Love’s Pursuit by Siri Mitchell takes place in a Puritan community in Stoneybrooke, Massachusettes. Susannah Phillips outwardly is a model of Puritan goodness and righteousness, but inwardly she almost constantly wrestles with wrong desires and motives.

A perceived threat of Indian attack leads the government to send a captain out to protect the community and train the men to defend themselves, and his “heathen” dress and ways stand out. The captain boards with Susannah’s family, and at first his talk about God, so different from her understanding, seems foolish to her. But gradually some of what he says begins to penetrate her thinking and make her wonder if what he says is true.

The captain unsettles not just her religious thinking, but her romantic notions. She is almost engaged to John Prescotte, but the captain makes his interest clear.

Furthermore, town leader and most eligible bachelor Simeon Wright shows an unwelcome interest in Susannah as well. Though outwardly Simeon is the epitome of Puritan manhood, there’s something not quite right about him from the very beginning.

A subplot concerns a young goodwife named Small-hope, rescued from an abusive home by her husband, yet holding herself protectively away from him as well as the rest of the community. Will the need to save someone else propel her from her shell, or will she stay safely retreated?

The story doesn’t go where one thinks it will at first: in fact, the climax almost had me wailing out loud, “Noooooo!!!!” But I think it underscored that the “love’s pursuit” Susannah most needed was not man’s, but God’s.

Love’s Pursuit is no featherweight romance. Siri Mitchell has done a marvelous job drawing the characters and portraying Susannah’s inner turmoil in her relationship with God and man as well as the problems of living in a community where one’s righteousness is based on performance and keeping the rules.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

I first heard of Cranford when I saw ads for the BBC production. Somehow I wasn’t drawn in enough to tape it then, but when I saw the book during Borders’ close-out sales, I picked it up.

I hadn’t read anything by Elizabeth Gaskell, though I enjoyed the DVD of Wives and Daughters.

This book was originally told as installments in Charles Dickens’ magazine, Household Words. That may be why there doesn’t seem to be much of an overall plot arc, but rather a series of vignettes into the lives of a group of ladies who are friends in mid-nineteenth century England.

At first, when the story began by describing how the community was mostly made up of women, I was afraid it was going to be a pre-feminist rant against men, but thankfully that was not the case.

The two central characters are sisters, Deborah and Matty Jenkyns. Deborah is the stronger of the two, and thus her influence on Matty lingers long after Deborah dies fairly early in the book. Deborah is firm and opinionated: Matty is sweet but easily confused. The story is told through the eyes of a frequent visitor, Mary Smith.

At first, honestly, I was a little bored with the book. But gradually I began to see the humor in various incidents and a little Austenesque poke at the ironies of life in those times, people’s foibles, etc. In one example, the ladies were visiting a Mrs. Jamieson, who had both milk and cream for tea time but gave the cream to her spoiled dog, Carlo. “[Carlo] knew cream quite well, and constantly refused tea with only milk in it: so the milk was left for us, but we silently thought we were quite as intelligent and sensible as Carlo, and felt as if insult were added to injury, when we were called upon to admire the gratitude evinced by his wagging his tail for the cream, which should have been ours.”

By the later chapters the book seemed more of a character study of Matty, who at first seems simple and unassuming but is gradually revealed to bear up under trials large and small, including the loss of a brother, the loss of a possibility, of love, and the loss of fortune with a depth of character, fortitude, and sweetness. Other characters in the book, as well, show strength and compassion in spite of their idiosyncrasies.

One of my favorite quotes in the book comes when one member of the friends is engaged, to the shock of the others. Maddy softens to the idea before the others and says, “A man has a sort of knowledge of what should be done in difficulties, that it is very pleasant to have one at hand ready to lean upon.”

This edition is a Penguin Classic with copious end notes. I’d so much rather they had been footnotes, because it did interrupt the flow of the story to keep  having to turn to the back of the book, but I kept doing so, afraid I was going to miss something enlightening. I think there were a few too many notes, unless this was designed for younger students: some of its explanations seemed obvious to me.

I had wanted to watch the BBC film before reviewing the book, but I hadn’t realized it was a five part series including material from others of Gaskell’s books. I might look for it during the summer.

Cranford wasn’t spell-binding and didn’t leave me eager to add another Gaskell book to the queue, but it turned out to be a pleasant read in the end.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Last year during Carrie‘s Lucy Maud Montgomery Reading Challenge, I remarked that I was thinking about doing the same thing with either Laura Ingalls Wilder or Louisa May Alcott. There seemed to be a lot of interest in Laura, so in trying to determine what month would be good for a challenge, I saw that her birth and death both occurred in February. February seemed the ideal month, then, to have a reading challenge focused on Laura Ingalls Wilder.

You can read anything Laura has written or anything written about Laura. You can read alone or with your children or a friend. You can read just one book or several throughout the month — whatever works with your schedule. If you’d like to prepare some food or crafts somehow relating to Laura or her books, that would be really neat too.

On Feb 1, 2012, I’ll have a post up where you can sign in and let us know you’ll be participating and what you think you’d like to read that month. That way we can peek in on each other through the month and see how it’s going (that’s half the fun of a reading challenge). On Wed., Feb. 29, I’ll have another post where you can share with us links to your wrap-up post. Of course if you want to post through the month as you read, as well, that would be great, and I might share those from time to time. You don’t have to have a blog to participate: you can just leave your impressions in the comments if you like.

I’m really looking forward to getting back in touch with these books. I’ve read the whole original Little House series at least once, maybe more, but I am not sure whether I’ll reread those or a biography of her and a book of her newspaper columns I have been wanting to get to as well.

So, what do you think? Anyone interested? Make plans now to join us this February — I’m looking forward to seeing you then!