Brotherly Love

 

Brotherly Love / Elizabeth Pewsey
London: Sceptre, c1998.
261 p.

This is the final book in the Mountjoy series, and I feel like it is only marginally connected to the rest of the books. Some of the recurring characters do appear, but the main characters are all new, and some of them are downright nasty. I'm glad I didn't start the series with this one, as I might not have picked up all the others afterward! 

Mimi is married to a Mountjoy, a relation of the ones we've already met in the earlier books. She's living in a comfortable small house, working as a fountain designer. She's solidly successful, which is good as her husband is a writer who is struggling with his latest work. His earlier travel books were a hit, but this one is coming out dull and academic and he's getting nowhere with it. And this is where the ghostly elements of the series comes out again; he somehow conjures up a Templar knight who then haunts their house, and it's not until a young tween girl who's staying with them sees him that they figure this out. 

Meanwhile, Mimi's family causes multiple disasters (hence the title). She has 3 brothers, all spoiled louts who live off her mother, another successful writer. But her mother doesn't want to deal with fixing the situation, so sells her house and disappears, meaning that the 3 brothers need to find another free place to mooch off...Mimi's of course. Her husband Edmund is not impressed, especially as the eldest brother is truly awful, trying to undermine Mimi at every turn, and actively trying to sabotage her marriage and career. 

So Edmund and Mimi head off to France to get some peace and quiet, for him to finish his book, and for her to get a break from her awful brothers -- who of course follow them once they realize nobody is there to pay the bills and buy the food for them in England. Mimi's mother is pretty selfish also, which Mimi realizes at one point, but that element is dropped and never really dealt with again.  

Anyhow, there are lots of hijinks in France but this one feels harsher and crueler than all the others in the series - the eldest brother is so awful, it feels like he needs to be in a literary novel in which he pays for his misdeeds. There isn't much amusing about him or his actions which drive a lot of the plot. 

So, not one I'd say is necessary to the series; as the last, it's unlikely that I'll read this one again. The parts with Edmund and his Templar ghost were a delight, and the inclusion of young Phoebe from earlier books was also charming. But take out the "Brotherly" in this one and I'd have enjoyed it a lot more.