Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell follows the story of Molly Gibson, the young daughter of a widowed country doctor in 19th century England. In the first chapter Molly is a young girl going to her first “open house” of the town’s Earl and family, held once a year at what the townsfolk call “The Great House.” She doesn’t have the best experience there and never attends another.

Some years later she’s a young lady, and one of the pupils her father has taken on has decided he is in love with her. Molly knows nothing of this, but her father feels she is too young for such things and sends her to Hamley Hall in hopes that his young protege’s ardor will cool. Mrs. Hamley has been one of his patients for years, not quite an invalid, but not very active, and for some time she has wanted Molly to come and visit. Through their time together they become quite close, and the Hamleys regard Molly as close as a daughter.

The Hamleys are landed gentry but have fallen on hard times. They have two sons away at Cambridge: Osbourne carries the family’s hopes, handsome, charming, fashionable, and expected to do brilliantly, and Roger is a man of science, plainer, but steady as a rock. Squire Hamley loves Molly as well and regards her father as a dear friend but strongly feels that marrying Molly would be beneath either of his boys because her father is a “professional” man.

While Molly is away her father contemplates his situation. Molly is at the age where it is awkward for him to keep taking young men as pupils, as his pupils live with him. He hadn’t really thought of remarrying, but begins to think it would be good for Molly if he did. Circumstances bring him into contact with Miss Claire, former governess at the Great House, and in pretty short order he proposes.

Molly is not happy. She feels the loss of having her father all to herself, and her earlier encounter with Miss Claire makes her unexcited about having her for a step-mother. But she tries to make the best of it.

Claire, or Hyacinth, as she prefers to be called after her engagement, married primarily to escape the pressure and tedium of having to support herself and her daughter Cynthia, near Molly’s age, who is at school in France. She speaks great flowing sweet words, but something always seems a little off in what she says. She’s not an evil stepmother, but she is totally self-centered. For instance, when her daughter Cynthia is due to come home, Claire, now Mrs. Gibson, wants to redecorate the girls’ rooms just alike even though Molly begs her not to. Molly’s room is furnished with her mother’s things. But Mrs. Gibson doesn’t want people to think she favored her own daughter by decorating only her room, so she insists that both girls’ rooms are alike.

Cynthia comes home, and the girls become fast friends, though Cynthia is the kind of girl that draws all eyes to herself when she enters a room. She’s beautiful, charming, and worldly-wise while Molly is more plain and naive.

The rest of the book follows the interactions of these and a few others. It’s not an action-packed plot, but it had me smiling in places and in tears in others.

Gaskell did a marvelous job with characterization. Cynthia and Molly, Osbourne and Roger are studies in contrasts, and it’s clear which of each pair is regarded as “good,” yet the others have some good qualities and invite our sympathy. None of her characters are caricatures: each has layers. Squire Hamley is gruff and blustery but not as unfeeling as he seems at times. Dr. Gibson is wise but has a keen wit and some of the best humorous lines. For instance, when his wife is envying someone with more than herself and consoles herself by saying, “But riches are a great snare,” her husband answers, “Be thankful you are spared temptation, my dear.” When Mrs. Gibson goes away for a week and Molly is looking forward to going back to some of their old habits, Dr. Gibson’s “eyes twinkled, but the rest of his face was perfectly grave. ‘I’m not going to be corrupted. With toil and labour I have reached a very fair height of refinement. I won’t be pulled down again.'”

It’s hard to say what the theme of the book is, if there is one. It definitely shows the complications of secrets, the devastating harm of gossip, the disappointment of misplaced expectations. Yet perhaps the focus is just on remaining steady and doing the right thing in the face of all of that.

Unfortunately Mrs. Gaskell died before the book’s last chapter was finished, but a Frederick Greenwood concludes the book with what was known of Mrs. Gaskell’s intentions.

I loved this book, and when it ended I was sorry that I wouldn’t be able to spend any more time with these characters.

Audible.com includes a little sample of the reading of their books, and I listened to several before choosing this one read by Nadia May. She was the most expressive, and she did a wonderful job with the different characters’ voices and inflections, from older men to young girls, and one character with a Scottish accent and another who was French.

I also indulged in the BBC-produced film of Wives and Daughters via Netflix (in four parts of about an hour and 15 minutes or so each), and it was remarkably well done. There were some little changes here and there, naturally, some scenes left out and others squished together, a greater liberty taken with the ending, but overall it was faithfully done and much of the dialogue was taken straight from the book.

Here is a trailer from the film — it’s making me want to watch it all over again:

I saw Chasing Mona Lisa by Tricia Goyer and Mike Yorkey listed as a free Kindle book (at the time: it is not free now) at Inspired Reads, and thought it looked interesting, so interesting + free = “Sure, I’ll try it!”

The setting is in France just as WWII is close to winding down. Germany’s Goring has been quietly amassing a treasure of prized art pieces, and when he sees the handwriting on the wall concerning the war, he sets his sights on the Mona Lisa as his ticket to flee to South America and escape the consequences of his wartime activities.

The French, foreseeing that the Mona Lisa might be in danger, packed it up and hid it before Germany took over the country, yet Goring and his agent, Heller, have their ways of ferreting out information.

Eric Hofstadler and Gabi Mueller are two Swiss OSS (Office of Strategic Services) covert agents working to further the Allied cause. They are in Paris to deliver food, medical supplies, and information when they are reassigned to find and secure the Mona Lisa.

Bernard Rousseau is a leader of one of the resistance movements, this particular one being Communist. A sub plot is that the various resistance groups are vying to set themselves up to be able to grab power and authority as soon as the German regime comes down. Bernard is one of the first people Eric and Gabi meet in Paris, and he becomes involved in helping them find the Mona Lisa before Heller’s operatives do. Yet he has ulterior motives they know nothing of, and further complications involve his girlfriend, Collette, the Louvre museum curator, and whether she is in on Heller’s plot or not.

I don’t read many spy novels, but this one definitely kept me interested and threw a couple of unexpected twists into the mix.

I got the feeling that this might have been a sequel, and I was right: Gabi and Eric first appear in The Swiss Courier by the same authors. I’ve not read that one, and this book is easily readable on its own.

One part where I had to smile was where Gabi, Eric, and Rousseau escape from pursuers down into the sewers, and Rousseau begins to expound on the “technological marvel” of Paris’s sewer system: it reminded me of Victor Hugo’s doing the same in Les Miserables (linked to my review). Paris seems to be very proud of its sewer system!

One major problem I had with the novel, though, was its graphic depictions of violence. It’s a war novel, so violence and death are expected parts of the plot, but the authors just got too detailed and graphic for my tastes. Thankfully there aren’t many of those scenes.

It’s also odd that this book is marketed as Christian fiction, yet there is very little of Christianity in it. Gabi’s father, another OSS agent, is also a pastor and wonders from time to time how his congregation would react if they knew of some of his activities, and Gabi mentions God or prayer a few times, but otherwise there isn’t really a Christian theme or perspective woven into the plot. It’s a very clean novel, except for the aforementioned violent scenes, but of course Christian fiction is more than just clean.

But I did like the book, reading most of it on my iPhone or Touchpad during a road trip, and it made for a pleasant diversion.

This particular theft attempt was purely fictional, by the way, but the Mona Lisa was stolen once in 1911, and the book does tell about that incident as further motivation for not letting it happen again.