A Peaceful Retirement (Fairacre)

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book that brings us home.
Review: I enjoyed this book just as much as I have all the other books written by Miss Read. The reason that I enjoyed this book so much was that it was like catching up with old friends and being transported back to the Village and all the surrounding scenery which captures my imagination. I recommend that you read not only this book but all those that Miss Read (Dora Saint) has written for anyone that enjoys people and a very descriptive story which includes the lovely countryside that one can only imagine. I will miss my friends very much. Thank You Dora Saint for giving me many hours of pleasure.

Rating:
Summary: miss read's #1 fan!!!
Review: I just finished reading "A Peaceful Retirement". Just like her other books, it was excellent reading. I was sorry when the book ended because I wanted to read more. Few years ago I wrote Miss Read a letter stating I loved all her books. She was kind enough to write me a handwritten letter in reply. After a hetic day, I look forward to reading her books and revisit the loveable characters in the quiet town.

Rating:
Summary: miss read's #1 fan!!!
Review: I just finished reading "A Peaceful Retirement". Just like her other books, it was excellent reading. I was sorry when the book ended because I wanted to read more. Few years ago I wrote Miss Read a letter stating I loved all her books. She was kind enough to write me a handwritten letter in reply. After a hetic day, I look forward to reading her books and revisit the loveable characters in the quiet town.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book that brings us home.
Review: I love all of Miss Read's books about Fairacre and am sorry to see the stories end. This book was the perfect way to conclude the series and I will continue to read all the books many times over. Thank you Dora Saint for sharing the life of the village with us.

Rating:
Summary: Much-loved series reaches finale
Review: Miss Read has written over 40 titles, with this final tome describing how her headmistress heroine copes with her new-found life of leisure.

In an afterword, the author says she is laying down her pen "with a thankful heart". It is all the more surprising therefore that these final tales show no sign of staleness. In fact, "A Peaceful Retirement" is quite playful in tone as Miss Read copes valiantly with a series of unlooked-for marriage proposals.

Given that the school year is so regular the author manages to describe events such as Christmas celebrations and harvest festivals with no sense of repetition, and as ever captures the tensions between town and country living, children's and adult worlds and men and women beautifully.

With this book Dora Saint, the real-life Miss Read, can take her own retirement from authorship knowing that she has served her readers well.



Rating:
Summary: Miss Read returns us again to a place we may already live.
Review: Miss Read's novels capture the best aspects of the small town provincial novel--the sense of connection, the wry Austenisms--while leaving the sentimentality and pollyanna-ism sometimes afflicting the genre to her lesser imitators. A Peaceful Retirement brings us another step--perhaps a final step--nearer to the end of this series. I recommend this series, and this book within the series, to anyone who wishes that a novel might have both a 20th C. awareness and a somewhat 19th C. sense of perspective....Most people have not discovered Miss Read, and one somehow wonders if "most people" really ought to. But I am certainly glad that I did....