The Bride of Ivy Green

Set in 1821 in the idyllic English town of Ivy Hill, book three in Klassen’s Tales from Ivy Hill series (following The Ladies of Ivy Cottage) is a charming meander through the lives, loves, and difficulties of three friends. With her brother moving back to their home of Ivy Cottage, Mercy Grove will have to discontinue the school she has been running there. Feeling torn between her need to teach, her desire to watch after her students, and her required duties as a proper lady in the Grove family, Mercy lingers at Ivy Cottage upon her brother’s arrival. Her friend Jane, meanwhile, is busy running a coaching inn, the Bell, and wavering on a marriage proposal from her boyfriend. Rachel is the only one of the three best friends who is happily settled after recently marrying. When a new French dressmaker comes to Ivy Hill, many in the town question her abilities, leaving the three friends to offer their camaraderie and support. With a breezy plot centered solely on the developing romances and workaday lives of the ladies of Ivy Hill, there is minimal narrative movement but plenty of discussion of the virtues of faith and Godliness. Readers of previous installments will enjoy the small but important developments of Klassen’s large, memorable cast. (Dec.)