Crossing the Tamar

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining in every way - unputdownable
Review: I always enjoy Elizabeth Hawksley's novels - her characters and situations are believable and original. This I think is definitely her best novel. There was little I could fault in it - and if I did, it felt like nit-picking.
Selwood Priory is inherited by Rev. Veryan Selwood from his extremely dissolute old relative, Sir Walter (an old-fashioned, drinking, gambling, wenching English squire type straight out of Tom Jones). However, the old lech also left a daughter Dorothy, as well as his discarded mistress(who was Dorothy's governess many years ago) and his two illegitimate children by her. Apparently he spread his favours far and wide, leaving a bevy of futher illegitimate children, who crop up throughout the novel in various stations in life.
The Priory is not exactly a well run estate and a large part of Sir Walter's income is derived from extremely profitable smuggling operations. Dorothy has a serious stake in this, as the funds for the ship involved was filched by her dear father from her dowry.
So the stage is set - Veryan is very much the quiet, bookish, terribly innocent man of learning; Dorothy is prepared to resent him for disrupting their lives and particularly is concerned for her ex-governess and half siblings.
These two are poles apart - so they each grow and discover each other in the course of the story. Veryan learns not to be so rigid, Dorothy learns there is far more to him and that, in the end, he has the intelligence to properly run the estate once he finds his way.