Bird of Paradise

by Diana Stainforth

"Bird of Paradise" captures in all its exciting and uncertain glamour the period between the wars in England and Europe. It tells the story of one beautiful, high-flying woman and the threat posed to her by the coming war.

476 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

O poveste foarte frumoasa. Mi-a plăcut mult. Se citește repede și ușor.

[Liz · Rating 1 out of 5]

I paid twenty-five cents for this at a library book sale, and let me just say I'm glad I didn't spend any more money than that on it. It starts out with an interesting enough premise: the main character, Mara, is the daughter of a German father and an English mother and was living in Germany when World War I broke out. She is orphaned due to the war, and is entirely alone. Her house is taken over by the invading troops and is turned into a hospital manned by an American doctor. Of course, she falls in love with the doctor, but he's a jerk and he dumps her as soon as it's time for him to go back to America. She then marries an English officer who is the son of a rich automobile tycoon, and goes to live with him in England. There she visits his family's car factory and discovers that she loves to drive and develops a desire to participate in car racing, a sport that was just beginning to come into vogue and was still considered dangerous and exotic.

As I said, a decent premise, but it was ruined by a totally unlikeable main character. She is basically a selfish brat, and not very smart, either. She marries Alexander because he has a lot of money, and also partly to spite her ex-lover Jamie, even though he obviously couldn't give a crap about her. Even though her husband is really good to her and gives her everything she could ever possibly want, she treats him like crap and continues to moon over Jamie, and is constantly plotting ways to get a divorce and get with him (even though, as I said, Jamie wants nothing to do with her). I kept waiting for her to either realize what a total witch she was being and try to make amends, or receive some comeuppance, but a little over halfway through the book none of this was happening, and she was really getting on my nerves. I still don't know if the author deliberately made her unlikeable, or if the reader was actually supposed to sympathize with her. At any rate, I didn't finish the book, because I have too many good books waiting to be read to read one that was mediocre.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Threw this second hand book into the suitcase on the way to a holiday, not expecting much from it. However, I really enjoyed it. The central character becomes a lady racing driver at a time when few women ventured onto the roads let alone the tracks. A surprisingly good book.