Saffy's Angel: Book 1 (Casson Family)

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Oh, no," said Eve. "Linda was much cleverer than me! She taught English. In Italy. In Siena. You were born in Siena, that's why I thought it would make such a good name...." Nothing was ever thrown away in the Casson family. Saffron went upstairs to the bedroom she shared with Caddy and Rose and raked around until she found the scratched blue coffee can. The stones were still there, bits of gold sandstone, marble chips, and a fragment of a red roof tile.

Based on the covers of any of these editions you'd be forgiven for mistaking the title for "Sappy's Angel". They're all rather precious. The title itself was a bit off-putting for me: I was afraid it was going to being something cloyingly religious, with perhaps, a good lesson about character through suffering. Not hardly.Bill Casson - the father of the Casson family. Bill is exactly what the other members of his family are not. Stylish, cool and calm. Bill, most of the time, lives in his immaculate studio in London, free of any messy children. Why do Rose and Tom get along so well? Does their relationship affect how Tom relates to the rest of the family? How does his affection for Rose help him when there is a crisis in his own family? Saffy's Angel is poignant and hilarious, and very, very British, and absolutely fabulous. I don't quite know how to recap it without ruining the constant surprise of the humor, but why don't you meet the characters? Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: Averted in the case of Caddy and Michael's relationship, as his heart belongs to her despite him leaving in book three and Caddy fully realising that it is only Michael leaves she truly loves at the end of Caddy Ever After. Subverted with Bill Casson and Eve, however, as Eve still loves him even though his heart seems to go yonder if he is away from her.

The Unreveal: For the 19 December 2010 blog post, no one still knows what exactly Tom said to Rose that evening or what she told him - only that it kept Rose up thinking "long, long thoughts."

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What do you think about Bill's and Eve's styles of parenting? In what ways are their styles similar, and in what ways are they different? Are they good parents? Do you think the four children would have turned out differently if they'd been brought up by a more traditional couple? Bittersweet Ending: Tom leaving to return to America because of a family crisis. Rose hides under the bed and refuses to say goodbye to him, and later, Rose and Indigo watch the stars and wish on airplanes as they think of him. Irony: Saffy's constant insistence throughout the first two books how "Bill is not [my] father." It later turns out to be true, however. It also gives her a Heroic BSoD. Caddy's bed was close enough to touch. Saffy could tell by the feel of the darkness that Caddy was awake. She said, "Caddy, how long ago can you remember?" Deadpan Snarker: Rose, Indigo, Saffron, Sarah, Tom... pretty much all of the main characters tend to be pretty snarky.