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• A very special book about an unusual woman, later made into a movie which just this week I uploaded to YouTube. Look for the title "Hannah... a love story," to enjoy a really good adaptation.

• Hannah Mole is an unmarried woman approaching forty who, due to a lack of money, has worked for over twenty years as a governess, companion or housekeeper. However, although lacking in financial wealth and rather plain to look at, Miss Mole is no shrinking violet and what she lacks in money she more than makes up for in her sharp sense of humour, her wit and her optimistic outlook on life. When, due to her subversive behaviour, she loses her position as lady's companion to yet another difficult employer, her wealthy cousin (who is ashamed of Hannah's situation - something which affords Hannah no little pleasure) arranges for her to work as housekeeper for the Reverend Robert Corder, a nonconformist minister who is a widower and the father or two growing girls. Hannah, despite unsettling the minister with her outspokenness and her unusual view on life, soon makes herself almost indispensable to the family and she also becomes the object of attention to Mr Blenkinsop, a bank clerk - who, in spite of his outward reserve and respectability, finds Hannah an increasingly attractive and interesting personality. But then a secret, which Hannah has kept hidden for years, threatens to come into the open - a secret which could lose her her position and the good opinion of those around her - and Hannah has to decide whether to use her wonderful imagination to explain away the situation, or whether to reveal her past life and take the consequences. First published in 1930 (when the author was fifty years old and who, incidentally, was living an interesting double life) this is a wonderful and unusual story of a rather wonderful and unusual woman and I found 'Miss Mole' a real pleasure to read. Filled with excellent descriptions of situation and setting and some very interesting and sympathetic characters, I found myself becoming involved in Hannah's story from the very first page and was quite sorry to turn the last page and leave her behind. I've only read a couple of E.H. Young's novels but, from what I have read so far, I am very impressed and I am looking forward to reading more from her. I also have a non-fiction title 'Domestic Modernism, the Interwar Novel and E.H. Young' which looks very interesting and one I hope to start quite soon too. 5 Stars.

• This is a slightly dated but appealing book about an overlooked heroine who turns up trumps and is always the smartest in the room

• The characterization of Miss Mile was excellent. So few novels today take the time to relate character motivation for the action that follows. This novel does that very well, much like Edith Wharton masters in most of her novels and short stories. you know why the characters do what they do and therefore the consequences are more real.

• This is a little-known masterpiece which is one of my very favourite novels.

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