a ripping good read

I just finished Caroline the Second by Elinor Brent-Dyer. I hadn't been impressed by the first book in the pair (A Thrilling Term at Janeways), but I thought Caroline was astonishingly good, given the author. The characters were believable, there weren't any OTT events, and it was well-told. Brent-Dyer even managed a trick that is hard to pull off: she alluded to events that had happened in the five years between the two books without making them feel forced or unnecessary. They came across as ordinary conversation. Carolinewould have read oddly if the characters never alluded to past events, unless they'd been covered in the first book, so I'm glad this worked. Caroline didn't feature any scenes with the slang-using vicar of the first book (who would have described it as "a ripping good read", no doubt).
The frustrating flip-side to this is that Brent-Dyer proved in Caroline that she could create a compelling plot without resorting to girls falling off cliffsides, and could talk about characters in pervious books without being really obvious about it. Apparently, she could do subtle work - she just didn't bother, for whatever reason.
I've been reading Howard's End for a bookclub, too. It's such a lovely book. I haven't read it for about 15 years or so, and I daresay my perspective has changed a lot since then. So I look forward to discussing it, and assessing my reaction to the book now. I'm supposed to read Number the Stars for a kids' book club, too, but I'm not as enthusiastic about that. ell, I don't mind reading the book, but I don't feel prepared to discuss the Holocaust with children. Maybe if time permits, I'll re-read Darkness over Denmark, as extra preparation.