Angels Flying Slowly

When their father runs off with another woman, Isobel and Caro are left to their mother, Iris, who relieves her frustration with bouts of fury directed at her daughters. Bewildered and hurt by their mother's lack of affection, the girls turn inward for support, erecting a fence of fierce mutual loyalty against the outside world.
Dispatched to a convent boarding school, the sisters find the discipline harsh and the mysteries of religion alien. Although this community of women is rife with petty rivalries and unhealthy passions, they also discover a love and security lacking at home, until the arrival of their cousin Ursula.
Exotic, beautiful, and obedient, Ursula is everything the sisters are not. Abandoned by her own mother, Ursula insinuates herself into Iris's affections and heightens an already tense family situation. At the convent, Ursula's knowing gaze provokes nuns and girls alike. She perpetrates sly tricks everywhere and always escapes punishment. Pushed to the limit, Isobel decides to exact her own revenge.

For much of its length, this first-person account of an adolescent girl's coming of age in post-WWII England seems to be a YA novel somewhat out of its genre. In the last few chapters, however, the story abruptly turns into an adult tale of deception and death. Narrator Isobel, who is 12 when the book opens in 1947, relates how she and her younger sister, Caro, are shunted off to a convent boarding school so their indifferent mother can "enjoy herself" with husband-to-be Frank. Frank's gorgeous and manipulative niece, Ursula, moves in with the girls both at home and at school, always currying favor with the adults and telling lies that get Isobel and others in trouble. There are occasional portentous foreshadowings of the doom that will befall Ursula, who is having an affair not only with the school's father confessor but with one of the nuns as well. First-novelist Roe paints with a broad brush devoid of nuance: the girls' mother is stereotypically cold; their stepfather predictably loutish; some of the nuns malevolently nasty; and Ursula quintessentially beautiful and wicked. Her evocations of the oppressions of convent life and the scenery of her native Cornwall are sometimes effective, but she is weak at plotting, and thus the denouement lacks punch, coming off as ludicrous rather than ironic.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This fine first novel is a moving tale of a young girl growing up in England just after World War II. Isobel, the narrator, is 12 and her sister Caro is ten when they are sent away to a convent boarding school by their abusive mother. Roe perfectly captures Isobel's bewilderment and deeply felt distress at being thrust into an alien environment that is every bit as terrifying to her as her mother's unpredictable behavior. Isobel's love for her mother and her desperate attempts to please her are heartbreakingly portrayed, as is Caro's quiet fury at being forced to convert to Catholicism and her fierce resolution never to forgive those who made that decision for her. This is a beautifully written story. Highly recommended.?Elizabeth Mellett, Brookline P.L., Mass.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.