Product Description

Eighteen-year-old ellen never expected the Hallendorf school to be, well, quite so unusual. After all, her life back in england with her suffragette mother and liberated aunts certainly couldn’t be called normal. but buried deep in the beautiful Austrian countryside, ellen discovers an eccentric world occupied by wild children and even wilder teachers, experimental dancers and a tortoise on wheels. And then there is the particurally intriguing, enigmatic, and very handsome Marek, part-time gardener and fencing teacher. ellen is instantly attracted to the mysterious gardener, but Hitler’s reich is already threatening their peaceful world. only when she discovers Marek’s true identity and his dangerous mission does ellen realize the depth of her feelings for him—and the danger their newfound love faces in the shadow of war.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #342736 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780142408667
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Library Journal
Ellen, the lovely heroine of this romantic novel, is raised in London by a suffragist mother and aunts but rejects the liberated life. After graduating from a culinary school, she takes a job in Austria at a run-down boarding school for neglected rich children and transforms it with her beauty, hard work, and good cooking. Like Ellen, all the characters are pleasantly drawn if exaggerated stereotypes: Ellen's love interest, Marek, the school handyman, is really a brilliant composer hiding out from the Nazis; the scullery maid is beautiful and saintly; and all the children are budding geniuses. When the war intervenes, Ellen returns to England to build a sanctuary for her friends and other refugees; eventually she and Marek are reunited, and love conquers all. Ibbotson, who grew up in Austria and fled the Nazis herself, provides rich details of prewar life in Vienna and the alpine countryside. Her prose is like a Linzertorte?well constructed but awfully sweet. Still, this is a lively read. Recommended for popular fiction collections.?Reba Leiding, Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst. Lib., Troy, NY
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Ellen is a mystery to her family. Her mother and the aunts who helped raise her were all militant suffragettes and are now part of the Bloomsbury intelligentsia, while Ellen would much rather pursue the domestic arts and follow in the footsteps of her grandfather's Austrian mistress and housekeeper. In the spring of 1937, Ellen does so, traveling to Austria to become a housemother in an eccentric boarding school that specializes in the arts and serves as a haven for adults and children who have nowhere else to go. With her innate kindness and warmth, she transforms the school and finds true love with Marek, the gardener and fencing instructor. As the tentacles of Nazism invade their world, Ellen helps Marek, who is actually a famous Czech composer in hiding, secure the safety of his Jewish violinist friend. Ibbotson, author of The Morning Gift (1993), gives life to characters of great depth and beautifully re-creates prewar Vienna and its surrounding countryside. Patty Engelmann

From Kirkus Reviews
The molasses runs as deepand sweetas the Danube in this romantic drama set in an Austrian boarding school on the eve of Hitler's invasion. British novelist Ibbotson (The Morning Gift, 1993, etc.) offers a pleasant if inconsequential tale that follows the pre-war adventures of Londoner Ellen Carr after she takes the position of house mother at a socially progressive academy for budding Marxists, musicians, and artists. The position comes as a shock to Ellen's family; her mother and two aunts are committed suffragettes, having spent much jail time to free women of the burden of servile housework. But they learn, to their amazement, that this is the role Ellen has always yearned forso much so that she dropped out of Cambridge to study home management and cooking. And now, under Ellen's gentle, resourceful care, Hallendorf School begins to function with Victorian efficiency; even the once-atheist children start attending church. Meanwhile, sensible Ellen is thrown among a quirky mix of instructorsa Russian ballerina, a hysteric metalworks teacher, and an overly emotive drama coach. None of the staff, however, is as intriguing as the mysterious groundsman, Marek, who turns out to be a prominent Czech composer hiding incognito at the school to better facilitate the rescue of a Jewish friend from a concentration camp. Ellen and Marek's acquaintance grows into a deep friendship and then love, and an engagement ensues, taking the two to Marek's vast country estate. The Nazis, though, take revenge on Marek for helping with the escape of his friend, and mayhem breaks loose. Marek is believed lost, Ellen returns to London to marry an old admirer, and many of the Hallendorf children seek refuge at the Carr residence. Will the two lovers reunite? Will the Allies win the war? A happy ending is, of course, guaranteed, though the predictability barely detracts from this companionable tale, populated with odd, likable characters. Fluff, but high-quality fluff. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

romance for the intelligent reader
This is one of my all-time favourite books, the kind of comfort-blanket you can turn to when ill, dull or depressed, and almost as good as Jane Austen in that respect. The story is conventional, in the sense that a pretty young girl goes to work as matron in a boarding school and falls in love, but it's the writing, the details and the characters which give it a kind of magic. (Anyone new to Ibbotson's work should also check out her superb children's novels, especially The Star of Kazan, which has a similar heroine). Ellen is the daughter of a trio of fierce feminists, who are horrified when, instead of pursuing a serious career and finishing her degree at Cambridge, she becomes an expert on matters domestic - cooking espeically. Ellen leaves England to work at a progressive boarding school in Austria, where sensitive children are dumped by rich parents and taught to be forks in drama classes. (The author attended Dartington School in the 1930s). Unfortunately, Hitler's rise to power is impingeing even on the demi-paradise of rural Austria, and it turns out the mysterious Marek is rescuing Jews who manage to escape the camps. A composer who wins your heart instantly because he hangs bullies and Nazis out of windows and refuses to let his music be played by the Reich, he falls reluctantly in love with Ellen, but almost loses her thanks to the coming War.
Steeped in good jokes and high culture, this is the kind of romantic novel that like puff pastry looks light and feathery but is the most difficult of all to make - and find. The wit is delicious. Ellen's serious aunts in Bloomsbury, puzzled and mortified by their relation's femininity, the absurd idealism of the school, and Ellen's quiet battle with disorder are like Cold COmfort Farm only without the snobbishness and anti-Semitism.

Another winner from Ibbotson!
If you haven't discovered Eva Ibbotson, give her a try now. For sheer warm, lyrical beauty, I think there are few authors who can match her. Every sentence is a gem. I find myself trying to read slowly because I know how unhappy I'll be when the book is finished. This book--dealing with the rise of the Nazis and the coming of WWII--was inevitably darker than some of Ibbotson's, but she handles the subject matter beautifully.

Romance and Excitement
This is the first Ibbotson book I had read and it ties with A Countess Below Stairs as my favorite. The author creates such memorable characters that you can't help wanting the story to go on forever. I loaned this book to a friend and we laugh over the characters like Andromeda, the self regulating baby. I could not put it down. I love to tell my friends about Ibbotson, but it seems like all her books are out of print so you have to get them at libraries. I heartily recommend this book to anyone who likes a good story mixed with a little romance.