We have a new heroine! Cinda Hollister is 14 and quite the busybody. She has two older brothers - Warren [War-horse] and Lindsay [Jinx]. Warhorse is from the David Parrish school of strong, big-hearted, seriously repressed boys and Jinx is of the Bobby Parrish school of horn-dogs. There is another brother and sister, Bobo and Buff, but they are babies. Actually, the girl, Buff, is kind of funny. She plays a lot of make-believe in a way that makes it clear that she is doing a lot of eaves-dropping. I hope she gets to grow up in these Hollister books!
So the story is thus - there is a cousin Paula who is 15 and butt-hurt that her mother has found love after having lost her husband in WW2 when Paula was but a baby. Her sister has taken Paula in while the newlyweds are in Europe and Auntie and niece are visiting in Cinda's town.
Because Paula is such a dud, Cinda decides to fix her. And she does. End of story.
There is also a bit where the kids trade in some crap boats for a good boat for their father. And they show Paula how to be a family. Also, they are at the beach. Did I mention that? My favorite part is when a college boy asks Cinda out to a dance and she turns him down by telling him that she is, in fact, jailbait. But she does it in such an engaging way that no one is embarrassed and even her brothers are proud of her.
This is a nice book for the younger girls and while it does have boats, which is not great, at least it doesn't have horses! (I kid, because I just started HIGH HURDLES at the gym last night and now I am all horsed up!) Like all of Lamberts heroines, Cinda is a sweet kid who thinks about others and tries to make the world a better place. I have not yet put together a hierarchy of Lambert heroines - although I love Dria, Candy and Susan for their self-awareness - but she's similar to Penny. She's Penny-light, if you will.
You will enjoy Cinda, just don't look too closely at the covers because you will surely go blind!
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