Harnessing Peacocks

'Harnessing Peacocks' is a curious read - whilst a bit dated, it's also shocking and amusing. I've only recently heard of Mary Wesley and her 'wild' ways and I have the sense she wrote this book in her 70's. Would have loved to have read this book about 20 years ago, but still recommend it as a bit of a farce, and some holiday fun. Hebe, an escapee from the British establishment, with great devotion, raises her raises her son on earnings made through her two great gifts: cooking and love-making. Her equally devoted clients are all threaded together as either family, friends or members of the establishment and each is hoping or scrambling to gain greater access to her. Hebe holds them all at bay, until one of the threads begin to become show more undone ... show less

A single mother sends her son to boarding school, and works hard to keep him there. Some lively clashes, a series of coincidences, and a mostly satisfying conclusion. An unfortunate extensive use of bad language spoils an otherwise enjoyable (if unlikely) book.

Can a woman whose family holds a family conference to decide and plan her abortion manage successfully to steal away in the night and run away to make a life for herself and her unborn child? It appears so. Hebe lives in a quiet English village with her son, Silas, and manages by working as a private chef to a few elderly ladies for a few weeks at a time, and a prostitute to select men, a group she calls, her Syndicate. The latter career is of course, not a well known fact, and most of her clients, carefully chosen, communicate with her only through letters sent to a Pakistani store.

With her chosen lifestyle, Hebe lives a quiet but contented life, earning enough for the stiff tuition fees at Silas's private school.

Silas comes home for show more the holidays but goes off to spend 3 weeks with a friend whose family have invited him on a sailing vacation. As Hebe contemplates the change in plans, she decides to offer her cooking services to one of her elderly clients for the time that Silas will be away with his friend. Things start to unravel, when one of her clients learns that she is to be at his mother's friend's place, a rather shy nephew meets Hebe, a stranger meet with Silas and one of her clients becomes her friend.

Wonderfully humorous with a touch of whimsy. show less

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