Nothing Ventured

With vocabulary and a prose style reminiscent of the early 20th-century children’s fiction churned out under the name Laura Lee Hope, Douglas (The Tenement Girl) presents the literally and figuratively bloodless romantic experience of Isla Scott, a hospital nurse who takes a position at a hydro, a spa advertising cures through baths and steam. The setting is 1925 Scotland, but aside from an occasional och or nae inserted erratically in the dialogue, there’s little to distinguish it from any other place or time. Isla’s competitive foil is Trina, a waitress in the patients’ dining room whose job is not notably different from Isla’s. Trina is toying with Isla’s besotted brother, the hydro’s gymnasium manager, and though Isla disapproves of his silliness, she herself falls quickly for a new doctor, Grant Revie. Constantly in the background, however, is Mark Kinnaird, a melancholy patient who is Isla’s main charge. Setting up the character pairings takes half the book; the rest moves no more quickly. The mannered innocence and unchallenged acceptance of oppressive social norms grate from the first page. (Dec.)