12 FEBRUARY 1927, Page 26

THE STARLING. .• By Doris Leslie. (Hurst • and Blackett.

7s. 0(14-Marcia Fennell, a young war widow, lives in a drab Victorian house with her mother who, having enjoyed an ephemeral literary vogue in the 'nineties, has fallen upon evil times and given way to drink. As offering an escape from her -sordid environment, Marcia accepts the hand of the stodgy, , but wealthy, Charles Lambert. She does not love him, however, and,before she finally marries him she has many love affairs and one crowning disillusionment. Miss Leslie, Whose scenes arc laid partly in a pseudo-artistic coterie • in London and partly in Florence,- introduces a variety of Male characters, and, if she errs on the side of exaggeration, sentimentality, and eroticism, at least her story moves

briskly. . .