Rose Macaulay

Oh dear, an acute attack of FOMO came over me in a Bloomsbury bookshop a few weeks ago. Well, where else would I end up with Darlene when she's visiting from Canada - and there on the shelf was a whole stack of Rose Macaulays in their original, but much tattered jackets.
Darlene had already bought one. I only vaguely remembered having read The World my Wilderness a couple of years ago (but I've just checked on what I wrote at the time and now it comes back to me how very much I enjoyed it). In fact, Rose Macaulay does rather seem to haunt us because on Darlene's last visit I remember worrying that her determination to get a photo of Macaulay's blue plaque was going to get her run over.
Those books were saying, 'Buy me.' So, of course, I bought two. FOMO. (I still feel a bit guilty for having split up the collection. Somebody 80 years ago must have really enjoyed Rose Macaulay.)
However, I've just finished reading Going Abroad. It sounded so promising; a comedy about middle-class English tourists who get themselves kidnapped. There's a bishop and his bluestocking wife; a diplomat; a pretty girl; an unhappy woman whose looks have been ruined by facelifts ... all the ingredients of an Agatha Christie murder mystery. But no Miss Marple. And very, very heavy-handed  comedy. And a most tiresome group of hearty young God-botherers going on and on about religion. No, some books go out of print for good reason and Going Abroad has not stood the test of time, despite its grubby, pretty yellow and green cover. Better luck, I hope, with Dangerous Ages, my other purchase.