The Nutmeg Tree

The Nutmeg Tree was first published in 1937. It is probably the first of Margery Sharp’s novels that made her work a commercial success.

It is a marvelous piece of storytelling that also happens to be extremely funny. The lead character, Julia Packett, is not a typical heroine, by any means...A charming ne’er do well with a talent for song and dance, a passion for burlesque theatre, and a sincere but ephemeral attachment to any male with a come-hither look, she has the ill fortune to get pregnant, hastily married, then widowed in a brief space of time during the hectic days of World War I. She tried being a mom for awhile, but then left her baby daughter with the (very deserving) grandparents and went back to her life in theater.

But there's something about Julia...she won the hearts of readers then, and now. The real story opens twenty years later, when she finds her daughter Susan needs her to help sort out a messy romantic entanglement. Every last bit of maternal instinct is then mustered, and Julia Packett goes rushing off--somewhat theatrically, but sincere, nonetheless--to help her daughter. What ensues, both in the romantic angle and the soul-searching angle, is a delight.