Title: Jean of Storms

Author: Elinor M. Brent-Dyer

Publisher: Bettany Press

Date: 2004

Pages: 254

Format: Paperback reprint

Description

Although Elinor M. Brent-Dyer’s fans include thousands of adult women, until recently it was thought that she had written only for younger readers and have never made use in fiction of her native Tyneside background.  But, in 1995, the chance discovery of Jean of Storms has revealed not only a full-length adult novel, but one set in the district around South Shields, where she herself grew up.  It is therefore a fascinating read, not only for Chalet fans, but for the picture it paints of the lives and loves of the young women of the time.

Jean of Storms, which was serialised during 1930 in the Shields Gazette, is a romantic story of its period.  The gifts as a story-teller that Brent-Dyer showed in her Chalet School books are evident here, too.  In particular, her capacity to create characters, both sympathetic and otherwise, who immediately involve the reader and keep the pages turning to the end.