SOURCE: de Lisle, Leanda. “A Romantic Novel without the Throbbing Manhood.” Spectator 288, no. 9052 (2 February 2002): 32.

In the following review, de Lisle faults Girl from the South as a painfully boring read, but assures readers that fans of Trollope's writing will probably enjoy the novel.

I had some idea that Girl from the South might be an aga saga. As an aga owner, I was intrigued, but as Trollope's thousands of fans know, she has turned her back on agas. She writes critically acclaimed books about the sagas of step-parenting and divorce instead. Fay Weldon compares her to Austen. Her latest book addresses the plight of the single 30-year-old—a subject so stale you'd have to be Austen to get away with it.

The story opens with a frizzy-haired woman enjoying a power shower in Charleston, South Carolina. No agas there, we can be sure. Gillon, our 30-year-old heroine, was...