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A Touch of Mistletoe

This is the story of Blanche and Vicky, who as children read Ethel M. Dell and Elinor Glyn up a tree. Following the death of their grandfather — in whose enormous Warwickshire house they live — their mother relinquishes drink (to which she had taken in a big way) for the joys of frantic housework. Naturally the girls long to escape.

Blanche trains as a mannequin at a dubious institution in London, and Vicky flees to Holland and a purgatorial life as an au pair to a lot of dogs. But this is only the beginning and other adventures await them, including the poverty and cabbage smells of one-room living, the charcoaled fingers of art school, drunkenness and cheap restaurants of Soho bohemia, and varying degrees of excitement with several husbands and lovers.

First published in 1967, A Touch of Mistletoe shows Barbara Comyns' original voice at its best, mixing a characteristic simplicity with a quiet but cunning wit.

  • Format
  • paperback
  • Pages
  • 213
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9780860682301
  • Genres
  • fiction
  • Release date
  • 1989