Oh dear, LOL. This was meant to be an uplifting tale of an orphan in Regency England who was sent to be a governess in difficult circumstances, and coped due to reading the Bible and preaching at people. Unfortunately, it came across as a spoof of umpteen different genres, which I don’t suppose was the idea!
For a kick off, the orphans were all known by numbers – which rhymed with their names. So they were addressed as “Fifteen, Elizabeth Green,” “Five, Louisa Clive,” “Six, Jane Rix,” etc, which sounded like a bad game of bingo. Then there were the young men of the house – instead of being called, say, George, Henry and Charles, they were called Cosmo, Ughtred and Nelmont! Nelmont, having been suspended from Eton from bad behaviour, completely reformed after reading a psalm written down by Elizabeth Green. One of the orphans was rescued from the orphanage after her grandparents listened to Elizabeth Green’s preaching. I think even Martha Finley might have drawn the line at those two storylines!
So it was entertaining because it kept making me laugh, but I really don’t think that that was the author’s intention :-).
setinthepast 
If I read your review correctly, you managed to read the entire book despite its silly story line. I suspect that was because Elizabeth Green and her wayward charge, Donata (another odd name) Deveril, sounded and acted like real teenagers, rather than Sunday school manikins. Constance Savery had the unusual knack of making good people interesting. Like others writing Sunday School reward books, Savery was required to preach a bit, but oftener her characters did their preaching by what they did, rather than what they said. Before giving up on Savery, try “Redhead at School” where the author was in a less restrictive publisher’s straitjacket.
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I very rarely give up on books, because I feel guilty if I do! Thanks for the suggestion – I’ll see if I can find a copy of “Redhead”.
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“Redhead” is rather hard to find, but was, like “Elizabeth Green”, published by Lutterworth. Much easier to find is “Enemy Brothers”. Published in 1943, before the outcome of World War II was certain, the rhetoric is patriotic, rather than religious, but it is, none-the-less, a parable of brotherly love. It is available as an ebook and isn’t expensive.
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Thanks :-).
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