Lucia Revived is a sequel to E.FBenson's Mapp & Lucia series. I fell in love with the Mapp & Lucia books in my twenties when I was going through a particularly difficult period. I came across them by accident in a second hand book stall in Camden market and found in them a joyous escape. They continue to be the tonic I turn to when in need of a lift.
The book takes Lucia and her friends forward to the 1950's, taking account of Tom Holt's excellent sequels published in the 1980's. We find Tilling a little subdued after the war, and struggling to come to terms with the changes it has wrought in society. With Georgie feeling his age, and the Major laid low by a stroke, it falls to the ladies as usual. Lucia rises to the challenge and sets about trying to make Tilling an artistic centre to rival St Ives. Wrestling with her arch enemy, Elizabeth Mapp-Flint, as she goes, Lucia turns their summer exhibition into something grander, creates an artistic colony at Grebe and ultimately build a permanent seafront gallery as a monument to her role in the town.
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