Rating: 
Summary: Utterly Enjoyable!
Review: I truly enjoyed this book. Van Reid really captures the era. I felt a bond with the time and characters. I am currently reading his newest Mollie Peer. I hope that he continues on with the series and that others will discover Maine in the late 1800's. It is a refreshing break from the books that seem to populate the top 100. We need more authors like this.
Rating:
Summary: Utterly Enjoyable!
Review: I truly enjoyed this book. Van Reid really captures the era. I felt a bond with the time and characters. I am currently reading his newest Mollie Peer. I hope that he continues on with the series and that others will discover Maine in the late 1800's. It is a refreshing break from the books that seem to populate the top 100. We need more authors like this.
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite books
Review: Mr. Reid's tales of adventure, romance, and friendship in nineteenth-century Maine are the sort of books I eagerly seek. The stories are charming but not cloying, humorous but not mocking. Mr. Reid believes in the better angels of ourselves, and his hope and faith in his characters sings in this world of cynicism. Besides, the stories are great reads. I've recommended this book to every friend who loves a good story.
Rating:
Summary: A book that will transport you to another time and place
Review: On the back of the dust jacket, the blurb about the author of 'Cordelia Underwood', Van Reid, simply states that he has been the assistant manager of a book store for the past seven years. This must be an example of great modesty, because this book is nothing short of a work of genius. After reading 'Cordelia Underwood' I would have thought that Mr. Reid would surely have various degrees and titles to his name, the least of which would have been Professor of Literature at some fine college, and the most of which would have been Historian and Archivist for The Moosepath League.Van Reid has written a good old-fashioned yarn that includes humor (the laugh-out-loud variety, and lots of it,) wit, romance, and an undeniable sense of adventure that sweeps the reader away to another time and place. The cast of wonderful characters and the eloquent and the stylishly written narrative transform themselves into a vivid, transportive tale, the likes of which I have never read before. Although I have read many books, and wished myself a part of them, I have never had the yearning to have known the characters and participated in the adventures written about, as I had with 'Cordelia Underwood.' I was truly saddened that the book had to end. To try to describe the plot, or explain its finer points, would only take away from the experience of reading this book, so, suffice it to say that a chance meeting at a local wharf between Cordelia Underwood and Tobias Walton starts these two on numerous solo and intersecting adventures. In addition, any attempt on my part to describe these two main characters would only detract from the pleasure you will have in meeting them for the first time yourselves. I love this book and I completely recommend it to everyone. Read it NOW.
Rating:
Summary: delightful, soft fiction on the early coast of Maine. great!
Review: This is a delightful story of a young woman's inheritance and her journey through the Maine coast of the late 1800s as she claims her legacy. Strikingly similar in style and tone to Dickens' Pickwick Papers, Reid has woven a fun tale, with characters that come alive with adventures devoid of useless violence and sex, but rather the depth of character one would find in American Classics. Van Reid may well be the next Garrison Keillor as he brings us back to a time that is complex, not with technical wizardry, but with the evolution of society. You truely feel the wharfs of old Portland and smell the salt air of the seashore of Wiscasset. The twists and turns of the story line emphasize the characters and highlight a time gone by. Not only a great summer read, but a collectors item as well. I loved it.
Rating:
Summary: "The Pickwick Papers" Goes To Maine
Review: Usually when authors are characterized as writing in "Dickensian Style" it means they are writing about an enormous cast of characters inhabiting the squalid streets of Victorian London. However, Dickens also had a lighter side, with The Pickwick Papers being his most lighthearted comedy. Van Reid has taken much of the flavor of The Pickwick Papers and moved it to Victorian Maine. Instead of Mr. Pickwick and his man-servant Sam Weller, we now have Mr. Walton and his servant Sundry Moss. Instead of the Pickwick Club, we have the Moosepath League. There is an adventurous journey, a little romance, and in the end the bad guys get their due. What makes this novel stand out so much from other recent novels is how very likable Van Reid makes his characters. Whether clever or addle-pated, young or old, heroic or not-so-heroic, all the characters are jovial and fun to spend time with. They are polite, tell great stories, and smile a lot. I don't often give the highest rating, but I had such a good time visiting these people that they deserve no less than 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: "The Pickwick Papers" Goes To Maine
Review: Usually when authors are characterized as writing in "Dickensian Style" it means they are writing about an enormous cast of characters inhabiting the squalid streets of Victorian London. However, Dickens also had a lighter side, with The Pickwick Papers being his most lighthearted comedy. Van Reid has taken much of the flavor of The Pickwick Papers and moved it to Victorian Maine. Instead of Mr. Pickwick and his man-servant Sam Weller, we now have Mr. Walton and his servant Sundry Moss. Instead of the Pickwick Club, we have the Moosepath League. There is an adventurous journey, a little romance, and in the end the bad guys get their due. What makes this novel stand out so much from other recent novels is how very likable Van Reid makes his characters. Whether clever or addle-pated, young or old, heroic or not-so-heroic, all the characters are jovial and fun to spend time with. They are polite, tell great stories, and smile a lot. I don't often give the highest rating, but I had such a good time visiting these people that they deserve no less than 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: A Kindred Spirit to Red Headed Anne
Review: Van Reid has crafted a delightfully charming work. CORDELIA UNDERWOOD actually made me, a deep-fried Southern Belle, dream of adventuring in the very New England setting inhabited by the members of the MOOSEPATH LEAGUE. I look forward with great anticipation to reading all the books in the series and sincerely hope that there will be many more escapades to read about in years to come. If you are a fan of Miss Read's English villages, Jan Karon's Mitford, and L.M. Montgomery's ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, then Van Reid's Maine missives are for you!
Rating:
Summary: A Kindred Spirit to Red Headed Anne
Review: Van Reid has crafted a delightfully charming work. CORDELIA UNDERWOOD actually made me, a deep-fried Southern Belle, dream of adventuring in the very New England setting inhabited by the members of the MOOSEPATH LEAGUE. I look forward with great anticipation to reading all the books in the series and sincerely hope that there will be many more escapades to read about in years to come. If you are a fan of Miss Read's English villages, Jan Karon's Mitford, and L.M. Montgomery's ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, then Van Reid's Maine missives are for you!
Rating:
Summary: Delightful story, beautifully told
Review: Van Reid has written an homage to turn-of-the-century Victorian novels with Cordelia Underwood, or the Marvellous Beginnings of the Moosepath League and its delightful sequels. It's a romance, a treasure hunt, a mystery, quirkily wriggling between genre descriptions...Wonderfully evocative of the novels of the period, but with a modern humor and sensibility. Wonderful descriptions of the small towns of Maine in 1898 as well. Having visited Maine for years, I can testify that it's a true picture of the scents and sights and sounds. Very well done, and I'm eager for the next book in the series to be published.
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