time and thought it was brilliant. There were a lot of familiar themes in it (two sets of twins out of eight new girls ), but it was written in that lovely light-hearted way which we get in the very early years of the CS but then lose. For example, there was a lot of moaning about slang, but it was done by one of the dads and everyone clearly regarded him as a fuddy-duddy, whereas by the later Swiss books we get the prefects carrying on as if using slang is a serious criminal offence .

It didn't have the glamour of the Tyrolean or Swiss settings (with all due respect to the North York Moors, a very nice part of the country) or the nice family feeling of the early CS books, but I think it's the best of the EBD one-offs. It predates The School by the River , but it feels as if it shouldn't do, because The School by the River and Gerry are both a bit too flowery whereas this isn't at all. Usual gripes about the patronising attitude towards "villagers" , but other than that I thought it was excellent, and would be interested to know what other people thought of it.

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

This was the second non-CS that i read. I feel that is almost a distillation of what makes the CS books so good!

I also thoroughly enjoyed this books for all the points mentioned above!

It's not a one-off, Alison - there is a second one - Caroline the Second -= with some of the same characters about 5 years later. I loved it too - though the names of those girls!!! Can see what EBD means when she gets Joey going for plainer names

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Lime Green Musing http://www.annersley.co.uk
New RCS started on Lime Green Musing

I've got this one but haven't read it yet. I can see I shall have to do so soon!

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"And I'm sure there was blood in the gutter from somebody's head, or else it was the sunset in a puddle."

Oh good, I didn't realise that Caroline the Second featured the same characters .... *heads over to Amazon*. Thank you!!

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

The juniors in the first book are the seniors in the second

Caroline the Second also has the link to Elizabeth the Gallant.

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The writer's credo: 'Sometimes you've got to sacrifice the things you like' (Delta Goodrem - Born To Try)

I loved Elizabeth the Gallant as well. I get the impression most people don't, but I did .

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

I preferred Caroline the Second to Thrilling Term at Janeways.

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You should live each day as though you are going to live forever and as though you will die tomorrow.

Sorry, still catching up - I love A Thrilling Term at Janeways; I also like Caroline the Second but I've not had it that long and don't know it nearly so well.

OK, some of it is clearly in 'author's pleasure' territory - the unusual names (especially those of the Valentine sisters), the multiple twins, the descriptions of landscape, and above all the melodramatic back story of the Nethecote family. But somehow those things are balanced within the storyline, and add to the reader's pleasure (well, this reader's, anyhow). I think my favourite characters are the vicar Mr Amherst and his magnificent cat King Solomon!

Oops, I've just realised I posted this in the wrong forum: I meant to put it in Thrilling Terms. Anyway! I'm reading Caroline the Second now.

Just off to post in Recommendations about this, but I wish EBD had written a book about Caroline the First. I see that Janeways was supposed to've been founded in the mid-1820s, which'd put it a good 20-25 years ahead of Cheltenham Ladies' College and the North London Collegiate, which're normally seen as being in the vanguard of that sort of education for girls, and half a century ahead of the main wave of founding independent schools for girls.

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

It would be about the same age as the now, sadly, closed Casterton School, which was attended by the Bronte sisters, and possibly used as the model for Lowood in Jane Eyre. It's also more than a hundred years younger than my old school. So it's unusual, but not totally unrealistic.

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A schoolgirl answered the question 'In what countries are elephants found?'
'Elephants are very large and intelligent animals, and are seldom lost.'

Ah - I should have thought of Casterton, seeing as I took a diversion to see it (I love Jane Eyre) on the way back from my one and only visit so far to Sedbergh . Thank you!

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

I think the school that was the model for Lowood Institute was Cowan Bridge in Lancashire IIRC

It's the same school. Cowan Bridge is a few miles down the road, and they moved.

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A schoolgirl answered the question 'In what countries are elephants found?'
'Elephants are very large and intelligent animals, and are seldom lost.'

I've read Caroline the Second now, and really enjoyed that as well. I wish EBD had tried those plotlines out in the CS as well. Basilia (she really did get a bit carried away with the names in the Janeways books!) was the sort of baddie prefect/HG's nemesis that I'd love to have seen Phil Craven be allowed to develop into, rather than being packed off to South Africa. I know Eilunedd was a baddie, briefly, but Peggy was too stupid to realise what was going on, whereas Mary-Lou and Phil would've been brilliant foils for each other . And I'd like to've seen one of the MBR girls, probably Margot, admit that having CS tradition and tales of Joey's schooldays shoved down her throat all the time did her head in!

Thanks for recommending Caroline - I hadn't previously realised that it was a sequel to Janeways.

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

So would I. I think it would make an interesting storyline with how Joey coped with it and the daughter in question. In saying that there is a brief hint with Joey saying Felicity wasn't as keen on the school as her sisters were and Joey asking Margot to be patient with her about it. I can't see Margot ever saying CS tradition etc did her head in as she was desperate for her mothers attention and love after being separated from them in Canada and did have two years at a different school.

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You should live each day as though you are going to live forever and as though you will die tomorrow.

I'd love to see Felicity torn between tradition (going to CS) and wanting to further her career as a dancer and wanting to go to Royal Ballet School.

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Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?

So would I Sellenger and Felicity making the right decision - The Royal Ballet School!