Sweet are the Ways
There are a number of books I go back to read when I’m feeling bad – all for slightly different circumstances and to invoke different feelings afterward.
Today I’m going back to Essie Summers and Sweet are the Ways. Essie was a very simple writer. She wrote for Mills & Boon from the late 50′s until the 90′s. These would be more recognizable to Americans as Harlequin novels. But her’s was the first romance I ever read and sometimes I just need that simplicity, that sweetness, and that hope that life could be that simple and true – because my life never is.
Sweet are the Ways is my favorite Essie Summers book. I like both Dougal and Elspeth – the protagonists. I like the setting – I’ve always wanted to go to New Zealand and that area – and I want to live in a small town, or just outside of one even though I can’t. I love calm, steadfast, gentle Dougal’s pursuit of Elspeth – but that he is completely a man and acts like it. I like that she’s tough, makes a home for herself and is determined to go it alone. I like that she’s a writer.
I like these things and it makes me feel better to read them and feel that it could be real even it isn’t – and for me it will never be.
Which also brings on a bittersweet melancholy – but one I don’t mind so much. There are other books that push that longing for something I can’t have, through to my fingertips (usually Madeline Hunter’s books – which I also love!) It often hurts.
But Essie’s books are too simple – not quite real, but dreamy in a way I wish could be real. That’s why I can stand back from them, just a enough to smile.
