Miranda - Grace Livingston Hill

I actually rushed through Phoebe Deane, eager to get to the last book of the Miranda series, and found myself a little disappointed. Miranda Griscom, the feisty redheaded sidekick and guardian angel to both Marcia Schuyler and Phoebe Deane, finally got her own book, and presumably her own (well-deserved) romance, and I was thrilled to see it, but after reading the novel, I'm a little ambivalent.

Between Miranda's memories and the story itself, the novel spans about twenty years. To summarize, a young Miranda, who has long regarded with compassion the teacher's abuse on older student (and object of her affections) Allan Whitney, was horrified to realize that he'd been accused of murder. Convinced of his innocence, she helps him escape lockup, and, after a kiss, sends him off, expecting never to see him again.

Many years later, after she's happily established as housekeeper for her beloved Marcia Spafford, she thinks through the night of the murder and brilliantly deduces that a friend of Allan's was in fact the real killer, and, though a series of deceptful, yet clever plots, exposes him and clears Allan's name. Coincidentally, a missionary visits, and mentions in passing of a man named Whitney he's met from the Oregon territory, and Miranda is able to contact him once again, and the two lovers are reunited.

Overall, it's a sweet plot, if one can overlook the massively unlikely coincidences and Miranda's deceptive plots, that, this time, border on the occult as she fakes a ghost in a fit of 'mesmerism'. Don't get me wrong, I love Miranda's plotting skills, but I wonder at the wisdom of bringing in the occult to a novel such as this. The problem with this novel is the pacing, and the massive influx of unneccessary information. Hill deserves to be commended for her research; she provides wonderful, and accurate, insight into the history of New York and America as a whole during the 1830s and early 1840s, including the invention of the telegraph, but there are many points where this overshadows the story, and I'm not certain whether I'm reading a history text or a novel. The steam engine in Marcia Schuyler and the early abolition movement in Phoebe Deane are far more skillfully woven into the story than the history in Miranda.

If you love Miranda Griscom, though, this is well worth the read, if only to see more of her adventures. If you haven't read the others in the series, however, don't bother with this one.