Book Review: "The True Heart" by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Romance novels are more than often, one-sided affairs with predictable lines and plots. There have been, though, some better ones of the last one hundred or so years but rarely are they appreciated as much as they should be. Romance novels that do not fit the same piece as being something by Nicholas Sparks and that genre are often ignored but, as I have found recently, there is an author who pretty much has the perfect blend between light and dark though some of the plot may be assumed cliché. The book in question is entitled, “The True Heart” by Sylvia Townsend Warner and it is one of the shorter books I have read this week as I wanted to have a nicer morning than my usual heavy reads. “The True Heart” is written incredibly cleverly and I have to say that the use of language is amazing for what it does for the atmosphere and characters. Though there are parts of the plot where I found myself guessing exactly what was going to happen next - the writing did shock me as something that was very different for its genre.

The book is about a girl called Suzy who grows up in an orphanage that teaches young girls how to be ‘obedient’. Suzy can cook, clean, work on a farm and do all the housework to a good degree. She is then given to a farm in order to live and work there with an allowance of a few pounds per week in spending money. That may not seem like a good deal, but for an orphan who practically has nothing, Suzy jumps to the opportunity even though she states, that she is afraid of the marshland as it is dark and grubby. She meets a man called Eric and he has a strange background enough to have them separated when their romance is discovered. The rest of the book is spent, as you have guessed, with them trying to get back together. I have to say that the rest of the book may be predictable and at times, even absurd. But the general premise of the book is easy and there is a lot of room for expansion of atmosphere and character. This is why we know so much about the main character and her feelings, world and even what she is afraid of. Suzy is the perfect character to empathise with because all of her life has been spent under someone else’s command and now, with a taste of freedom, she has it taken away from her and is back to being under someone else. The story really starts though, when she leaves the farm - never to return.

I have to say that I was surprised how dark this book could get at times. Sylvia Townsend Warner writers beautifully about the perils of growing up under someone else’s supervision at all times and when Suzy finally leaves, there seems like there is even more anxiety for the reader as we have a young woman who does not know how to navigate the world. Her fears from before flood into the reader’s eyes and we are reminded that though she is a meek woman, she is resilient and must survive in order to make it through to the next chapter. It is a really good romance book which, at its heart, has almost a psychological thriller aspect to it. All of this atmosphere of darkness and destruction starts to come into play and there is so much to re-read in terms of the way certain things are focused on in the description.