Welcome to Litsy!

Thank you, everyone, for lowering my expectations - I enjoyed this a lot. I loved straight talking Ivy with her witchy connection to wild things (including budding artistic geniuses) and the skewering of the “respectable” for their rigid adherence to social class and accepted behaviour. The final chapter was very satisfying, letting us know how things turned out for everyone. A great finish to our reading year with #FurrowedMiddlebrowClub.

I ended up enjoying this book, although not all the characters were likeable (and I certainly wouldn‘t want to live in Ivy‘s cottage!) This vintage dust jacket is not at all how I picture a woman who‘s had three husbands and could have a fourth if she chose. 🤣

I was also interested to see that one of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Goudge, was a fan of Stella Gibbons. Next I‘m going to try Cold Comfort Farm.

#FurrowedMiddleBrowClub

I loved the charming scenes in Ivy‘s cottage, so cozy and sweet, despite the 🪳🪳🪳. The novel would have been better had it focused on Ivy as healer and hadn‘t spun out and around too many other threads that weren‘t very engaging.

I‘m not one for gushing sentimentality, but the final scene with Mike was 😭. #FurrowedMiddlebrowClub

P.S. I‘m still in denial about the season. 🫣

Here is our “master list” of what we‘ve read together as a group (to help out those of you who will be nominating our 2026 reads). Sorry for the small print; I threw it together quickly! 😆

#FurrowedMiddlebrowClub

Hello, #FurrowedMiddlebrowClub !

We‘ve trimmed down our member list after @Ruthiella ‘s roll call and are now ready to begin voting. Our next six people to nominate our 2026 reads are: @willaful , @kwmg40 , @Tamra , @catebutler , @bookandbedandtea , and @Cuilin .

Please reply to let us know if you want to be excused from nominating two books for us to vote on and I will adjust the list accordingly. You may still vote on our reads, of course!

Well, I ended up enjoying this rather more than I thought I would (which is probably due to the quirkiness of Gibbons‘ characters). “Wise woman- ish” Ivy Gover and her menagerie of creatures were just so charming!

I read the introduction after I finished the novel and was fascinated by the links to Stella Gibbons‘ own life. A biographer said the character of Helen Green was the closest thing she had written to a portrait of her young self.

I started this with a “four chapters a day“ plan and then read it straight through so I was definitely engaged. Set in the 30s, it started out with two interesting characters: Ivy, a thrice-widowed charwoman with an incredibly strong sense of self, and poet Helen, who's kind of lost herself in an affair with a man who won't marry her.

cont.

#FurrowedMiddlebrowClub
#37by37

A very soft pick. It was a bit of a meandering hodgepodge. Taciturn, middle aged, and slightly witchy charwoman, Ivy Gover, inherits her uncle cottage outside the village of Nethersham in 1930 or so. There are a few village romances, a poignant foster son situation, a mean girl, class consciousness and class clashes. And then there‘s an epilogue 40 years later. It felt a little unfinished.

I was really enjoying this, but halfway though it suddenly started focusing on all these extraneous characters. I'm baffled.

#FurrowedMiddlebrowClub

Happy Halloween 🎃
via @Ruthiella
#FurrowedMiddlebrowClub readers!
Reminding y'all that our last title in 2025 is the tagged in November. I've started it and I will say, if you are a dog lover, you will appreciate it.
#JusticeforMrJones&JimJams (!)
Read at your own pace and make sure to tag us in your review and any related posts.
This buddy read is open to anyone. If you would like to be added to or removed from the tag list, say the word.

Happy Halloween 🎃 #FurrowedMiddlebrowClub readers! Reminding y‘all that our last title in 2025 is the tagged in November. I‘ve started it and I will say, if you are a dog lover, you will appreciate it. #JusticeforMrJones&JimJams 🐶!

Read at your own pace and make sure to tag us in your review and any related posts.

This buddy read is open to anyone. If you would like to be added to or removed from the tag list, say the word.

@LitsyEvents

Kind of soppy and overly nostalgic for bygone days. Some pretty descriptions of nature.

My #weeklyforecast. A bunch of rando books in progress. 😁

The Woods in Winter by Stella Gibbons - from my ebook shelf
Fire & Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones - fairy tale reread
Nelly's Version by Eva Figures - hard copy off my shelf
Black Women Taught Us - nonfiction audio

@julieclair this came over the weekend! #lmpbc #groupw @BookBosomed1 @Deblovestoread

Only one finished book for the week. It is for #LMPBC so don‘t want to say much but it has an interesting cast of characters. I‘m just jumping in and out of Gutsy Women and learning a bit along the way. Liking both Sharks and Memory Police so far. Mostly caught up,on buddy reads. Have no idea what‘s next.

Hey Group W, do any of these look good to you? I‘m leaning towards the Hargrove as I have loved 3 of her books so far. I will tag it and the other two in the comments. #LMPBC

I love a good curmudgeon and Ivy is one of the best. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️❤️