Peter and Paul

It is not fun being the plain one of the family. But being the plain one of twins is a wretched position. That's why parables about grains of mustard seed, which grew up and startled everybody by their magnificence, did Pauline good.

Petronella and Pauline Lane are 17-year-old twins, but not identical. "Peter", kind but utterly self-absorbed, is ravishingly beautiful while "Paul"-practical, sensitive, and loved by all-tends to slip through the cracks. Their father is the local vicar ("so much of a saint that if he wasn't a great dear he'd be a prig"), but malleable in their mother's hands, so that she (with an eye for getting them married) is able to arrange for the girls to work in a London dress shop run by David, son of local aristocracy in the unforgettable form of Lady Bliss. However, David's dishonest, fortune-hunting manageress is anything but pleased by their arrival, especially when Peter becomes the inspiration for David's new designs, and sets about to rid herself of them. Her machinations and their unpredictable results, unfolding amid fascinating details about the workings of a dress shop, make for a funny, sweet, and irresistible concoction.

Peter and Paul, first published in 1940, is the third of twelve charming, page-turning romances published under the pseudonym "Susan Scarlett" by none other than beloved children's author and novelist Noel Streatfeild. Out of print for decades, they were rediscovered by Greyladies Books in the early 2010s, and Dean Street Press and Furrowed Middlebrow are delighted now to make all twelve available to a wider audience.