La R 07 Janie Steps In by Elinor Brent-Dyer

La Rochelle 07

GGBP first published Janie Steps In in 2003, 20 years ago. It is the final title in the La Rochelle series, and first published in 1953, 21 years after the sixth title, Janie of La Rochelle.

At the end of that title, Janie and Julian had just had their firstborn daughter. Now they have four children. She answers an appeal from her old chum Rosamund Willoughby (née Atherton) to help with Rosamund’s cousin, Nan Blakeney, who is fretting herself into grave illness after the death of her mother.

We first meet Nan in A  Head Girl’s Difficulties, when we hear she and her mother are due to visit the Athertons. In  Janie of La Rochelle she is one of Rosamund’s bridesmaids when she marries Nigel Willoughby.  In Highland Twins we learn that Nan is engaged to David Willoughby.

Needless to say, in Janie Steps In, Janie does ‘step in’ and Nan Blakeney becomes a happy girl who can face troubles bravely and look forward to a bright future (as we hear in Highland Twins,  published 11 years before!).

Helen Barber has written a new short story for Janie, ‘Whatever Happened to Pauline?’

Janie Steps In was published on 19 July 2023.