Carol Plays Summer Stock a/k/a Carol in Repertory - the Second Carol Page theater story

Reading this series is pure joy for me, as it brings back so many wonderful memories of performing in community theater.  The author, Helen Dore Boylston, properly captures the excitement, the hard work, the disappointments, the backstage drama, the camaraderie, the hopes and dreams, the last minute mishaps, and everything else that goes into getting a play ready for that opening night!  And the continuing drama of what happens once the play begins - well, there's plenty of that, as well!  Boylston even offers up a word of thanks in an Author's Note at the beginning of the book - acknowledging how much she "looked to Jane Cobb for her lively suggestions and her true ear for dialogue.  In this new story of Carol she has cheerfully assumed the role of collaborator and godmother, and in gratitude I should like to dedicate the story to her." According to a tribute to Cobb in the New York Times (Jane Cobb - Author), she was a writer, too, having stories published in numerous magazines and a silent co-author of the Sue Barton books.  Thus, it is nice to see Boylston acknowledge her part in the creation of this series.

 

Carol Plays Summer Stock (a/k/a Carol in Repertory) picks up shortly after the conclusion of the first book.  For those who do not recall, at the end of the last book, Carol and her friends, Julia Gregg, Mike Horodinsky, Keith Macdonald, and Nan Walton were all selected to spend the summer at the Richards Village Theater in Winasser, Maine - Mike as a stage manager, Julia, Keith, and Nan as apprentices, and Carol in her first paying job as second ingenue!  The book opens as they arrive at the small town theater, full of hope, dreams, and excitement about the summer that lies ahead of them - and little do they know just how much drama they are going to experience - both on stage and behind the scenes!  Boylston ups the ante for this story, as her characters now have a bit of experience under their belts, so she puts them through some true challenges that test not only their dedication to the theater, but also their loyalty to one another.

 

With this book, readers are introduced to a small batch of new characters - Pete Gregory, Remember Hingham, and Orchid Wynton - two of whom become fast friends with the group, and one of whom defines the epitome of acting, both on and off the stage!  Pete, Julia, and Nan are relegated to classes and backstage work, while Mike becomes the assistant to the theater's own stage manager, Bill Dolan.  Carol is given a script for her first play, at which time she learns that Jane Sefton - the actress who gave Carol a ride in her car in the first book - is going to be performing at the theater that summer, and she has high hopes that she will have the opportunity to share the stage with her.  And it seems like she may get her chance, until a very sly Orchid Wynton decides she wants the role, and she tricks her way into it!  Yes, the story features an ongoing feud (of sorts) between Orchid and Carol, as Orchid is determine to keep her "star" status at the theater, even if that means making Carol look bad on stage.  But once Carol figures out what the other girl is up to, she manages to circumvent the mishaps and, once again, save the theater in the most imaginative way.

 

While I suspected in the first book that Carol and Mike were destined to get together - after all, it's the oldest trope in the world to have the two people who can't stand each other at the start end up together in the end! - this book seems to further the idea that while Carol and Mike have mutual respect for one another, their relationship is nothing more than friends in the theater.  That is not to say their friendship is not tested, as Boylston uses Orchid to come between the two in some rather devious ways, but despite her flaws, the one thing that can be said about Carol Page is that she is loyal to those she cares about - and it is her loyalty to Mike that helps save him from destroying his future by the end of the book.

 

There was an interesting comment in the book, when Mike gets irritated and makes the comment, "What's the Wonder Girl going to do now - imitations?" (p. 132).  As a long-time fan of the Wonder Woman comics from DC Comics, I was curious as to the name.  It seems this reference, published in 1942, actually predates the first appearance of Wonder Girl in DC Comics, who did not make her first appearance as a teen-age Wonder Woman until 1947!  However, the character of Wonder Woman had made her first appearance in All-Star Comics issue 8, published in 1941, just one year before this book was published, thus leaving one to wonder if the "Wonder Girl" reference was a simple play on words from the Wonder Woman character.

