Anne Duffield

[From “Let’s Talk About Books” column by Franziska in The Australian Woman’s Mirror, Nov. 1, 1938, p. 49]

Anne Duffield is a nother novelist who never varies her ground work but can always be depended upon to write a novel to please her tremendous public and make more money than thoughtful writers of provocative social studies. Her plots are always the same with change of setting. Her characters too are always recognisable, no matter what they do or where they do it. "Grecian Rhapsody" (Cassell, 7/6; N.S.W. Bookstall Co., Sydney) has Athens for background. Cecil Fraser, nearing his forties, marries nineteen-years-old Carol Seton and takes her from London to Greece. Ten months later, finding the feather-brained Carol a hopeless manager, he cables her cousin Violet to come over and straighten things out. Not an easy position for the mouselike Violet, who has loved Cecil all her life. Violet arrives, smoothes things over, falls out of love with Cecil and into love with Sir Edward Frampton, nearing fifty, while in the background is Jack Stephenson, more her own age, giving her something to think about with his dynamic personality. Add to the poor girl's worries silly Carol flinging herself at Stephenson's unwilling head. The tangles are untangled with Miss Duffield's customary skill. Pleasant feminine reading.

From back of reprint (1947) dust jacket:

War in the Desert -- long horizons, the burning sun, and British men and girls fighting against the arch-enemy of Freedom.

When Margaret went out to Egypt with her ambulance it was at the call of her country and -- all unknown to her -- to meet Guy Ingram, the young officer on whom his country depended for so much. But there was Lee Somerville too, and he was a problem and a temptation that would have made any girl falter. How Margaret and Sally and Ann -- and all that Bevy of Maids -- tackled the problem on which so much depended makes one of Anne Duffield's mos exciting and colourful novels.

[from back of dj]

Taffy was a gay young thing, enjoying life in London among a crowd of slackers and no-goods, when she threw it all up and joined the Wrens. Sent out to Cairo, she was given a secret but responsible job; but this did not prevent her winning, in her own irresponsible, carefree way, the one man who could make life possible for her.

A bright, colourful picture of Service life in Cairo, of a charming, impulsive girl; of the men who are winning this war.

(from back of dust jacket) After a journey to France just after the Second Great War with her aunt and uncle for her "arranged" marriage with Jeremy, Laurie finds romance, mystery and adventure awaiting her. Shy and fearful Giselle, aloof, beautiful Diana, and stern, mysterious Jacques, taunt her imagination. Her own feeling of indifference to Jeremy and a certain hostility which she senses the others feel towards her marriage, are unsettling from the start. Laurie becomes drawn into the lives of all these people -- particularly that of Jacques, who bears the atmosphere of bitterness and hate which the maquisards feel for French collaborators. Anne Duffield shows with skill and clarity how a belated desire for vengeance affects Laurie and how love helps her resolve an attitude of mind about it both for herself and for other people.