Monica Dickens creëerde verhalen die het dagelijks leven en menselijke relaties scherpzinnig observeerden, vaak gebaseerd op haar eigen ervaringen. Haar schrijven duikt in het innerlijke leven van personages, waarbij ze hun vreugden en worstelingen onthult met een authentieke stem. Dickens had tot doel lezers te vermaken en herkenning van hun eigen leven in haar verhalen te inspireren, waardoor ze een boeiende en herkenbare literaire wereld creëerde. Haar onderscheidende stijl wordt gekenmerkt door directheid en een diep vermogen om de subtiliteiten van de menselijke natuur vast te leggen.
After the sudden death of his wife, Daniel abandons home and security, setting off to find the freedom he knew as a boy. This novel follows his wanderings from a seaside boarding house to a hospital bed, introducing the strange characters he meets and recording his even stranger adventures.
Dora is invited out to America to help set up a home of rest for horses. When she leaves and is given a horse to take back to Follyfoot, she can't believe her luck. One of the horses falls ill. And it looks like the same epidemic that is sweeping America . Has Dora's horse brought the disease to England?
At Follyfoot Farm, the Colonel looks after old and ill-treated horses, helped by his stepdaughter, Callie, and two stable-hands, Dora and Steve. These three have plenty to do at the stables, but can always find time to get involved in the mystery and adventure that abound at Follyfoot Farm.
What does a young, well-off English woman do with herself when she's thrown out of acting school and is tired of being a debutante? Well, if you're Monica Dickens, you become a cook. She makes the plunge to a life "below the stairs," confident in her abilities to be a cook because she once took a course in French cuisine. She quickly learns the difference between school learning and real life. Scalded milk, dropped roasts, and fallen souffles plague her in her domestic career, but she perseveres. What makes this book so delightful is the sense of humor and drama Monica Dickens brings to her work. From dressing up for job interviews in a "supporting-a-widowed-mum look" to eavesdropping on dinner guests, she tackles her work with an enthusiasm for discovery. To her descriptions of battles with crazy scullery maids, abusive employers, and unwieldy custards, she brings a humorous and pointed commentary about the delicate and ongoing war between the wealthy and their servants. Written in 1939, this true-life experience reveals a writer who wasted no opportunity to explore daily lives and dramas. Her keen eye for detail, youthful resilience, and sense of the absurd make One Pair of Hands a deliciously inside look at the households of the British upper-class.
A 1930s Bridget Jones who is waiting, often desperately, for the right man
A charming, funny and fascinating account of a young trainee nurse during the Second World War.
Lieutenant-Commander, the hero of this novel, is axed from the Navy at the age of 36, one of many thousands obliged to re-plan their lives as the result of cuts in the armed services. A widower with a small daughter, he has no experience or knowledge outside submarines and the Royal Navy. His whole life had been that of a sailor since he joined up direct from school at the beginning of the war. This is not only the story of his struggles and adventures when he tries to find some way of earning his living; it is the story of his difficulty in adjusting himself to an unfamiliar civilian world. Monica Dickens's novel is the story of all such men in any of the services who find themselves so rudely thrust into the ordinary life of their country which, though they have served unselfishly, they find they are ill-equipped to live in. Written with the lighter humorous touch of some of her earlier books, it is a sympathetic presentation of the human side of one of those mass adjustments forced on society by the changing nature of the world and its affairs.
Poppy, newly recruited cub reporter at the Downingham Post, is determined to prove to the editor that he's wrong in his belief that 'Women are a nuisance in the office'. He certainly doesn't think she's a nuisance when it's time for the tea round - a job which never fails to fall to the only female reporter.What Poppy lacks in experience, she makes up for in spirit and ambition. She'll make the Downingham Post the best regional newspaper there is - even if she occasionally gets the names wrong in court hearings. Life, for a single professional woman in the post-war years, certainly has its challenges - from finding a room, when the tyrannical landlady doesn't consider Poppy to be quite respectable, to changing her editor's deeply entrenched ways. This semi-autobiographical novel, recounted with Monica Dickens's wit, warmth and wry observation, will charm all who read it.
Leonard's life has never seemed safer or better. Then through the door comes Toby, he brings with him the excitement of change but he is not what he appears to be, and in the end brings tragedy.
