Hazel Paperback – 2 May 2013

The young lady in this no novel has an idyllic childhood, but things did change and she managed to come to terms with her life., after she had been away in a foreign country with different ways of conducting oneself.

better read after "Ivy" , this book has several twists of plot and , although the very end is somewhat pat , it entertains all through

It is a good book with a story that keeps interest. It is a book which I enjoyed, and would pass on.

I can't understand the less than glowing reviews for this book. I've just finished it and really loved it. I've just read two rather badly-written teen novels and what a contrast Hazel is! Julie Hearn always writes brilliantly. The prose flows effortlessly and is a pleasure to read. The beginning of the book is also very funny and really made me laugh. Hazel is indeed a spoiled child, but she's very much the product of her time. She has been pampered and protected and not even allowed to read the paper in case she hears something unsuitable for the delicate female sensibilities. Her teachers are wonderful minor characters, showing how this kind of upbringing works. Hazel's tale is about growing up and discovering how the world really is. I thought it was beautifully done and enjoyed every word of it.

Only bought this book because I too am called Hazel. I started to read it and wasn't too sure but I soon became engrossed in the story of the little girl who has everything and then begins to dabble in the suffragette movement. Unfortunately things backfire and she is sent to Jamaica to her grandparents to learn to be a lady and is intrigued by the black people there and makes friends with some of them and learns about the horrible past of slavery. It is a very very good book and well written too, Thoroughly enjoyable.

Well written, insightful and intruing into many factions of life style and society behaviour of the that particular time in England.

This is Ivy: the Next Generation. Ivy now has a daughter called Hazel (apparently her father thought it would be a good thing to continue the tradition of tree names in the family). Maurice Mull-Dare is a gambler and he loses quite a lot of money on the King's horse as a Suffragette throws herself under the horses hooves. This throws him into an unspecified crisis that has him hospitalised. Hazel is in school, it's a school for young ladies and this is 1913, just before the war and England is still a very Victorian country.Hazel thinks that the Sufragettes have a point and is egged on by one of her classmates and gets herself into trouble. This trouble lands her in the Carribean, in the hands of her grandparents. As she spends the summer spending her mornings learning about being a lady and her afternoons exploring the neighbourhood. She finds out some things about her family and about slavery, things that aren't very comfortable, and she grows with the knowledge.I found it an interesting read, on some levels a compelling read but on other levels I felt that the message overwhelmed the story, enough that while it's not a poor 3* I couldn't justify giving it 4*. Nearly there though, if it was a first novel I would have forgiven it some of it's flaws but it isn't.

Wasn't quite expecting such a gripping tale.! It was a good holiday read and kept me wanting to see what happened next!!