Kitty Canary

Sixteen-year-old Kitty arrives in Twickenham Town eager for a summer of excitement, announcing that she has fallen in love. Boarding with her distant relation, Miss Susanna Mason, she meets a community where family ancestry counts for almost everything. Kitty prefers her familiar nickname to Katherine Bird and wants people to judge her on her own merits. Her account also recalls Billy, a childhood companion whose habit of rescuing and protecting her can be both reassuring and infuriating.

Kate Langley Bosher gives this novel an outspoken first-person narrator who turns social observation into comedy. Kitty comments on romance, manners and inherited possessions with quick judgments and cheerful confidence. In a later scene, she arranges to buy old sapphires and asks to purchase a silver pitcher as presents for her aunt and mother. The conversation exposes tensions between family pride and practical needs. Readers interested in young women's fiction will find a lively voice and close attention to the small negotiations of visiting, friendship and affection.