'Forget-Me-Not' by Emma Blair

In the Emma Blair mode, I decided to re-read 'Forget-Me-Not', (Little, Brown and Company, London, 2001) as I managed to pick up a copy in a library book sale the other day. This is a good book; by which I mean that it is a book that really engages me, a book I can't put down! Over the years, this has been the most most important criteria for what I classify as being a 'good book'. I have gone down various other paths, of course. and doing A' level English Literature obviously made me think a lot about the beauty of classical literature, which I then read and enjoyed much of over the years. But my childhood love of novels stemmed from picking up a book that enticed me, engaged me, took me to somewhere else, that enabled me to forget about day-to-day reality, for a period. And it is that main love that has remained with me throughout the whole of my life. A sort of socialisation process that I gave myself, I guess, if you get my drift.

Anyway, themes of boarding houses, newspaper reporting and acting run throughout this novel - an interesting combination. Tim Wilson, a newspaper reporter for the Torquay Times (yes, 'Fawlty Towers' springs to mind!) and his mother run a small boarding house and the interesting actress Elyse Davenport comes to stay at it.

Meanwhile, Tim is besotted with Katherine Coates, the daughter of a business colleague of his late father. But Katherine's mother Ruth has higher sights for her. In order to make what she wants happen she tells Katherine that she only has a few months to live. Katherine complies and marries Miles; but then Miles tragically is killed at war. Meanwhile, Katherine's father Jeremiah can hardly bear Ruth any longer and has an affair with Henrietta. As war is looming, Tim doesn't want to die not knowing what sex is all about, doesn't want to have sex with a stranger, so Elyse and Tim decide to make it together. But tragically, Elyse is actually dying (and not fabricating it as Ruth was). She dies, and finally Tim and Katherine are together.

So, it was interesting, having a novel that combined all this plot against the backdrop of the artistic, creative world.