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Quin is a great strong character as well and so romantic :o)I give this a 4.5/5.0The big issue I had with the book [partly because I was impatient] was the blurbs about random people or events when something just started to get good. The writing style is definitley different from most authors I read. But I really did like the book alot and I suggest that if you like a romantic sweet story and a strong [but sometimes a little quick to act] heroine then this book is for you. It sorta pulled me out of the book and frustrated me because I really wanted to know what was going to happen with Ruth and Quin. I liked that about this book. Ruth is very easily to fall in love with and her passion for life really makes you remember not to take life for granted.
Ibbotson's novel is also brimming with references to paleontology and other sciences, music, and literature that go hand in hand with the very academic characters and setting, but aren't over the top, nor do they require that the reader need any prior knowledge of such things to enjoy the book. Ibbotson has such a polished and sophisticated style, punctuated with smart snatches of humor and irony, which makes this book a delight to read. They form a marriage of convenience and escape to London. The Morning Gift is a believable, well researched book that chronicles the wretchedness of the displacement of millions of people before and during World War II, and also offers a bit of hope and romance, along with one of Ibbotson's trademark nerve-racking endings, complete with miscommunication and misunderstandings, that ultimately result in a happy ending. Now Ruth is enrolled in the university he teaches at.can they possibly keep their marriage a secret. Ruth Berger is a bright student who lives with her family in Vienna in 1938.
Hiding in Nazi-occupied Vienna is extremely difficult and risky, and she's lucky when Quin Somerville, a young colleague of her father's, offers his help. All of her characters are carefully portrayed with just the right amount of background details and traits so that they seem more realistic and three dimensional, even the lowliest one. When her father, who is half Jewish, is dismissed from his prestigious job as a well known professor because of his Jewish blood, the Berger family knows it's time to leave Vienna. Or their growing attraction.All of Eva Ibbotson's books are wonderfully charming, and The Morning Gift is no exception. The Morning Gift is highly recommended. They form a plan, and move out quickly, but it went wrong, and Ruth was left behind.
But once there, it will be harder to dissolve their marriage than Quin thought.
Eva Ibbotson is AMAZING and don't worry when you are approaching the end: there is ALWAYS a happy ending with Ibbotson. There's also a passage in here about young men and war that I read it over and over until I ended up copying it and placing it on my desk. This is in the top five most beauitful books I have ever read. I was so incredibly happy with the world after I read this.
Just prior to the outbreak of the war he returns at the Professors request to receive an honorary degree from the university. It wasn't convincing as to why Ruth rejected Quinn, and the plot device of having her run off and then find the Aunt felt forced. As with all Eva Ibbotson books it is full of twists and turns where intertwined characters are drawn into the plot, not simply as plot devices but characters in their own right = with their own stories to tell - Quinn's Aunt, the Basher (who was quinn's father) and the various Vienese refugees.Eva Ibbotson seems to specialise in their stories of European displacement to London, but she does it especially well.The only part I found difficult was the 'Morning Gift' misunderstanding. Quinn discovers Ruth and realises he can't simply abandon her in the city where violence against Jews is rising. Ruth would be only to happy to do this - except due to circumstances she has been accepted to attend the university Quinn teaches at - and she is in his classes, after all fossils are her interest too. However the Nazi's have taken over and the professor and his wife have fled - forced to abandon virtually everything they own.
However those peices aside didn't affect for me the story as a wholeIbbotson invests her tales with detail, fey charm and immense good humour. Ruth Berger, happy and contented only child of a professor and his wife. Jewish and living in Austria prior to World War II. All this must be secret from his family too.
And they must not ever see each other either, or that could complicate the divorce. However annulling the marriage is not that easy - if it is annulled before she is confirmed as a resident she could be deported. Their dislike of Ruth is obvious - not only as a competitor in intelligence to their daughter, but because she is Jewish. They are thoroughly enjoyable.
This was a great read. However there is no way to get her out except by marriage. No matter what Quinn or Ruth do they cannot seem to rid themselves of each other, and it is a wonderful moment when Ruth goes to talk to the detested Freudian psychologist downstairs. The extended family meet, briefly Quinn Somerville, a brilliant Archaeologist from Britain who comes and stays for a short time.
The university is being run by an unpleasant man and his family - including an ambitious wife and her bright daughter. After all, she has her own true love, a young concert pianist, and he has his work. The don't realise they have also left behind Ruth, their teenage daughter who was supposed to leave on a student visa only was stopped at the border. Which they do - a marriage of convenience which he assures her will be anulled as soon as they arrive in Britain.
Her tone reminds me of Jane Austen's, with its dry humour. The Ruth and Quinn never seem to have any faults and Verena Plackett doesn't seem to possess any redeeming qualities.
However, Ibbotson's writing is so entertaining that those things can be overlooked, or even add flavor. Also Ruth does not always act her age - some of the things she says seem childish, rather like Anne Shirley's fantasies in Anne of Green Gables.
I absolutely adored this book. However, the characterizations are very flat.
Overall, I loved this novel. Ibbotson writes in such a quirky, witty way and she adds so many clever allusions to Goethe and Freud and Mozart that you also want to find out more about those people as well.
I love how Ibbotson provides a happy ending to both the "good" characters and the "bad" ones; this is characteristic of her other novels as well and you never begrudge the villains a happy ending either.
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