This is one which I downloaded free from girlebooks, I’ve been really keen on Elizabeth von Arnim for years, ever since I came across a beautiful leather bound and gilt edged copy of Elizabeth and her German Garden about 30 years ago in a second-hand bookshop in Glasgow. I had no idea if the book would be worth reading but externally it was a thing of beauty, it didn’t even have the author’s name on it but I took a chance on it. What luck, I devoured that book and the next one I found was The Enchanted April, another treasure. I’ve got a lot of her books now but In the Mountains was one which had eluded me.

I was a wee bit disappointed when I realised that it’s written in diary form, not really my favourite sort of reading but in the end I did enjoy it.

Most of her books are semi-autobiographical, this one is set in the Swiss mountains just after the Great War. The diarist, an English woman, has gone back to her Swiss chalet which she had vacated for the duration of the war. She’s troubled and heart-sore and hopes that her home in the mountains will cure her. Her melancholia would no doubt have fitted in with the feelings of many women at that time who had lost so many men to the war but we never find out what it is exactly which is troubling the writer.

When she finds two English widows walking about on the mountain on a day when she is feeling particularly lonely, she invites them to stay for tea and so begins a relationship with Dolly and Kitty who are sisters. They are also in emotional difficulties but keep very quiet about their problems.

In the Mountains has similarities with The Enchanted April and although it’s not as good, in my opinion anyway, it’s still well worth reading.