“Where was this somebody that was supposed to exist for everybody? She was nineteen and it felt wrong not to be in love” She often appears to be just biding time, certain that at some soon she will be married. This was written at a time when women expected to be married and Marina is no different. She clearly cannot act, is regularly humiliated by her drama teachers and to the utter releif of her family (and also mine I have to say) eventually flounces out. The time she spent at Drama School in her bid to be on the stage is particularly desperate. We watch and on occasion cringe as Mariana navigates her way through adolescence, witnessing her insecurities and agonising moments of embarrassment. ‘What do you think of the bag?’ he said with casual pride, and as she beamed up at him, a last burst of evening sunshine flung his long fantastic shadow across the terrace and flooded everything with a glorious amber light.”ĭickens manages the ups and downs of childhood so well. “Denys swung on to the terrace and dropped the rabbits at Mary’s feet. An idyllic world of ponies and stern nannies, tea and cakes, endless sunny days, aunts and cousins and adoring grandparents, and plays and dressing up and of course Denys, the cousin who stole her heart. She spends her days in London longing for the school holidays when she and her mother will make the much anticipated journey to Charbury. Mariana lives with her mother and her frequently out of work, but adoring uncle Geoffrey.

Like many good stories this begins at the end and then takes us back through Mariana’s life and the events leading up the point where we first meet her, alone and waiting, in a remote cottage with the wind howling and rain pounding at the windows. This is the story of Mariana (Mary) and her journey from a young girl living in a small flat in Kensington, spending idyllic summers in Somerset to a mature young woman married and living in an England which is at war. This is the kind of book which should not languish on a shelf but should be casually balanced on arms of sofas or placed on coffee tables for all to enjoy. Each time I picked it up the cover alone gave me a little spark of joy. With Mariana by Monica Dickens, I loved it even before I had read a word. Who doesn’t love Persephone books, I am yet to read a Persephone classic I haven’t loved.

Mariana by monica dickens