30 AUGUST 1930, Page 26

RINGS ON HER FINGEttS. By Rhys Davies. .(Harold .Shaylur. 7s.

6d.).—Haekneyed though the wordy " stark " :and crude " are, yet they must necessarily be employed in a description of Mr. Davies's novel of life in a mining area. To -him a spade is something more forceful than an agricultural implement ; he writes with gusto of sweat, lust, grime and :flannelette underwear. His heroine, Edith, who marries a refined little draper, finds herself yearning for life in the raw. She visits her friends in their reeking cottages, admires muscular torsos, and longs for some domestic crudity. The tale of her `endeavour to find a real life for herself is not unamusingly told,

but oh, the starkness and the frankness and the strength !