I’m not usually one for satire or parody, but this book was surprisingly entertaining, poking humorously at Jane Austin, the Brontes, and Thomas Hardy. I enjoyed indefatigably perky Flora, who lands in with relatives in Sussex that she’s never met, and improbably turns the whole family around, with her no nonsense cheer and good attitude.

This is not easy to do, with Great Aunt Ada Doom, confined to her room these twenty years because she “saw something nasty in the woodshed.” But with Flors’s help, the gloomy place gets cleaned up, each one unites with their purpose or their destined mate, and even Great Aunt Ada comes around in the end.

Written in 1933, it is considered a classic, for the romp that it is. Apparently there are some movies of it too, but the book is so well written, I’d start there. I listened to the audio, which was well done, and then returned to reread some bits from a paper copy from the library. I give it  4 stars.