"She had a dash and a flair without being ultra." -Emilie Loring

Perhaps my few remaining faithful readers will forgive the lack of posts when I excuse my absense when they know I have been reading a new author, the aforementioned Emilie Loring. Somewhere between romantic junk, pulp-Nancy-Drewish drama, and just plain bad writing, her books manage to be charmingly anti-feminist, with slightly believable drama and a mere dash of sweet, strong love. Now and then a memorable phrase appears, with a unique twist of words, like the one that opened this post. All of the books have similar plots, but something in the writing makes every one readable.

With titles like There Is Always Love, Swift Water, Rainbow At Dusk, and We Ride the Gale!,I would have passed them over, but I heard the opening quote from a photographer, and went straight to the library. In the Temple Public Library, all of her books are fairly small, with red library binding. The type, large rather than small, and very round, suits the style perfectly. Nearly every book opens with a smartly dressed girl in her mid-twenties riding in either a "open, low-slung black" or "resplendent yellow" roadster. Within the first five paragraphs, she meets and quickly scorns the man she will end up kissing in the last paragraph. But don't think that I am giving away anything, there is never any subtlety about any of it. Most of the time he is stricken at once, instantly picturing her as his helpmeet in his political career. She, the society girl, wears clothes like "a white tweed suit, with its suggestion of soft yellow cardigan," or perhaps a "tailored navy-wool frock with crisp, narrow turnover pique collar and cuffs." Their skin is almost always "curiously white under the rich sun tan," the only variety in dress and appearence being slight differences in the shade of their black hair. The girls are called Jean Randolph and Linda Bourne, the villains Luther Calvin and Harvey Brooke, the occasional domineering mother or aunt Contessa Vittoria or some other grand name. The gentlemen of the tale, whether a politician or a soldier, the latter only infrequently, have "bronze skin," "slim without suggesting thinness," "about thirty-five," with, of course, dark hair and eyes. They go by names such as Christopher Wynne and Gregory Merton.

There is always a bit of intrigue, and some danger that requires much willing suspension of desbelief. In the end, the girls' mist of enmity evaporates with a literal dawn, "joy comes in the morning" and all that, and decides to give up the ambition of being an independent career woman.

Emilie Loring is a very light read, but very fun. I encourage you to take a short break from your Austen and Bronte, and try a little Loring.