CARNEY’S HOUSE PARTY

The only Deep Valley book I was never able to obtain until HarperCollins’s recent (and very handsome) rerelease. I always liked Carney, with her ambition of going to Vassar, and this one gives us some vintage women’s-college atmosphere (“Winkie took charge of the rarebit and Peg toasted crackers over the gas light. ‘Who’s going to make the cocoa?’ she called. ‘Not me,’ said Win, who was tuning her ukulele.”) while also giving us a glimpse of Betsy and the rest of the Crowd in the “lost years” between Betsy and Joe and Betsy and the Great World. A new favorite.