The Enchanted April

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Enchanted April - Rated
The image of Italy, in a time of gentle romance falls from the page. It is as refreshing as a glass of crisp white wine, while bathing in the evening sun. The characters are at one time seperate holiday makers and a collective changing of attitudes to others and to themselves.On the face of it, it is a book about four women who go on holiday together but in fact it is about taking chnaces no matter how small or big.
It is the perfect book for anyone who has been in love with a place and a person at the same time and will be again.

The Restorative Power of Beauty - Rated
Much like the film this book by Elizabeth Von Arnim inspired, there is something peaceful here on these pages. This is a gentle novel about the gradual internal changes brought about by the beauty of our surroundings. It is a book that reads itself as much as it is read, the author writing with the flow of the characters thoughts and feelings as their hearts are changed by the suprise of beauty.

An ad to rent a castle in San Salvatore on the Italian Riviera will prompt two British women, Rose and Lottie, with only a passing acquaintance, to inexplically leave their husbands behind for a summer that will change their lives and their marriages forever.

Joining Rose and Lottie for this holiday is Mrs. Fisher, an older woman living in the past, and Lady Caroline Dester, a grey-eyed society beauty tired of being gawked at like a majestic statue, not allowed to be human. Diverse in nature and temperment, not to mention background, they interact uneasily together until the flowers and the sea bring about a change in their souls.

Surrounded by fig and olive trees, plum blossoms and Tamarisk daphnes, and the scents of fortune's yellow rose and blooming acacia, the women slowly find their roles at this castle by the sea, and in doing so find themselves as well. New insights will prompt Rose and Lottie to send for their husbands. Lady Caroline, or 'Scrap' as she is known, will find love in spite of her wish to be alone and her great beauty. Mrs. Fisher will form a friendship with Lottie and her husband, and discover a renewed zest for creativity in this heaven by the sea.

This is a novel about life and love, told gently through the emotions of these women, as the the suprise of beauty and the warmth of being suddenly admired and seen as beautiful, when they had not been before, changes their simple lives, which were not so simple at all. You will definitely enjoy this novel if you enjoyed the film. It is about love restored, and love discovered, along the wistaria covered steps leading down to the sea.

Light, beautiful and full of magic - Rated
I love this book. I've read it several times and it's as lovely each time. Last time I read the whole book on a long train journey and I didn't mind the long delays because I was enjoying myself! I think it's a happy, dreamy, magical book, full of flowers, sunshine and emotion. The characters become more and more truly themselves as the book progresses.

A delightful book - Rated
This is romance of the best kind, laced with magic and full of fun. For a book written in the 1920's it is a surprisingly modern read. The characters are all wonderfully drawn and the atmosphere is created so wonderfully it is a wrench to come back to dreary old England from the delights of a springtime Italy.

An Enchanted April is an enchanting read - Rated
Elizabeth Von Antrim's novel has a time less appeal and the ability to take you from your present surroundings into a surreal atmosphere of Pre Raphelite beauty and intensity. Her characters come alive when removed from the austerity of 1920s London to a beautiful Italian castle surrounded by sunlight and Wisteria. Four women, strangers to one another are transported to a world where the routines of middle class turn of the century life are forgotten and where their minds and bodies are set on fire with imagination and passion. Von Antrim captures well the cultural issue of the 'new woman' in this book through the character of 'Lady Caroline Dester'. I would say this is thouroughly a 'woman's' read and it can lighten any dark day. Von Antrim has captured the essence of warmth one feels when one comes across a beautiful place and has translated it into a feeling of friendship and oneness between four women and their partners. The book leaves you with a feeling of longing and a joyous melancholy which says, 'I wish this would happen to me'. Utterly beautiful.