Helpful Score: 4
I love this book; of all of McCullough's books I've read, this is my favorite. Missy Wright is a drab, poor member of an extended family of very tall, blond Hurlingfords, who own most of the little Australian town of Byron. She lives with her mother and one of her aunts on the outskirts of town. She has brown hair and her family always dresses her in that color, a reflection of her colorless life. Then, a stranger moves to town and a mysterious relation who works in the local lending library who inspire Missy to try and change her life.
Helpful Score: 2
I loved this book. It's a quick, short, engaging read. I could really root for Missy! Loved it, I just wish it was longer. I think this book is less than 200 pages.
Helpful Score: 2
With little option, less resources, a young woman decides to kick convention and bravely seeks out the love she knows she deserves,- sometimes you have to go after what you want in this life -
Helpful Score: 1
I wasn't sure at first but really ended up loving this story. I cheered for Missy how could you not love her after she put Alicia in her place- perfect book for a rainy day read!
Helpful Score: 1
Reminded me very much of The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery.
Helpful Score: 1
this is a real "feel good" book, a short novel that will cheer you up in a hurry!
Helpful Score: 1
I found this book to be utterly charming. Fans of the "Anne of Green Gables" era of writing and somewhat magical qualities will enjoy this story. It is a quick read, I finished it easily in one sitting. Highly recommended.
This book is short, sweet, and a pure delight to read! I laughed out loud at the ending, just because it made me feel happy.
Colleen McCullough is known for long and winding novels like "The Thorn Birds," so I was surprised at the light touch in this story. It reminds me a bit of "Persuasion," by Jane Austen, but with an inimitable stamp of Australian life. McCullough really makes the charm and deceptive quiet of the Blue Mountains region - still beautiful and aloof from nearby Sydney today - come to life, and her plucky heroine is easy to like.
The Harper Short Novel Series. Book club edition.
This is a sweet story. Reminds me of the Anne of Green Gables books.
This delightful short novel by Colleen McCullough is set in the Blue Mountains of Australia at the beginning of the 1900s. I've read it several times and never grow tired of the story. Perfect reading for a leisurely summer day!
Several years into the twentieth century, in the tiny town of Byron nestled somewhere in the Australian Blue Mountains, a shy spinster, her widowed mother and her crippled aunt live in genteel poverty. For thirty-three-year-old Missy Wright, her mother Drusilla and aunt Octavia, life is difficult living as the poor relations of the Hurlingford family - the most prominent family in Byron. Despite the Wrights being allowed to live at Missalonghi - Drusilla's home through marriage - the women are actually victims of the Hurlingford inheritance policy which allows only the male members of the family to inherit all the wealth. In turn, the men heartlessly abuse and dominate the women in their care.
Plain, painfully thin and doomed to dress always in serviceable brown, Missy has limited funds and suffers from periodic bouts of ill health. Her only consolation is her frequent trips to the privately owned lending library in town, where she indulges in her only vice - reading Gothic romance novels. Missy seems resigned to her fate, facing a dreary future until a distant cousin, a divorcée, arrives from Sydney...
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was a delightful little story, with a totally unexpected ending, at least for me. I do have a copy of Colleen McCullough's epic saga The Thorn Birds hidden somewhere on my bookshelf, but have never read it. That particular admission probably comes as quite a surprise to many people, but it is the truth: "I have not ever read The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough!"
However, reading The Ladies of Missalonghi is my first foray into Ms. McCullough's work, and it was a relatively quick and easy read for me. Engaging and rather quirky, I give The Ladies of Missalonghi by Colleen McCullough an A!
Plain, painfully thin and doomed to dress always in serviceable brown, Missy has limited funds and suffers from periodic bouts of ill health. Her only consolation is her frequent trips to the privately owned lending library in town, where she indulges in her only vice - reading Gothic romance novels. Missy seems resigned to her fate, facing a dreary future until a distant cousin, a divorcée, arrives from Sydney...
