Dean Street December: Young Mrs. Savage

Young Mrs. Savage by D.E. Stevenson Rating: ★★★★ Publication Date: January 1, 1948 Genre: fiction Pages: 264 ReRead?: No Sometimes she wished she could stick up a large notice "FOUR CHILDREN ARE NOT TOO MANY" . . . Raising four young children on her own in the years of postwar rationing, widowed Dinah tends to be the subject of sympathetic murmurs. But though she has little money, is perpetually tired, and remains haunted by unresolved issues from her troubled marriage, Dinah rejects all offers of pity. When her twin brother Dan returns from the military, he sends her and the children on holiday among the scenes of their childhood, staying with their unflappable Nannie at Craigie Lodge, their old family home, in a beautiful coastal town in Scotland. There, amidst happy memories, old friends, and new acquaintances, Dinah and her brood weather delightful adventures, awkward misunderstandings, and, perhaps, the tentative beginnings of new romance. First published in 1949, Young Mrs. Savage is a charming holiday story, a perceptive tale of overcoming past unhappiness to make a fresh start, and one of D.E. Stevenson's most irresistible novels. This new edition includes an autobiographical sketch by the author.

Dean Street December is hosted by Liz at Adventures in Reading, Running and Working from Home. You can find her main post here.

At this point, I’ve finished two DSP books – this one, and Death in the Forest, a Golden Age mystery, by Moray Dalton. Young Mrs. Savage is published by DSP’s Furrowed Middlebrow imprint. I’d like to read one or two more before the end of the event.

D.E. Stevenson wrote a lot of books. Probably her best known books are Mrs. Tim of the Regiment, which is an epistolary novel that didn’t really impress me when I read it, and Miss Buncle’s Book, which is an absolute delight. So far none of her other books have lived up – for me – to Miss Buncle’s Book, but that’s just fine.

Young Mrs. Savage is quintessential Stevenson. She writes mid-twentieth-century family stories, centered around young(ish) women, either unmarried or widowed. In this case, the main character is Dinah Savage, who has been left widowed, with four young children, when her husband was killed in a plane crash. He, as it turns out, was not a great husband, and she’s reeling from learning the truth about her marriage, as she tries to keep her four littles clothed, fed, housed and educated. This is a second chance romance, with likeable characters all around.

Stevenson pretty much writes romance, but it’s not romance like what we see published today. Maybe the better description is marriage plot? Her plots are entirely chaste, and the books end on or before the wedding. She writes gentle stories that are filled with nostalgia. The most comforting of comfort reads.

I think that this was my last of the DSP D.E. Stevenson reprints, although I still have a lot of D.E. Stevenson novels to read. It’s a middling Stevenson, not one of her strongest books, but very enjoyable. I don’t think there’s been a single of her books that I haven’t enjoyed, although I will say that Smouldering Fire had a strange and disconcerting ending.