For me this is like reviewing three different books, the one I expected and didn't get, the one that is there, a story of a divorced woman who goes to England from Africa and ends up being kind of a family lynch-pin, and an appendix in which the world has gone completely to hell in a slight connection to what came before.

I really enjoyed the first four books in the The Children of Violence, liking each one a little more, so I had high expectations after finishing Landlocked. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I cannot imagine that when she wrote Martha Quest back in 1952 she imagined ending the series like this. I get the feeling that sometime shortly after Landlocked she had some sort of epiphany. Or maybe she was just tired of the series.

There were parts that were really strong, but there were other parts that just dragged on and on. As far as the conclusion goes, I don't know what to say. Perhaps what is there was once considered a novel in itself, and she slapped it on the end.