Breton Holiday Colour Frontis

Colour frontis from the first edition of Breton Adventure. This scene takes place in Chapter 14, Capture of a Car Thief, with the girls mistaking The Man of Mystery for a crook. Thanks to Elizabeth Lindsay for providing this high-resolution scan.

Quote of the Day

There was a sound. A soft, indefinite slurring sound. Of faint shuffling, ghostly feet? Sara kept swallowing her heart, which had in some peculiar way jumped right up to the back of her throat. She took a step forward, and her hand, instead of empty air, met something soft, and warm, and hairy. Her last poor remnants of courage left her. She let out a yell, and, heedless where she might go, dashed forward as quickly as her shaking legs would carry her, slipping and tripping over the uneven ground, panic-stricken...

From BRETON HOLIDAY, Chapter 9, "...Because He Knows a Frightful Fiend Doth Close Behind Him Tread".

Breton Adventure

Black and white frontispiece from the second edition of Breton Adventure. This illustration shows Sara running from the cave after inadventently running into Susette, the runaway chimpanzee, which she thought was a ghost or monster.

Quote of the Day

The Junior Common Room was the usual seething mob, everybody yelling at the tops of their voices, so we didn't bother much to introduce Lisa around, only grabbed as much tea as we could - it's rather special on the first day, sandwiches and cake, so that the poor victims think that's how they're going to eat every day and feel quite cheered, little do they know. Prune was stuffing away quietly in a corner, so we took Lisa over to talk to her.

From A GIRL WITH IDEAS, Chapter 1, Dotty Has An Idea. This book was written under the pen name Jean Bell and was clearly intended for the Collins Spitfire series in the late sixties. However, it was only published in 2002 in Susan and Friends.

Bernese Holiday Cover

After years of searching, I finally have the front cover of Bernese Holiday. Breton Holiday had a colour cover and a black and white frontis depicting different scenes. In Bernese Holiday and Highland Holiday, the frontis was simply a black and white copy of the cover illustration. None of the books had additional internal illustrations. Thanks to Clarissa from GGBP for sending me this scan.

Quote of the Day

This wasn't the chattiest gathering that she had ever been at, Susan thought, but for once she simply couldn't think of a single thing to say. What she wanted to say, Why are you following us? What do you want, What's your game? would hardly have added to the chattiness.

And then fortunately Midge found her tongue. "How is the young man?" she asked politely.

"Young man? What young man?" said the spy, raising very slightly her beautiful eyebrows.

From WHERE IS SUSAN?, Chapter 6, Move and Counter-Move.

Highland Holiday GGBP Edition

It has been a while since I posted anything here, but now things are happening in the Jane Shaw world. Girls Gone By Publishers are reissuing Highland Holiday, the third of the Sara and Caroline books. This is just the first in a series of hard-to-find books that are in the works. There are also plans to reissue House of the Glimmering Light and Crooked Sixpence. I was asked to write the introduction to Highland Holiday and was pleased that they accepted it with hardly a tweak. In the introduction, I provide a biography of the author and an outline of the whole Sara and Caroline saga, from Breton Holiday in 1939 to the short story Sara's Adventure in 1953. Sara's Adventure is also included in the book, with all its illustrations, as well as scans of all the covers and frontispieces of the Holiday books and their reissues as Adventures. Considering all these contents, Highland Holiday is a bargain at £13.00. This morning, I received word that the book has just been sent to the printers and should be available in November. You can purchase your advance copy here.