[The isolated world of Bright Skin], for most of us necessarily exotic, has authentic beauty and more than a touch of nobility. Mrs. Peterkin's simplicity of style matches with perfect art a subject equally devoid of complication. But readers who are familiar with her previous work will note that Black April and Scarlet Sister Mary had the same subject and are not improved upon. Details may vary, but the essence is the same. And it happens to be an all-pervading essence which is expressed in similar phraseology and incident. Moreover, the characters, nicely individualized within a single book, are to some extent repeated under different names in each subsequent book. For instance, Blue in Bright Skin and Breeze in Black April might be the same small boy.

Instead of starting out to write a tetralogy or a Forsyte Saga and setting up a time sequence, genealogies and the...