Advent Reading Challenge Day Ten

Your Favourite Festive Treat

For many years there were books that I read every Christmas. That habit died out the year I spent Christmas in Norway and took with me books I didn’t need to bring back home. I’ve almost forgotten what it was like to travel with my hand luggage consisting only of books! For today’s choice I’ve gone back to pre-Norway times and selected one of my Christmas books: Charlotte Fairlie by DE Stevenson.

Charlotte is the headmistress of a girls’ school. It is, in fact, the school she attended. She’s young for the job, but old for her age, and she fills the position well. But Charlotte is lonely. Her family background is one of those tragic ones that DE Stevenson creates fairly frequently, and her only relative is her uncomfortable Aunt Lydia. Her position in the school has has made her shy away from making friends with any of the staff, and she has little contact with anyone beyond its walls.

Then into her life from the west coast of Scotland comes a new pupil Tessa MacRynne. Tessa is the daughter and only child of a laird, who lives on Targ, a small island. She has been educated at home and taught to take responsibility for others. She quickly stands out at school amongst pupils and staff alike, mostly positively. Tessa is a catalyst for change in Charlotte’s life but not everything runs the way Tessa would like.

DE Stevenson isn’t the world’s greatest writer but she does create believable and endearing groups of characters, as well as evocative settings.  I’ve read all her books (I think!) and quite a few of them (Bel Lamington, The Blue Sapphire, Listening Valley) were contenders for this place.  So why Charlotte Fairlie?  Well, I like the contrasts it portrays: school and home, staff and pupils, company and solitude, friendship and love.  I find Charlotte a sympathetic character too.  And then there’s Targ, an idyllic enclosed community.