For nineteen-year-old Harriet Morton, life in 1912 Cambridge is as dry and dull as a biscuit. Her stuffy father and her opressive aunt Louisa al... read full description
reviews
Mar 07, 2011
D.G. ~Shameless Hussy~
rated it: 
*4.5 stars*
This is my second book by this author and I just loved it. Her books have been recently marketed as YA but like the last one, this is really a clean historical romance with a really great heroine (nice, loving, smart, hard worker) who is NOT a beauty but still shines because of her personality. Add to that the great setting (a ballet company touring Brazil in the 1910s), an interesting hero and an amazing cast of secondary characters and you get another gem by Ibbotson.
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This is my second book by this author and I just loved it. Her books have been recently marketed as YA but like the last one, this is really a clean historical romance with a really great heroine (nice, loving, smart, hard worker) who is NOT a beauty but still shines because of her personality. Add to that the great setting (a ballet company touring Brazil in the 1910s), an interesting hero and an amazing cast of secondary characters and you get another gem by Ibbotson.
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3 comments
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Feb 26, 2008
Amanda
rated it: 
Here's a checklist for you:
1. do you like ballet?
2. do you enjoy romantic semi-tragedies?
3. would you travel to the Amazon to escape from over-bearing and protecting family members?
4. would you defy everything you've been brought up to believe for something you think is right?
If you say yes to at least to of these, then this book is definetly one you will read again and again!
1. do you like ballet?
2. do you enjoy romantic semi-tragedies?
3. would you travel to the Amazon to escape from over-bearing and protecting family members?
4. would you defy everything you've been brought up to believe for something you think is right?
If you say yes to at least to of these, then this book is definetly one you will read again and again!
Jul 14, 2011
Melee
rated it: 
The plot was rather predictable, the love story (and the two characters it concerned) cloying to my inner cynic, and the other characters weren't particularly memorable but still interesting to read about. Harriet was too... too something to ever really be a sympathetic heroine in my eyes. Too good, perhaps? Sentimental? Asininely pleased at being a ruined woman? I don't know; I'm thinking it was probably a combination. Also, I would just like to say, there was not enough communication going on
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8 comments
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(4 people liked it)
Feb 04, 2009
Chelsea
rated it:
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2 comments
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Mar 24, 2008
Angie
rated it:
Once again Ibbotson shows how apt she is at expressing just how her character is feeling, in such a way that the reader sets the book down in her lap and sighs, "Yes. That is exactly how it feels."
When we first meet Harriet, it is indeed difficult to find an aspect of her life that is not dreary and isolated. Kept on an unbelievably tight rein by her scholar father and spinster aunt, her only outlet is the weekly ballet lessons that have somehow slipped under the radar. Whe More...
When we first meet Harriet, it is indeed difficult to find an aspect of her life that is not dreary and isolated. Kept on an unbelievably tight rein by her scholar father and spinster aunt, her only outlet is the weekly ballet lessons that have somehow slipped under the radar. Whe More...
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Jan 25, 2009
When I first began reading this book over break I thought it was extremely boring. All it talked about was a girl, who had a very stict father and aunt, who never let her do anything she wanted. The book was also kind of confusing becuase it had flashbacks that happened randomly. I had to read a couple of pages over to understand that it happened in the past. After the protagonist, Harriet decideds to join the Russian ballet master and goes to the Amazons to perform with the rest of the group. W
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Dec 01, 2008
Molly811
rated it:
A Company of Swans, by Eva Ibbotson, is a great book for people who like romance. The plot is kind of complex, but you have to keep reading it in order to figure out the whole story. If you look really hard in the reading, there is a lot of hidden things in the text that will really help you understand the story. In other words, this is the kind of book that you can’t skim, because if you do, you will miss something.
Harriet Morton is a girl living in 20th century England. Her mother died More...
Harriet Morton is a girl living in 20th century England. Her mother died More...
