KIND ARE HER ANSWERS

I liked Promise of Love, her first novel, a rather introverted but fine-drawn psychological love story. This is just love story, less high-keyed, and more likely to catch on. Mary Renault writes with warmth and insight, her characters are never usual but even so very human. The characters are three: Kit, a doctor in a small English town, who finds his love for his wife, Janet, deadened by her apathy. Janet, narcisstic, selfbound, turns to the Oxford Group while Kit turns to Christy Heath, the niece of one of Kit's patients. Impulsive, out-going, somewhat gamin, Christy asks for little in return. Kit, realizing that he is blocking her from marriage, tries to get out but she comes back to him. Sympathetic and appealing, with gentle satire here and there.