 

 Something that did surprise me in the book is a reference to divorce.  Remember (the character) admits to Carol that her father and mother were divorced, and that her father has re-married three times since then, and her mother twice (p. 155)!  While divorce was not necessarily uncommon by the 1940s, it was still unusual to see if mentioned in a young adult novel - and to think that the divorced man and women remarried multiple times after that, why, it is shocking!  According to a study by Bowling Green State University, in 1940 "approximately 3% of ever-married women in all education groups were separated or divorced"; however, the '40s basically started the increase in divorce rate, which grow higher and higher with each passing decade.  Now, it is fairly common to read about divorces; but in the early 1940s, it was a completely different story.  As such, I'm surprised not only that Boylston chose to give her character such a background, but that the publisher (Little Brown & Company) allowed it to be published.

 

As with the first book in this series, the plays referenced in the story are actual plays - from Dear Brutus, by J.M. Barrie (p. 21) to The Red Coat, by John Patrick Shanley (p. 33) to the musical Camille (p. 190) and even Seagulls Crying (p. 190), which is probably a take on Chekhov's 1895 play, The Seagull - while others are fictional in nature, such as The Upper Brackets (p, 68) and The Merry Woods of Windsor (p. 89), which is likely a take on the real play, Merry Wives of Windsor, as well as Run for Your Money (p 190), which, interestingly enough, was the name of a film in 1949.  Likewise, the location of this small town theater, Winasset, Maine, is fictional, but bears a close resemblance to the town of Wiscasset, Maine (although I could not find any community theaters in Wiscasset back in the 1940s when this book was written and published).

 

The artist on the internal illustrations changed - while the first book featured illustrations by Frederick E. Wallace, this book features internals by Major Felton.  From what I could learn online, Felton provided book illustrations and painted posters in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, and his biography page on Wikipedia ( Major Felton - Artist) even acknowledges his work on the Carol page and Sue Barton series!  And like the first book, the British edition published two years after the first American edition, changed the title, this time more drastically to Carol in Repertory.  The British edition does feature the same internal illustrations, but the cover art is merely the same painted headshot that appeared on the cover of the first book.

 

This second book confirms my love of the series and the characters, and as indicated in the final chapter of this book, Carol and Mike are off to Broadway to see if they can make a name for themselves!

 

RATING:  10 carefully carried cups of tea out of 10 for another fun romp in the world of theater and acting with some very real, very flawed, and very enjoyable characters!

Harlequin Gothic Romance Series No. 32001 - The Satyr Ring

"She borrowed a dead girl's name ... and had to play a game whose rules she didn't know" (cover blurb)

If you had ever told me at any time of my life that I would read and enjoy a Harlequin romance novel, I would have told you that you were crazy.  I grew up watching my mom and her best friend devouring Harlequin romances, trading off books and reading them as fast as they were published.  I scoffed at the lurid covers and had absolutely no interest whatsoever in the love stories contained within each one.  Instead, growing up, I developed a love for mysteries, starting with Nancy Drew and other children's series books, then graduating into Dark Shadows on television, and as I entered my teen and adult years, cultivated my continuing love of mysteries.  The one common thread among all of those are the gothic elements - the stormy nights, the dark mansions, the deadly secrets, the hidden rooms, the untold pasts.  I was enthralled by these plots, and so my passion for the gothics of the '60s and '70s, and even into the early '80s was only a natural progression.  What I never knew until a little over a year go was that Harlequin attempted their own line of gothic novels in the early 1980s. It didn't last long, only publishing 18 books in the series; however, I had to have them - I mean, the cover art and titles along make them worth it!  After tracking them all down, I decided I could begin reading them (and being the anal-retentive person I am, I had to start with the first book in the series...)