Jan 04, 2012
Shweta's Book Journal
rated it:
I love Eva Ibbotson's books. They are a bridge between teen and adult books and set in a period that is both frustrating and charming. Frustrating as the heroines go through so much restraint and charming because the romance of the period is just out of this world.( I mean, they talk more and say really sweet things and the girl even blushes :) This is hardly seen in contemporary books.
The book is full of interesting characters. Interesting because they all provide a charm to the story More...
The book is full of interesting characters. Interesting because they all provide a charm to the story More...
Nov 15, 2011
Jaima
rated it:
Ibbotson's writing is impeccable, and this story is a delicious real-life fairy tale. Harriet, neglected and emotionally starved, runs away from her home and her stern father to join a touring ballet company, setting forth for the Amazon. There she meets Rom Verney, a wealthy, notorious Englishman, who she is convinced is the mysterious boy who ran away from Stavely years ago. Now he is the only hope of saving his family, including Harriet's young friend.
More interested in courting Harrie More...
More interested in courting Harrie More...
Sep 02, 2011
Karen
rated it:
I surprised myself and liked this book more than I thought I would. Since I used to dance, I was probably swayed by the nostalgia of reading a bunch of french ballet terms and feeling intelligent understanding the references to famous ballerinas. But, even without all that, it remains that, I really liked Harriet.
I liked that she was Good. And yes, I intended that capital G. She grew up in such a harsh atmosphere, but instead of making her afraid or bitter, is made her thirsty for inf More...
I liked that she was Good. And yes, I intended that capital G. She grew up in such a harsh atmosphere, but instead of making her afraid or bitter, is made her thirsty for inf More...
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Jun 06, 2011
vcheung
rated it:
By far the worst Ibbotson book I've read to date. I'd give it 2.5/3 stars. I'm starting to notice a theme in her books- young, not traditionally attractive girl who is involved in some kind of performing art company catches the attention on an older, tall, dark, and handsome, brooding rich man. It usually takes me a while to get into her books, but this one took me unusually long. The story seemed rushed, and the transitions between the different storylines were awkward. I couldn't connect to a
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(2 people liked it)
Apr 10, 2011
Jan
rated it:
You know what I absolutely love about reading Eva Ibbotson? The fact that she actually knows how to write a phenomenal romance novel and drag her readers in and leave them, wanting more. Don't get me wrong, there are enough present-day authors who write romance well, but it's really nothing like how Ibbotsom writes.
Ibbotson's A Company of Swans starts in Cambridge in the early 1900s wherin resides our plain, bird-thin heroin, Harriet Morton a wholly British girl who harbors a passion More...
Ibbotson's A Company of Swans starts in Cambridge in the early 1900s wherin resides our plain, bird-thin heroin, Harriet Morton a wholly British girl who harbors a passion More...
Mar 07, 2011
Allie
rated it: 
A Company of Swans is a historical romance set in 1912 in Cambridge, England. The main character, 19 year old Harriet, lives with her stuffy professor father and aunt, who treat her borderline abusively, and sometimes just abusively, throughout the novel. Harriet is very smart, and knows enough that she realizes that if she marries Edward, a boring professor remarkably similar to her father, she will not be happy. One day an opportunity for escape arises: she can join the Russian ballet as they
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Jan 10, 2011
Stephanie
rated it:
A Company of Swans by Eva Ibbotson tells the story of Harriet Morton whose seemingly only joy in life is ballet. She is strictly watched over by her spinster aunt whose frugalness causes everyone to dread attending her dinner parties and her widow father, a professor who took Harriet out of school when her teacher dared to suggest possible colleges for her.
Harriet, surrounded by gloom and dressed in the most hideous of clothes allows ballet to be her outlet. She never imagined tha More...
Harriet, surrounded by gloom and dressed in the most hideous of clothes allows ballet to be her outlet. She never imagined tha More...
Dec 30, 2010
Karissa
rated it:
This sounded like a super interesting book. All about ballerinas and a trip to the Amazon jungle. I listened to it on audio book and it made an absolutely fabulous audio book. I loved this book to death; it was adventurous, beautiful, sweet, and inspiring.
