Alethea's Reviews > Masquerade at the Wells

This is another Lorna-Hill-at-her-best work. I was sorry that she didn't continue Veronica's narrative any further- I wanted to read about her travelling the globe as a freshly minted prima ballerina and picking up her romance with Sebastian again. But I think Hill decided Veronica's story had finished, since she had achieved her dreams, and Hill was probably right! It was a brave decision by Hill to start over again with new characters, but on this occasion it works really well (unlike in the later books!).

Mariella and even the rather pathetic Jane are very life-like, interesting, and generally likeable characters. And the variations on the themes of before are not too similar to be repetitive: Nigel is another "sort-of-cousin" with some similarities to Sebastian but also plenty of critical differences; the children spend some of their time in Northumberland and some in London, but their adventures are different to Veronica's; even Jane learning ballet and aspiring to be admitted to Sadlers' Wells doesn't seem repetitive. I think Mariella is the character who really makes this book sparkle - her rebellion against her famous ballerina mother pushing her into ballet is a new theme in the series and narrated extremely well. Mariella is spoilt and wilful, but charming and good hearted, and I can entirely empathise with preferring the countryside to London! (I wish she didn't like fox hunting, but there we are, this is a countryside book of the 1950s, so it's to be expected, I suppose.)

**Spoiler Alert**

I find it really strange that in this book Veronica and Sebastian are about 24 and only just about to get married, yet in No Castanets at the Wells (written after this book) they get engaged on a whirlwind upon meeting each other again when Veronica is only 18. If they were in such a rush at 18/19, then why the 6 year wait to go ahead and get married? Did Sebastian want to stake his claim, but then Veronica said they couldn't get married yet because she needed to travel the world for her career and couldn't risk having children until she had reached the pinnacle of success?? It seems very strange to me. I think a more believable chronology would have been that they had met again at 18/19 and started getting to know each other again as adults and with romantic feelings for each other, but that they had not got engaged for a year or two, and then it would have made sense them getting married 6 years after they re-met. Unfortunately, Hill added in their immediate engagement in the next book she wrote - No Castanets at the Wells - so the chronology doesn't entirely make sense to me. But there we are. A small detail, anyway.