The Satyr Ring is written by Alison Quinn, who, as far as I could uncover, has only written one other gothic novel, which is also in this Harlequin Gothic Romance series (book 4).  I could find literally nothing about Alison Quinn online, so I have no idea if this is the author's real name or merely the pseudonym of a male or female author who did not want their own name associated with the work.  The copyright page indicates the story is © 1983 (the same year as the publication) by Alison Quinn, so perhaps it is the author's real name.  In any event, this first foray into the realm of Harlequin gothic tales is a period piece, set in the mid-1940s after the end of the second World War.  The story is told in the first-person narrative (which is not my favorite style) of the protagonist, Sarah Smith (and, yes, all I could think of was Sarah Jane Smith, probably the most famous of all Doctor Who companions - and since the story does open over in England, perhaps the author was just paying a little homage).  Despite this point of view, I did find myself drawn into the story, caring about Sarah and the events that were spiraling around her.

The book opens with a soap-opera style story - a young woman (Sarah) who is an amnesiac, works at a hospital in post-war London where she is caring for another young woman who was in a horrible automobile accident.  Strangely enough, the injured woman bears a striking resemblance to Sarah.  Before the woman dies, she begs Sarah to go to America and be with her grandfather.  When the dead woman's husband finally shows up at the hospital, Sarah sneaks out of the hospital with the woman's passport, airplane ticket, and money, and flies to Maine, where she is prepared to inform the woman's grandfather of her passing.  Upon touchdown, however, Sarah is shocked to find the woman's husband on the same plane as her, and she faints ... only to awaken in Starr Mansion, where Andre Tate informs her that she will have to assume the identity of Roma Tate (his dead wife) in order to keep Roma's dying grandfather alive.  She soon learns that Benjamin Starr has changed his will, leaving everything to Roma upon his death - much to the consternation of Roma's stepmother, who was anticipating inheriting the large estate upon the old man's passing!  Sarah unwillingly agrees to go along with it, only until Grandfather Starr gets better, and then she intends to tell him the truth.  Little does she know the web of lies and secrets she is about to get tangled up in!

A deadly bobcat named Satan that was Roma's pet cat ... a suspicious Aunt Clara who is determined to get that fortune ... a stepbrother that insists he and Roma had planned to get married before the fortune-hunting Andre entered the picture ... and a strange satyr ring that is the only link to Sarah's past - a ring that Andre seems intent on keeping away from her.  A shove down the cellar stairs and a near drowning convince Sarah that someone wants to kill her ... and when she ultimately finds her precious ring hidden in a drawer in Andre's attic studio (where he paints), Sarah reaches her breaking point, and she runs away - only to get drawn back when Grandfather Starr dies, and Sarah finally discovers that the deception she undertook to play Roma Tate was one she was made for - quite literally!  Her past catches up to her, and Sarah finally remembers who she truly is and discovers a shocking connection to Starr Mansion, Andre Tate, and the entire nightmare in which she has been living!

Aside from the first person point-of-view, I did enjoy the story.  As indicated, it definitely had the soap opera elements to it, what with the woman with amnesia, the look-alike woman, the deception of one woman playing the role of the other - all of these tropes have been used in soaps for decades.  The dark mansion overlooking the Maine cliff, with the ocean crashing on the rocks below is very reminiscent of Dark Shadows, as is the young woman who comes to the mansion, never knowing that she has a secret connection to the people who live there.  A combination of soap opera, gothic, and mystery definitely add up to a really good story.

The cover art is gorgeous, and while it hints at the whole look-alike scenario (with Sarah looking into the mirror and seeing Roma instead of herself, and only Sarah is wearing the satyr ring), there is no actual scene like this anywhere in the book.  It is, however, a nice departure from the typical woman in a flowing dress running away from a dark mansion in the background.   It is rather nice to have a different visual on the cover, and the shadows and expression on Sarah's face definitely give it a spooky feel.

A great start to this series, and here's hoping the rest of the books measure up to this one!

RATING:  9 glasses of cold milk out of 10 for a suspenseful tale of deception, secrets, lost memories, mystery, and murder - with a pet bobcat thrown in for good measure!