Harriet Morton is the daughter of a professor. He starts teaching her at a young age and Harriet, being exceptionally smart, learns quickly. As she approaches adulthood her father (who is absolutely against anything but a tra More...
Harriet Morton is the daughter of a professor. He starts teaching her at a young age and Harriet, being exceptionally smart, learns quickly. As she approaches adulthood her father (who is absolutely against anything but a tra More...
Oct 16, 2010
JoLee
rated it:
A Company of Swans is official my second favorite Eva Ibbotson book, and it is a close second indeed. Harriet leads a dismal life in Cambridge with her professor father and miserly aunt. Her only solace is ballet class. Inexplicably the director of a ballet company finds himself offering her a position in his company for a tour to the Amazon. Harriet is lacking in training, but she has something special, and he knows it. Of course, she's not allowed to go, but after a visit with young Henry
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2 comments
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(3 people liked it)
Oct 04, 2009
Rachael
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Aug 31, 2009
Jan
rated it:
A sweet love story, made unusual by the extensive ballet references and unusual setting -- from England to Brazil, before World War I. Although some listings say it is a teen book, it really isn't.
Harriet was born into a stiffly academic home in England, a "cold, dark house filled with the smell of boiled fish and the sniffs of depressed housemaids." Her mother died when she was 2, but her spinster aunt made certain that she was raised quite properly, and sent to the best More...
Harriet was born into a stiffly academic home in England, a "cold, dark house filled with the smell of boiled fish and the sniffs of depressed housemaids." Her mother died when she was 2, but her spinster aunt made certain that she was raised quite properly, and sent to the best More...
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(1 person liked it)
Aug 07, 2009
Dlora
rated it:
Iva Ibbotson writes very well and I found the setting to be fascinating but A Company of Swans wasn't quite the equal of Ibbotson's A Countess Below Stairs. Set in 1912, Harriet Morton is more the suffering heroine type, rather than the bubbly optimistic heroine that I enjoyed in A Countess . . . Harriet did find a way to run away from her oppressive family life to join a ballet tour to Brazil--and what fascinating descriptions of South American and ballet life--but she still tended to be a vic
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May 10, 2010
Chachic
rated it:
Originally posted here.
I was thinking of how best to describe the experience of reading an
Eva Ibbotson book and I came up with this: it feels like reading an old favorite even if you're reading the book for the first time. Does that make sense? I guess it's because the writing is so lovely that you know you can never go wrong with reading one of her books. The premise of A Company of Swans is similar to The Reluctant Heiress - an older self-made millionaire as the male protago More...
I was thinking of how best to describe the experience of reading an
Eva Ibbotson book and I came up with this: it feels like reading an old favorite even if you're reading the book for the first time. Does that make sense? I guess it's because the writing is so lovely that you know you can never go wrong with reading one of her books. The premise of A Company of Swans is similar to The Reluctant Heiress - an older self-made millionaire as the male protago More...
May 19, 2011
Gatorgal21
rated it:
My favorite of all the Eva Ibbotson’s , A Company of Swans follows the fragile and almost myth-like story of Harriet and Rom. Trapped and controlled all of her life by her cold professor of a Father. Harriet leaps at the chance to join a traveling ballet company on their dance through the untamed forests of South America. While performing, Harriet meets Rom, and immediately loses her heart to the dark, mysterious man who has chosen to make his fortune in this wild and gorgeous place. His heart
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Jul 29, 2011
Quite gripping, but not my favorite Eva Ibbotson novel (this is my third, after A Countess Below Stairs [completely fabulous] and A Song For Summer [also excellent]). I felt that Harriet was a rather watery character (although Rom was quite a strong hero figure and convincing love interest, preferable to Rupert in "Countess", I think). It seemed like Harriet started out at least somewhat strong-willed (rebelling against her stringent father and running away to the Amazon took some ba
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Jul 11, 2011
Brittany
rated it:
Eva Ibbotson's work is lyrical and intelligent and always true to the period. She sweeps you away in the language of ballet and the stuffy world of England in the early 1900s. Harriet Morton is 18, and the daughter of a chauvinist Professor of Classics at Cambridge University circa 1912. He educates his daughter, teaching her the glories of the classic works of Greece, Rome, and early England -- and then he asks her not to use that knowledge -- to be a silent, thoughtful, intelligent trophy wife
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Sep 15, 2009
Holly
rated it:
Have you ever read the perfect book at the perfect time? This book was precisely that. I needed something sweet, something enchanting, and something with a happily ever after. And since I'd read Eva Ibbotson's YA historical fiction before, I knew it would deliver. But what I didn't know was how well.
