Redeemed in Blood. By Lady Florence Dixie. (Henry and Co.)
—The writer takes us again to Patagonia, which country seems to have struck her fancy, and describes to us ostrich-hunting and prairie-fires with much enthusiasm and vigorous writing. The story begins in Scotland, but the writer does not seem so much at home there as on a South American plain, where she breathes a freer and less civilised atmosphere. The second and third volumes, for even Lady F. Dixie cannot emancipate herself from that form of tyranny, are much superior to the first, more natural, and, in spite of a somewhat romantic and occasionally bombastic style, have a freshness and a power of description that raise the story into an interesting and sometimes exciting narrative. Though the writer takes the opportunity to air her peculiar theories, and deals with the realities of life in a manner that is exaggerated, and that shows a decided want of proportion, her characters being mostly Lords and Ladies, there is in this novel an unmistakable charm, due in some part to a thorough appreciation of sport, and to capital descriptions of hunting in its many varieties.
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