SOME RECENT FICTION

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 294, 31 August 1918, Page 11

SOME RECENT FICTION

"Love Eternal." Personally I. prefer those of Sir Kider Haggard's novels which possess a South African'scenario, but this.wellpractised novelist evidently feels that be must occasionally vary his subject and background. In his'latest novel, "Love Eternal" (C'nssell and Co., per S. and W. Alackay and Whitcoiube and Tombs), he gives his admirers a. wartime story, and introduces us to a pair of lovers, Godfrey Knight and Isabel Blake, who aro very pleasant young peophi. Sir R.idcr Haggard lias always had a weakness for tlio .supernatural, or supposedly supernatural. His pair of lovers have, so tho story tells us, lived and met and loved many iages before fha present time. Their love.: is permanent, eternal. And so, although Godfrey goes to the front in France, and engages in some specially daugerous war work- in Eastern Africa, ho is always dose in spirit, if not in body, to his beloved, who, whilst her dear ono is abroad, transforms her beautiful country home into a. hospital, and has many strange and exciting experiences of her own. The author docs not disguise his belief that spiritualism can be productive of evil as well as good, and tho principal villain of the story is a. female medium. A secondary evil influence is that of the hero's father, a peculiarly narrowminded and most objectionable country clergyman, who, to some readers, may appear to be rather overdrawn. Tli'e charm of the story, and a certain peculiar charm it undoubtedly possesses, lies- in the author's evident confidence that the powers of goodness and love must always triumnh over those of jealousy, hatred, and evil. The author loaves his lovers nomiuallv separated by death, but fated to live on for countless aeons in true spiritual affinity and partnership. It is a faith which must bring comfort to thousands who have lost, their dear ones in the present war. The story is (old in a pleasant, engaging style, Ihe pictures of English country life being specially charming. Whether readers of the book asrree 'with or differ from the author's theories of spiritual life and soul inter-communication, one tiling at least is certain, and that is thai? he has rarely given us a better-written' and more delightful story.

"Cinderella's Suitors." The hue promise shown in Miss Isabel Peacocko's earlier books, "My Friend Phil" and "Patricia, i'at," is amply redeemed in her latest story, "Cinderella's Suitors" (Ward, Lock aiid Co., per Whitcombe and Tombs.). Tho heroine is an Auckland girl, who, when occupying a comparatively huniblo position as a typist, receives the pleasantly bowildcring news that she has eomo into a fortune of live thousand a. year. Alexa, or Lexio, Leslie, as her friends call her, is a very charming girl, and is naturally highly elated over her good fortune. There is, however, a condition attached that she must remain unmarried. She sails for Europe in company with a. friend, a young widow, and a. young journalist who lias been "fired" for writing a sensational attack upon the owners of some slum property, tho said owners including one of the proprietors of tho paper upon which ho has been employed. A very charming love story is gradually developed, and some pleasant .travel pictures introduced. An ingeniously-contrived plot is worked" out to a'li equally clever conclusion, a conclusion which lady readers of tho story will no doubt consider highly satisfactory. Miss Peacocke's character drawing is gaining in strength as she progresses in her art, and there aro several passages in the book which exhibit tho author's firm grasp of certain social possibilities of the after-wnr period. Tho story should specially delight readers of tho feminine sex. i