Unlike so many historical novelists, who either overstress background or are content to use it as a pretty costume device, Miss Forbes has achieved a balance, an integration between character and environment which is responsible for the living quality of ["Paradise"]. Period color is not permitted to dwarf individuals, and the family of Jude Parre loom larger than their setting. What is more important, and certainly more rare, they act, feel, think like children of their age. As with Hawthorne, upon whose territory she is trespassing, Miss Forbes seems to feel in her bones the spiritual climate of Puritan New England. Her characters are less mystical and less austere, but on their own, more worldly plane they mirror as faithfully the temper of the times….

Quoting the words of Miss Forbes …, I have called this novel a historical romance. Actually—and this is perhaps the highest tribute one...