Flambards

This book is the tale of Christina, an orphan who is shipped off to Flambards to live in the care of her tyrannical uncle, who wants her to marry his oldest son so her inherited money can be used to maintain the house and lifestyle he loves.

The characters are beautifully vivid despite the book being quite short. Furious Uncle Russell, angry at the world and his own disability, with no respect for the children as individuals with their own desires. Shallow Mark, content with his disfunctional world so long as it provides him with hunting and good food and adventure. Dick, the servant, kinder and more talented than everyone else, twisted into impossible situations by his good heart and feelings for Christina. Will, the younger son, show more prepaired to cripple himself forever to escape the riding he hates. And Christina, thrown into the middle of all of this, Christina who hates Uncle Russell but finds herself loving the riding and the hunt, Christina who everyone falls in love with, Christina who is so lonely and powerless and passionate as she grows from being a girl to being a woman. show less

Young Christina has been an orphan since the age of five and has been shuffled from relative to relative. Now her uncle Russell has requested that she come to live with him and his two young sons at Flambards, a once impressive estate, although it is now in disrepair. All the money (and there's not much of it anymore) at Flambards goes to the stables, as horses and hunting is the only passion Russell and his eldest son, Mark, have. Christina is nervous at first to be thrust into such an unknown life, especially since she suspects her uncle's motives may have something to do with the big pile of money she will age into at 18. But she takes to riding quickly. The younger son, William, has absolutely no interest in horses, and delights in show more his fate - he will remain lame after a fall from his horse and will not ride anymore. Instead, he is in love with the new-fangled idea of flight. Christina finds herself growing into a young woman caught between the differing passions of not only the Flambards men, but also of a certain young stable hand as well.

I enjoyed this story, although on the whole I think it has some flaws. It starts out as a coming-of-age, overcoming-a-hard-childhood type story but then seems to shift gears - and too abruptly - into a who-will-she-chose sort of love story. So the whole thing goes through a bit of an identity crisis, it seems, but nonetheless I liked the story enough not to mind so much. show less

I do love a good horse story. And this, all other considerations aside, is a damn good horse story. There's also a plucky orphan and some misunderstood boys and some downtrodden servants and an evil sot of an uncle. So it's not like there's nothing for you non-horsey folks. There's plenty of fox-hunting that ends badly for the foxes, so do be warned about that if you're squeamish about fox blood smeared on people in a ritualistic manner and the like. (Is that a spoiler? I don't think so, but I'll tick the box on the review anyway. Just in case.)

I was surprised at how absorbing I found this book. I want to read the rest of 'em now.

When I was a young girl I read many of K. M. Peyton’s novels, particularly the Ruth Hollis series and the Flambards series. I’ve decided to revisit them.

The main character in the Flambards series is Christina Parsons, an Edwardian era orphan with prospects. She is an heiress, raised by aunts in London; and at the age of twelve Christina is sent to live with her mother’s half brother and his sons on the family estate, Flambards. The ulterior motive behind this is for her to eventually marry her cousin Mark and restore the estate to its former glory with her inheritance.

Her Uncle Russell is a hard, bitter man, crippled in a hunting accident. He expects everyone to be as dedicated to hunting as he is and has no patience with people show more who aren’t. Mark is selfish, reckless, arrogant and even though he is a good rider, he is the worst type of horseman. He is also good natured, fun-loving, forgiving and a surprisingly good sport. His younger brother, William is a budding socialist and reformer who completely rejects the mores and standards of British Edwardian society.

The Russells live the life of sporting gentry and the household is obsessed with horses, hounds and hunting, with the exception of William. William is fascinated by flight and airplanes and is determined to devote his life to being a pilot and aircraft engineer. As a result he is the black sheep of the family and the target for his bitter, intolerant father’s frustrations.

Christina becomes an avid hunter and horsewoman; but she also shares William’s passion for flight, which draws them closer and deepens their friendship. The result of this drives the plot to an ending much different than the path her family had chosen for her future.

The characters in this book are complex, realistic humans; all of them flawed and none of them perfect, by any means. .As a character, Christina is a resilient, smart and resourceful girl, doing her best in the circumstances that life has given her. She disobeys her uncle and saves the life of an injured horse that she loves and then tries to right the wrongs that result from her actions but fails. I can’t help but think that if this book were written by current standards, this teenage girl would have re-educated and enlightened her uncle, transforming him into a new person, before going on to single-handedly prevent the outbreak of the first world war and saving the entire world, making it a paradise for all of humanity. Unfortunately, this book was written at a time when fictional characters acted like real human beings instead of idealized comic-book super heroes, so it has little appeal at this time. There are no flags in this book for the virtue-signal readers to wave.

As for myself, I enjoyed the trilogy and will continue on with my re-read of the next two books. show less

Christina Russell's arrival at Flambards is overshadowed by her cousin William being stretchered to his room with a badly broken leg after riding accident. Moving from the genteel security of her aunt's home in London, to a faded country mansion, she finds herself in a household dominated by her drunken and embittered uncle - himself crippled in a riding accident - and a family obsessed with hunting and riding.

In order to survive at Flambards, Christina is forced to take up riding and forms a strong friendship with Dick, one of the grooms working at Flambards who is assigned the task of teaching her to ride. Dick is kind and under his tutelage, she becomes a competent rider.

William's accident is met with derision by his father and show more brother, Mark, and Christina discovers William's hatred of riding and the cruelty and dark reactionary values prevailing at Flambards. William is a disappointment and scapegoat to his father and Mark and considered a family misfit. Model flying machines hanging from the ceiling of William's room give Christina a clue that her cousin is harboring a secret which she later discovers.

Set at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in the years preceding the First World War, Mark and William symbolize the feudal and outdated values of the old century stubbornly opposing the promise of new ideals and progress of the new. I will definitely be reading Flambard's sequel... show less

I really enjoyed this. I'm sure I read it, years ago, but my memory of it was very vague. There seems to me something very subtle and sophisticated about the way it sets up its story at a particular moment of social and historical transformation. My favorite K. M. Peyton books have always been the Pennington ones, which are sophisticated in a different way, but it's notable that class is a central problem in both of them. And horses, of course!

When orphan Christina Parsons is summoned to Flambards to live with her her uncle and his two sons, she has little idea what is in store for her. Crippled in a hunting accident years before, Uncle Russell is a bullish, brooding man whose only interest is fox hunting. From his chair, he relives each moment of his sons' hunting, researches horse and hound breeding and bloodlines, and wields his cane or a strap for the slightest infraction. Christina is pushed to learn to ride and join the hunt - and finds she enjoys both horses and riding. But as she becomes familiar with routines and patterns of life at Flambards she also begins to see the unfairness and social discrimination ingrained in its way of life.

Set in Edwardian England in the show more years just before World War I, Flambards is not only a coming of age story, but vividly displays the coming social upheaval as the automotive revolution brings change to a more traditional way of life. show less