A Room Without Toys

A Room Without Toys is essentially the story of Victoria Windsor, beautiful and brilliantly gifted star of the London stage and apparently a woman to be envied. Yet when we go behind the velvet curtain which would ordinarily separate the actress from her audience, we find the reality of her life to be quite different. From a childhood which with one touching exception is a lonely one, we follow her through the frustration of endless auditions to the years of growing theatrical renown-years which at the same time are ironically the emptiest of her life-and finally to her meeting with the one man able to awaken her to her full potential, both as a human being and as a woman. The theme of all this is stated in the title for through much of Victorias life, she is indeed like a child in a room without toys. Many different elements combine to make this a compelling and yet highly readable novel. 1) A strong central character equally as fascinating as any of the real life actresses who has recently felt the urge to tell all in an autobiography. 2) The elegance and charm of its London setting-London with its theatres, its parks, its pubs, its centuries old association with the majesty of the British crown. 3) The glimpse it provides of the backstage world of the theatre-a world most people would otherwise never see. A Room Without Toys is more, however, than merely the whole constituted of these parts which are, after all, only things of the surface and the novel goes much deeper than that. Will a child starved for love and caring grow into an emotionally crippled adult for whom normal, interpersonal relationships are all but impossible? It is this vital psychological issue which the work attempts to explore as slowly Victoria Windsor learns to believe in herself, learns to trust and most important of all, learns to love.