LUCASTA

Rating:
Summary: One of my favorites
Review: In 1811, Nell Pearce is living quietly in a small village. She and her best friend Lucasta are just emerging into adulthood. Lucasta falls in love. But something unexpected happens and Nell leaves the village, not to return for 6 years.

When she returns, attention focuses on that mysterious event of six years ago. The best record is the journal that Nell kept during that time. Everyone who reads it has a different interpretation of what happened. But what did happen? Only Alexander Mortlow knows for sure, and he is not telling. Is his secrecy evidence of guilt? Nell, finding herself attracted to him, worries that it may be.

All of Bishop's intelligent observation of people is here: of character, multilayered motives, naivete and sophistication, requited and unrequited love, even the effects of mental suffering. That is what I like best about Bishop: her characters seem more like observations of real people than "romance novel" characters.

The story is set against an unusual background of amateur theatricals, and it will surely keep you guessing.