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was a delightful little story, with a totally unexpected ending, at least for me. I do have a copy of Colleen McCullough's epic saga The Thorn Birds hidden somewhere on my bookshelf, but have never read it. That particular admission probably comes as quite a surprise to many people, but it is the truth: "I have not ever read The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough!"
However, reading The Ladies of Missalonghi is my first foray into Ms. McCullough's work, and it was a relatively quick and easy read for me. Engaging and rather quirky, I give The Ladies of Missalonghi by Colleen McCullough an A!
A very delightful and quick read.
a nice, sweet story. easy to read in one or two sittings
This is a long time favorite of mine. The courage of the Ladies in the face of grinding poverty is beautiful. Some have noted the similarities between this story and the Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery. There are things they have in common but each story is unique also. There is a ghost in this story and not in the other. This ghost is a major part of the story. No I wont tell you who, or how the ghost affects the story.. Read it for your self it is worth your time to do so:) 5*****
I loved this book the first time I read it and I loved it again this time.
I loved this little book and have read it at least three times it is very good
absolutely delightful.
Colleen Mc Cullough is a seductive writer.....
Colleen Mc Cullough is a seductive writer.....
This book is a sheer delight! Very short and very sweet. I laughed right out loud at the end.
Colleen McCullough returns to turn of the century Australia to tell her most moving love story since The Thorn Birds! In this magical romance, set in a small town in Australia's beautiful Blue Mountains, Colleen McCullough spins a delightful tale of dreams that come true...of rebellious courage...of a plain young woman who shocks her narrow world as she transforms herself into an exciting enchantress...and sets her sights on a handsome stranger with a mysterious past...who just might be Prince Charming!
Sometimes fairy toles can come true-even for plain,shy spinsters like Missy Wright. Neither as pretty as cousin Alicianor as domineering as mother Drusilla, she seems doomed to aquiet life of near poverty at Missalonghi, her family's pitifullysmall homestead in Australia's Blue Mountains. But It's a brandnew century-the twentieth-a time for new thoughts and boldnew actions. And Missy Wright is about to set every self-righteous tongue in the town of Byron wagging. Because she hasjust set her sights on a mysterious, mistrusted and unsuspectingstranger ... who just might be Prince-Charming in disguise.
The time is just before WWI, the place a small town in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, and the story is Colleen McCullough at her warmest and most lighthearted.
Who was John Smith, and why was he living alone in the bush? These were the questions asked by the outraged members of the Hurlingford clan when he came and stole thier vally out from under thier self-important noses.
But as much as his arrival seemed to threaten them, it came to matter most to the youngest of the three ladies who lived in the house called Missalonghi. Missy Wright's existence stretched dearily in front of her, the future holding no more promise than the past. Like her mother and maden aunt, Missy was another of Hurlingford clan's manless women- bullied, pited, exploited, patronized, utterly unimprtant in thier scheme of things.
No sensible mentor would have dreamed of advising Missy to consult a wildly romantic novel for answer to plight. But luckily Missy's mentor was a librarian with a taste for purple prose and a scandalous past, who understood that beneath Missy's drab exterior there beat the heart of an enchanting and adventous women.
Taken from the cover.
Who was John Smith, and why was he living alone in the bush? These were the questions asked by the outraged members of the Hurlingford clan when he came and stole thier vally out from under thier self-important noses.
But as much as his arrival seemed to threaten them, it came to matter most to the youngest of the three ladies who lived in the house called Missalonghi. Missy Wright's existence stretched dearily in front of her, the future holding no more promise than the past. Like her mother and maden aunt, Missy was another of Hurlingford clan's manless women- bullied, pited, exploited, patronized, utterly unimprtant in thier scheme of things.
No sensible mentor would have dreamed of advising Missy to consult a wildly romantic novel for answer to plight. But luckily Missy's mentor was a librarian with a taste for purple prose and a scandalous past, who understood that beneath Missy's drab exterior there beat the heart of an enchanting and adventous women.
Taken from the cover.
