Vittoria Cottage - Alexander McCall Smith

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Résumé :
Caroline opened the door and saw Mr. Shepperton standing on the step. Oh, it's you! she exclaimed in surprise.
Did you-were you expecting someone else? he asked.
Only the Queen, replied Caroline, chuckling. Don't mind me, she added. I often go slightly mad.
Caroline Dering, a widow with three grown children, lives a cheerful, quiet life near the idyllic English village of Ashbridge. But things are about to liven up, as daughter Leda announces a problematic engagement to the son of the local squire, son James returns from service and pursues romance with the squire's independent daughter, and sister Harriet, a famous actress who latest play has bombed, retreats to Ashbridge for a break. Then there's Robert Shepperton, a charming widower recovering from the losses of war at the local inn . . .
These problems, as well as smaller challenges with an overbearing village organizer, the blustering Sir Michael, and Caroline's daily help (who rejoices in the name of Comfort Podbury), are resolved with all of D.E. Stevenson's flair for gentle humour, clever plotting, and characters who walk right off the page.
Furrowed Middlebrow and Dean Street Press have also reprinted Music in the Hills and Winter and Rough Weather, which continue the stories of some of the characters from Vittoria Cottage. All the novels feature an introduction by Alexander McCall Smith.
A well-balanced novel that moves swiftly enough for any taste. Manchester Evening News
It is a family novel, and few writers can do this sort of thing better than Miss Stevenson. Glasgow Herald

Biographie:
Born in Edinburgh in 1892, Dorothy Emily Stevenson came from a distinguished Scottish family, her father being David Alan Stevenson, the lighthouse engineer, first cousin to Robert Louis Stevenson.
In 1916 she married Major James Reid Peploe (nephew to the artist Samuel Peploe). After the First World War they lived near Glasgow and brought up two sons and a daughter. Dorothy wrote her first novel in the 1920's, and by the 1930's was a prolific bestseller, ultimately selling more than seven million books in her career. Among her many bestselling novels was the series featuring the popular Mrs. Tim, the wife of a British Army officer. The author often returned to Scotland and Scottish themes in her romantic, witty and well-observed novels.
During the Second World War Dorothy Stevenson moved with her husband to Moffat in Scotland. It was here that most of her subsequent works were written. D.E. Stevenson died in Moffat in 1973.