Safer than a known way

(from clipping taped inside dust jacket, where flap would have been) Anne Lorrimer had been lonely in her hotel in Christchurch and here in this lovely home she had been made so welcome. But for the hundredth time Anne was wondering why she had become a guest in this house and why she didn't obey all her instincts and break away...get back to her hotel, where she had been quite comfortable, if a little bored, until she had met these people -- this family of Michael Rollington's -- a week ago.

She did not fit in here, and if she had known...well, she would never have looked them up. They had been kindness itself to her, waited on her hand and foot, anticipated her slightest need. They had begged her not to leave, to regard their home as hers as long as she was in the city...why, then, wasn't she happy? Why? For the hundredth time she ask the question -- and yet she knew the answer even while she would not face up to it.

I bought this book for its title, which was unfamiliar to me and rather pretty. Googling, I found that it was from the "obscure" poem "God Knows", written by Minnie Louise Haskins in 1908 and published in her collection The Desert (1912). Apparently, George VI quoted it in his Christmas 1939 broadcast where it "struck a chord with a country facing the uncertainty of war". It's on the entrance to his memorial chapel and was read again at the Queen Mother's funeral (2002). More on the poem and author here.

Now, the book itself. I couldn't finish it. I'm fine with characters of faith, where belief is incorporated naturally into their lives and the story, but a "come to Jesus" narrative is not my favorite and I just can't read a book whose plot serves as a vehicle for the claim that religion is necessary to give life moral structure. It quickly (like, by the fifth page) became clear that Safer than is one of those. Plus, a few paragraphs later, our female mc -- a 28-year-old celebrity mezzo-soprano in New Zealand on a rest cure -- is meeting the male mc, a minister, and making a 50s-era pass at him. His response is to reply, "with shattering frankness", "What you need, my child, is a jolly good spanking." and stop the bus because, all allowances for time, this is where I get off. If you think you'd fare better, pm me and I'll send it to you, gratis.