AustLit

Nina, just home from school, is met with mysterious trouble at home, to the detriment of the whole family's happiness.

'The happy Heriots are seven in number, not including father and mother, and we make their acquaintance in a couple of chapters which graphically portray the humors and vexations incidental to the home-moving of such a large family. The happiness referred to in the title consists in their having exchanged semi-detachment in a busy Sydney suburb for a house further outstanding in its own five acres. Here  Mr. Heriot is able toindulge his love of birds and animals, his wife recovers her lost health, and the young people behave like children in real life, even when adventures comes to them, and some thing approaching tragedy.'

Source:

'The Happy Heriots', World's News, 6 November 1926, p.14.

'Judge Lynn, a widower, the father of six 'Noughts and Crosses,' whom he rules with much sternness and little affection — dealing out punishment swiftly and surely — announces to the group of offenders one day his intention of marrying again.

The principal role, however, is not given to the second Mrs. Lynn, but to the career of Mona in particular, who sways the rebels, and rather an unusual situation is created for her by the authoress when she is betrothed to her step-mother's own brother, also a widower with two young children. It would seem then that the story will develop into a matrimonial problem hingeing on the disparity in years between the bridegroom and his bride, respectively 43 and I7, but the authoress preserves all the ideals of youth. Although Mona marries for pure adventure she eventually finds more than 'wisdom with the years.' She finds love in a brief realisation, and her stepchildren possessed a mother who was "childish enough to be a child; with them, and yet — oh, blissful state of things — old enough to be their mother!"'

Source:

'Australian Authors', Graphic of Australia, 8 March 1918, p.13.

'A somewhat shiftless and discontented girl becomes an active recruiting agent, and uses her influence in a way which shows what a good many others might do if they went the right way to work. In describing how this is done, the writer tells us a capital story, or, at all events, part of one, for we all lay down the book with the hope that we have not heard the last of the heroine or of the man she has had most influence of all on. Books like this are, of course, sought after and read eagerly just now when the war is in everyone's mind, and it is, therefore, all the more to be thankful for that they are healthy in tone, and must do good to the cause we all have at heart.'

Source:

'War's Heart Throbs' [review], The World's News, 6 November 1915, p.29. (Via Trove Australia.)

Coming-of-age story focused on three sisters.