Antonia Forest’s Kingscote: Spring Term by Sally Hayward

I am basking in the glow of a good read.

I am not entirely sure where I stand on the question of sequels to novels written after the original author has died. There are however some novels and their characters that deserve to be kept alive and among these I definitely count the Marlow family of the Antonia Forest books.  Spring Term is a continuation of the Marlow family story recently published by Girls Gone By Publishers.

Having ordered a copy as soon as I knew it was available it was waiting for me when I arrived home last Friday evening. I opened my copy with a touch of trepidation. I love Antonia Forest’s books and her characters above all others. Would another author be able to pick up where Antonia left off? Could a sequel be as well written? Would someone else’s view of the characters veer too far from my ideas of them?  This would perhaps be acceptable from the original author, but not from someone continuing the story.

My worries were totally unfounded. Sally Hayward has done a terrific job and Spring Term captures the Marlows and their world extremely well. Hayward obviously knows the original books very well and has woven in the intricate details of family life and history seamlessly, and has added some details of her own imaginings in a way that makes you feel you knew that all along and that she isn’t just churning out known facts about the characters. Neither does she take time to explain events which took place in past books; it is for the reader to discover the history of the Marlows by reading the previous books (I read them completely out of order when I first discovered them many years ago and enjoyed going back to fill in the past).

Antonia Forest died in 2003 but hadn’t written any further novels after the publication of Run Away Home which is set around Christmas 1981. I always felt that she couldn’t quite bring herself to continue as father of the Marlow Family is a Captain in the Royal Navy, and the eldest son Giles is a Lieutenant. Forest, I suspect, couldn’t face sending either of them to the Falklands. Hayward has very cleverly set her sequel in the term that leads up to the Easter Holiday in 1982. As the book ends Captain Marlow is on his ship heading to the South Atlantic. I certainly hope that Hayward writes another sequel. If she continues in the Forest tradition the book will probably be set in the Summer Holidays of the same year, and the war (which only lasted 74 days) will be over. There may however be consequences for the Marlows.