Book Review: Love in a Cold Climate | The Pursuit of Love

If you like Jane Austen and you have even the slightest bit of sauciness in your personality, then you will get a kick out of Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate (you can purchase both in one book). Written in the 1940s, both novels take place between the world wars in England. They tell the story of a well-to-do set of girls who are in their late teens/early twenties and fraught with the decisions of which young man to marry or sometimes divorce (eek!)! Both novels are told from the perspective of Fanny Logan, a meek girl who is in awe of her more frivolous cousin, Linda Alconleigh, and her friend, Polly Hampton. 

I will say that I thought The Pursuit of Love improved as the story developed but ended quite suddenly for my tastes. I prefer Love in a Cold Climate because we hear more about the narrator, Fanny, whose character remains quite in the shadows during The Pursuit of Love (the spotlight there is all about the romantic dealings of Linda Alconleigh). To that end, Fanny reminds me very much of Fanny Pryce in Mansfield Park.

Both novels are quite frothy and good fun to read on a winter's evening when one is looking for diversion to the characters' colorful outings in the English countryside. 

Also, the cover of this edition was styled by the incomparable fashion designer, Cecil Beaton! 

Image found here.