cover:Who was John Smith? What was the mystery surrounding his past? Why did he elect to live alone in the bush and listen to the silence? These were the questions the outraged members of the Hurlingford clan asked when John Smith came to town and stole the valley out from under their self-important noses. He would have to go! said the third Sir William. What was all the fuss about? asked Alicia the clan belle, too busy planning her wedding to appreciate the ominous rumblings of change that seemed to follow in the stranger's wake.But to no one did the enigmatic John Smith come to matter as he did to the youngest of the three ladies who lived in the house called Missalonghi.Missy Wright's existence could hold no surprises, for it stretched as drearily predictable in front of her as it did behind. Like the mother and the maiden aunt who lived with her, Missy was just another of the Hurlingford clan's manless women - bullied, pitied, exploited, patronised, utterly unimportant in the scheme of things.No sensible mentor would have dreamed of advising Missy to look in the pages of a romantic novel for the answers to her plight. But luckily Missy's mentor was a librarian with a taste for purple prose passion and a scandalous past who understood that beneath Missy's drab exterior there beat the heart of a charming and adventurous woman.The time is just before the outbreak of the Great War, the place a small town in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, Australia, and the story is Colleen McCullough at her warmest and most light-hearted. On one level The Ladies of Missalonghi is a classic fairytale, on the other it is a wickedly accurate picture of life in a place where men may dominate, but women rule.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------I loved this novella. It was so lovely to see the poor & downtrodden Hurlingford ladies get out from under the grinding thumb of wealthy, cheating Hurlingford men. It is a bit of a fairytale, but it's also very witty. I can see that patriarchal family in small town Byron in the mountains, & feel the dreariness & tedium of the ladies' poverty, and I can hear the sounds of the mountain bushland - bellbirds, magpies & mist. It was enjoyable to see Una provoke Missy to change. It's a real gem of a book & I would like to read it again some day.I read it just a few days before Colleen died, and I didn't even know she was ill. I loved the Blue Mountains setting. http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5...
Colleen McCullough is one of the most original writers that I know. Her first novel (I'm pretty sure) was 'Tim.' I have not seen anything like Tim before or since. I doubt if this novel was plagiarised at all - only that it was very common in the 1920s for widows and spinsters to live together, and in poverty (spinsters were very common Post WW1 due to the shortage of men.) As an Australian writer, she may never have come across the Canadian book that is spoken of.The plot? Missy finds her existence so drab through no fault of her own that she seizes her idea, chooses to disregard the deceit involved, and finds her happiness. I loved the ending, and if it's like a fairy-tale with the villains getting what they deserved, then that's fine with me.I think that many women of her generation (and mine) carry a deep anger at the treatment of women, and especially of those who have never been pretty. This story comes from that anger, and I was so pleased for Missy when she found a good life in spite of all that was set against her. 5 stars here is 'Amazing' while 4 stars is 'I liked it very much.' But when I review on Amazon, it will be 5 stars. This is a 5-star book.
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This is a sweet little shortcake of a read for the bathtub or the beach chair. So why do I give it a four? Because for me, it's iconic in its niche. When I want a short happy read, this is one of the first books I look for.Update....when I wrote the review above, I'd never heard of The Blue Castle. Now I have, and it's a great little book. It was written first, and some of the scarily identical small details (like the pic of Queen Alexandra on the wall) convince me that C Mc MUST have read this and subconsciously channeled it into the Ladies of Missalonghi. I can't believe it was intentional - it's just to blatant. From a purely reader's perspective, I don't see how it hurts either book.
—Larrirosser
I admit I knew this book was crap when I picked it up. I first heard about it in a discussion of L.M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle, a vastly superior book. The Ladies of Missalonghi is a complete and total rip-off of Montgomery's story (PLAGIARISM). The stories are exactly the same. A Victorian Old Maid (29 year-old Valancy in TBC, 33 year-old Missy in TLoM) lives a boring and restricted life with her widowed mother and maiden aunt. She wears a lot of brown. She has a more attractive cousin abou
—Ryl
This is a very quick, easy read. Missy is a 33 year "old maid" who lives with her poverty stricken mother and aunt in the Australian town, Byron, which is almost entirely inhabited by their relatives. The men in the family, all wealthy and powerful, totally dominate all businesses and control the finances. Thus, the widows and spinsters are living a nearly hand to mouth existence. Missy, however, decides to take her fate and that of her mother and aunt inito her own hands. What she does completely changes the makeup of her little town and she changes from a quiet, mousy spinster always wearing brown to a risktaking bride married in red.
—LemonLinda
