REVIEW: "The Lost Girls of Devon" by Barbara O'Neal
I’ve long had a love affair with England.
Growing up in the relatively culturally parched Midwest, the allure of England — its culture, its history, its...accents — always had an inexplicable hold over me. This obsession was fueled, in no small part, by my adolescent dedication to Jane Austen.
Despite my preoccupation with England, I never really thought I would actually go there. In America, at least for people in the class into which I was born, European travel always seemed so inaccessible. Living in America definitely wasn’t like living in Europe, where travel is cheap and a quick weekend jaunt to Paris is a relatively common occurrence. Resigning myself to the fact that I would never actually set foot in England, I decided I could subsist on a diet of Bridget Jones’ Diary re-watches and the occasional ordering of some horrifically inauthentic fish and chips.
But then, one college evening, instead of heading out to a party, my roommate and I decided to re-watch the 5-hour BBC Pride and Prejudice mini-series — for probably the 20th time. It was while immersed deep in this world that I decided that even the steadiest of diets of British fare wouldn’t be enough. I would need to actually go there.
But I didn’t just want a short trip. I wanted to go for an extended visit. A visit long enough that I would have the time to meet my real-life Mr. Darcy and fall in love — which I knew would take time because it would require digging through all of the layers of Darcy-esque bullshit that paradoxically made him simultaneously infuriating and irresistible.
So I decided to study abroad. In truth, my decision, which I made in a haze of Collin Firth-induced lust, had less to do with my desire to study and more to do with my desire to make out with a boy with an accent.
And so I moved, for 6 months, to a small town called Stoke-on-Trent which sat about an hour south of Manchester and about 3 hours north of London.
This experience did somewhat satiate what was, at the time, an urgent hunger for all things British. But it in no way completely satisfied what I have come to realize is a persistent desire to explore this country.
So when I dove into this book and found that not only was it set in England but that the author had beautifully rendered this country that I still find relatively magnificent and majestic, I was delighted.
Though Zoe Fairchild was born in the quaint village of Devon, she long-ago left it behind and focused in earnest on building her life in New Mexico. Her decision to move to — or, more specifically, return to New Mexico, as her family did have roots there as well — was fueled by many things. Most paramount, her completely broken relationship with her mother.
Decades have passed since Zoe’s mother, Poppy, driven by a wanderlust that she simply couldn’t contain, left her daughter in Devon and went off on an adventure. Despite the passage of time, however, the wounds that this abandonment inflicted have, understandably, not healed.
Now a parent to her own teen daughter, Isabel, Zoe has made a virtual career out of avoiding her mother. And, for the most part, she’s been successful. But that changes when Zoe gets word that her best friend, Diana, is missing.
Left behind in Devon, Diana was helping to take care of Zoe’s aging grandmother, a mystery novelist named Lillian. Given Lillian’s dependence on Diana, and Diana’s apparent willingness to be depended upon, Lillian is alarmed when Diana stops coming round.
Though Zoe knows that she likely won’t be able to do much to help find her missing friend, a woman with whom she has recently had a strained relationship, she feels that she has little choice but to return to Devon and participate in the search.
It’s a sacrifice she is willing to make for her friend, even if it means potentially coming face to face with her mother, the woman she has thus far successfully extricated from her life.
I approached this novel like I approached my travel when I was a young, stupid study abroad student, completely blind — which, in truth, is a horrible way to approach travel when you are an inexperienced 20-year-old. It is by the grace of God that I am now penning book reviews and not, instead, lying dead in a European ditch somewhere.
Much to my delight, I found myself quite easily pulled into this story. This was due, I think, to the strength of the prose itself. Barbara O’Neal built her setting in such rich, immersive detail that the town of Devon ultimately became just as much of a character as the collection of girls around whom the novel was focused.
Similarly strong was her characterization. Each of the women central to this novel had her own distinctive voice and was driven by her own realistically complex motivations. Readers will find something to love in each of the characters in this novel, which makes taking sides in the decades-long conflict that had so long kept them apart all the more difficult.
My only struggle with this novel was the pacing. O’Neal spent the vast majority of this book building her characters and setting. It wasn’t until the very, very end that the mystery element of this novel really started to come into play. And because this element was saved for so late in the novel, it felt quite rushed. It was as if we went from knowing nothing about what had happened to Diana — the woman whose disappearance triggered basically the whole plot — to knowing everything. As I finished the novel, I found myself wishing that more time had been dedicated to the mystery element of the story, or that the time that was dedicated to it was more evenly spread throughout the book and not, as it was, forced to the end.
All factors taken into consideration, though, this novel was rich and incredibly well written. With her vivid description and attention to detail, O’Neal managed to transport me back to the British villages I had so eagerly explored as a college sophomore, and it was a mental trip I delighted in taking.
The Lost Girls of Devon earns 4 out of 5 cocktails.
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you want to go? Tell me about it in the comments, below.
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