Finished Lavender and Old Lace by Myrtle Reed. Published in 1902, it is part romance, part mystery. The book is quaint, humorous, lush, and edgy, all at the same time. The prose reminded me very much of the later books in Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series: small town, modern young people befriending old fashioned spinsters, lots of flowers, with the scent of the blooms floating through the pages. A charming read.
Reed published seventeen novels and a number of cookbooks between 1899 and 1911 when she died of an overdose of sleeping draft. As an insomniac, she must have been writing all night long. What a shame we lost her so soon.
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