PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 5 August 1929, Page 8

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED

"1 had the power, you have the glory." It was Victor Jason who said this. Jason is the objectionable person in Concordia Merrel's latest novel—" The Man Without Mercy" (Hodder and Stoughton), forwarded by the well-known publishers' representative in Sydney. The writer has produced a number of yerV.jnteresting romantic stories, either pictures Que or tragic—sometimes both—and always intriguing. Her heroine in this case is Judith Connor—"the cue capable member of a singularly incapable family"—who comes pitifully under the influence of Jason who subjects her to misery and humiliation. It is love and a sensational accident which finally saved Judith and brought her happiness. Jason is really a tragic figure exulting in.the power he wields, and will probably receive much pity as the story ends, and with his dying breath he admits to his rival his defeat—the victory of love OVer power. • JBerta Ruck needs no introduction as a popular writer of fiction. In "The Unlrissed Bride" (Hodder and Stoughloh), she gives us a more than usually well-filled book in which there is a modern setting, as is evidenced by the fact that towards the end a midnight elopement from the south of France to Paris is followed by a pursuit by aeroplane. The hook is dedicated to Captain and Mrs de Haviland, "who have given a new meaning to the English word 'Moth'." The opening scene of the story is.set on the French Riviera; the princiEal characters are Dr. Rex Travers, a ig. Englishman of aviation experience in the • war )■ his private secretary, Joy Harrison, a girl as charming as she is impetuous; Geoffrey Ford, a popular iipvelist; Percival Fitzroy, the doctor's nephew, described as "a very modern type of public schoolboy." There is a broken romance followed by a marriage in .which the bride was not even kissed; marital misunderstandings, conventional happiness (outwardly), but bitter quarrels (heme'wardly). The end has some novel aspects, and no doubt the numerous admirers of Berta Ruck will be as satisfied as Joy Harrison was.