Return to Gone-Away

After finishing Gone-Away Lake, I was so excited to discover that there is a second book!! I immediately checked out the audio version of Return to Gone-Away because I was eager to find out what happened next!

Portia and her little brother Foster are so excited when their parents purchase an old house they found while on summer adventures with their cousin, Julian. The house, located near an abandoned former lake resort, is filled with treasures from a by-gone era (and lots of dust and cobwebs). In this sequel to Gone-Away Lake, the family spend spring break and summer vacation fixing up the old house and discovering lots of hidden secrets.

I loved both books! The characters are colorful. The setting is perfect for adventures! And the show more story is heart-warming and entertaining. Just what I needed! I listened to this book during my commute to work, while working in the garden, doing housework, etc. The magical story was just incredibly entertaining. It's definitely a little bit dated (story was published in 1961). A lovely old house like this (even if boarded up) would not stay unmolested by explorers or thieves/vandals in this day and age. But it was lovely to read such a fun kids' adventure story!

The Gone-Away books are the first books by Elizabeth Enright that I've read. I will definitely be reading more! I already have the first book in her Melendy Quartet, The Saturdays, checked out from my local library! :) show less

I loved this book all over again. I found that reading it with the internet close at hand was a boon, too. F'rinstance:

"The air rang with the energetic, joyful clamor of the birds. Only one, whose song came sweetly through the others, sounded meditative and solitary: three minor notes ascending...
'What's that bird, Jule? That sort of sad one?'
Julian listened. 'White-throated sparrow,' he told her."

And I found that it does sound exactly as described:
White-throated Sparrow.

There is also this, which I would like to have painted on the wall of my library:

"Sometimes a story can open a world for you: you step into it and forget the real one you live in."

That's how these books are.

As far as sequels go, this is fairly solid. Portia and her little brother return to Gone-Away Lake, now to the rattly old house that her parents have bought. Joined by their cousin Julian, the kids help the parents with restoring the house (so you get some very satisfying "kids find fun, cool, antique stuff and surprises in old house" plot points) as well as having adventures with their friends in Gone-Away.

Eleven-year-old Portia and her family return with cousin Julian to the site they visited the previous summer, this time to take possession of a large Victorian house, unoccupied for fifty years and full of treasures and secrets.

The Blakes buy the Villa Caprice, a forgotten vacation house, from the state and bring it back from disrepair.

Cute but not as fun as the first. House-cleaning is not as fun as poking around in a swamp.

A continuation of a great book. To be able not just to find these houses, but to actually get to live in one... I'm fairly sure this is where my dream of buying an old Victorian fixer-upper came from. Definitely a classic that I plan on sharing with my own children someday.

Portia Blake's wildest dreams have come true - her family is moving to Villa Caprice, the old mansion once owned by Mrs. Brace-Gideon, an eccentric millionairess! There she'll be neighbors with her cousin Julian, and also Uncle Pindar and Aunt Minnehaha, the last residents of Gone-Away, the ghost town on the lake that disappeared.