The Substitute Guest by Grace Livingstone Hill (November 7-9, 2005)
I don't think I've ever read another book quite like this one. On amazon,
it's classified as Christian Romance, and I read it since it was selected
for a book club I'm part of. Written in
1933, The Substitute Guest started out as an adventure type story,
which then turned into a narrative of Christmas,
hinted at romance, then went to themes of Christianity and conversion, then
went the route of suspense crime/defeating evil and then back to romance.
The story begins when Alan Monteith goes on a last minute Christmas Eve errand
to deliver a critical medication to a woman in need, for his friend, a doctor,
who is going on vacation. Alan has a difficult time and loses his way in
a dangerous snowstorm, and meets the Devereaux family, which includes the
devout Mother and Father Devereaux, and their children, Daryl (a girl) and
Lance. Daryl is involved with a young man named Harold that the whole family
has misgivings about. Lance loves the sweet young Ruth, another visitor at
the home. Lance joins Alan on the dangerous expedition, and the pair successfully
deliver the medicine. Afterwards, Alan has the first sincere Christmas
experience since his mother died,
and wonders
what
his
city life
is missing.
He especially
wonders why he is involved with a woman like Demeter Cass, when girls like
Daryl exist in the world. Much of the later plot revolves around the romance
between Daryl and Alan.
Grace Livingston Hill switches vantage points at many times
as she tells the story, sometimes focusing on Alan, other times Demeter or
the Devereauxs.
The overall result is
very
soap-opera-esque, only with a much smaller cast of characters. I think
the somewhat weird names (Daryl and Demeter!) had something to do with my
evaluation too.
I thought the story was good, but at times the dialogue was
very stilted and unnatural. For me, that took away from the book. I expected
Grace Livingston
Hill might be like L.M. Montgomery, but she didn't have much humor, at least
not in this book. The parts that amused me the most were when the negligee-glad
Demeter
tried to caress Alan into a life of crime for her (definitely soapy there!),
and Alan tells her to stop the petting party! I also was glad when Harold
was sent off. heh. Harold and Demeter should have met in the end and gotten
married. Alan and Daryl took a ridiculous amount of time to figure
out they liked one another, but it was all a happy ending in the end.
