So I picked this up from a library book sale because it had an old 1940s-ish binding (turns out publishing date is 1946) and I am a sucker for those. There is an embossed scene of a mountainous valley on the cover, but the author is unknown to me. We start off with a man with the Scandinavian name of Nils on a train wandering through the Italian pre-WWII countryside. He ends up being paired in the dining car with an attractive fellow solo passenger, but notices as he follows her up the aisle that she is a mountaineer (!!!). She is British or American (turns out both) and is wealthy and dismissive of everything she sees. We head into mansplaining discussions over whether American materialism is superior to European traditional craft, and it was about there I decided to Google the author. She turns out to be British/American herself, born about the turn the century, and did well with “prestige” novels as she followed her British diplomat husband around the globe. OK. So Nils has one piece of advice for Gloire, who is on her way to Istanbul. Go to Albania. And on the spur of the moment, she does.
Well, from there on, she manages to become befriended by a famous British authoress, who happens to be a mountaineer also (did I mentioned that she was widowed when her husband, a world-famous mountaineer, was injured and abandoned by his comrades?) and tags along with her to a remote mountainous (natch) corner of Albania. Circumstances force them to remain there awhile, and in the end, she is won over by the noble folk of Albania, and settles in to use her extensive funds to establish a medical practice with an elderly British lady doctor, as one does. And guess who shows up, Nils! Who turns out to be British author’s long-lost crush, because they used to go mountaineering together! J am beginning to detect a theme *eye roll*. So it was a lot – rambling and full of thoughty thoughts, but I want to go to that specific Albania, even if mountaineering is not my forte. I’ve always loved the crisp mountain air.
