The Mirage of the Dawn. By Kathlyn Rhodes. (Hutchin- son.
7s. 6d.). And Rough Passages. By Alice Perrin.
(Cassell. 7s. 6d.)—In these two volumes one a full length novel, the other a collection of short stories—two well-known women writers have produced works which depend for their appeal principally on the glamour of the East. The characters are all merely types, and the plots, of which Mrs. Perrin produces ten, are not remarkable for their originality. But the glamour is supplied unsparingly and we may be grateful that Miss Rhodes who deals with the Sahara in her opening scenes does not produce a sheik in his proper person. Both volumes dwell on sunsets and sun- rises, the vacant spaces of the desert and the close' fast- nesses of the jungle, but it cannot truthfully be. said that the charm gets through the cold medium of print. Perhaps these books might be useful to wile away the hours of a restless night. They would certainly do nothing to increase insomnia.
The Days of Their Youth. By Alan Sullivan. (Hurst and Blackett. 7s. 6d.)-What is the reviewer to say of a capable book, with good plot and dialogue, and original ideas, which -has, nevertheless, bored him ? Paul Rennet dies in the first few paragraphs, but he watchei over the fortunes of his family as a discarnate being : at the end of the hook he beCOnies an atomic part of -something vast trod nebulous, and his descendant, a baby a few days old, blinks and seems to draw something from the air-a viabilite of life, or continuance of the Rennet destiny, one presumes. The adventures of the Rennet family are well described, but on the whole depressing. The test of a novel is to be gripped by it and feel its inevitableness : the reviewer wasn't and didn't.
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