"Loneliness had taught Harriet that there was always someone who understood - it was just that so very often they were dead, and in a book."
It's 1912 in Cambrid More...
"Loneliness had taught Harriet that there was always someone who understood - it was just that so very often they were dead, and in a book."
It's 1912 in Cambrid More...
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(1 person liked it)
Mar 20, 2010
Leta
rated it:
It has been over a year at least since I've allowed myself to read one of these fluffy, clean, romances. I do have to say, they sure are fun. It is so fun to escape in a book.
This is a fun story of a socially deprived 18 year old girl who is invited to dance with a company traveling up the Amazon. She is refused permission by her father and prudish aunt (mother figure,) so she decides to run away with the company. I really enjoyed hearing of her adventures in the Amazons, most e More...
This is a fun story of a socially deprived 18 year old girl who is invited to dance with a company traveling up the Amazon. She is refused permission by her father and prudish aunt (mother figure,) so she decides to run away with the company. I really enjoyed hearing of her adventures in the Amazons, most e More...
Sep 28, 2008
Deepa
rated it:
This is a great story about a young dancer growing up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1912. When the chance to tour the amazon is presented to her, she immediately says yes, her father however, says no. So, naturally, she runs away. She joins the touring company and immerses herself in the bloodsweat&tears of being in a ballet company. At the same time, her father and fiance have begun to track her down...
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Jan 09, 2011
Electric
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Apr 03, 2011
JocelynRose
rated it: 
I love Eva Ibbotson's writing. It's funny, witty and refreshing. And I liked Harriet too, even though she was humble and quiet and good, which is something I usually can't stand in a heroine. I admired her innocence, enjoyed the detail of ballet life and the intricate and laugh-inducing writing. But abruptly ending my enjoyment came the unfortunate circumstances between pages 287 and 295 and several subsequent pages after that. It wasn't just the acts of adultery that offended and disappointed m
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Jan 10, 2012
Susanne
rated it:
It was a sweet story, in the border between YA and romance. I liked it well, but after reading two books by Ibbotson I conclude that she's not my favorite writer in this genre.
The heroine Harriet Morton is endearing, innocent and sweet. She's grown up in a family without love and her father strips her of all pleasure. When he decides she have to give up dancing, her last pleasure in life, she leaves and join a Russian ballet company going to the Amazon. There she blossoms and meet a wo More...
The heroine Harriet Morton is endearing, innocent and sweet. She's grown up in a family without love and her father strips her of all pleasure. When he decides she have to give up dancing, her last pleasure in life, she leaves and join a Russian ballet company going to the Amazon. There she blossoms and meet a wo More...
Apr 19, 2010
Afton
rated it:
Spoilers
This was a sweet little story about a delightful young woman who is utterly repressed by her horrible old professor dad and her skinflint, spinster aunt. She runs away to join a ballet company traveling to the Amazon, yadda, yadda, yadda, and ends up marrying Mr. Handsome, Moneybags, heir to the biggest estate in the neighborhood. I was at times hampered with some of the technical language. I suppose someone who was very familiar with ballet slash French might get a bit more out More...
This was a sweet little story about a delightful young woman who is utterly repressed by her horrible old professor dad and her skinflint, spinster aunt. She runs away to join a ballet company traveling to the Amazon, yadda, yadda, yadda, and ends up marrying Mr. Handsome, Moneybags, heir to the biggest estate in the neighborhood. I was at times hampered with some of the technical language. I suppose someone who was very familiar with ballet slash French might get a bit more out More...
