UNLIMITED Audiobooks and eBooks

Over 40,000 books & works on all major devices

Get ALL YOU CAN for FREE for 30 days!

The Upas Tree, A Christmas Story For All the Year

Florence L. Barclay

Book Overview: 

Ronald West has a brilliant idea for his next novel, but to do it right, he wants to spend the next six months tramping around central Africa to experience the setting first hand. His wife Helen fully supports his trip, but for the first time in their marriage, she refuses to go along herself. Ronnie is disappointed at her reticence, but plows ahead, planning to be back in England by Christmas. But when Ronnie returns, something is seriously the matter which threatens to make his reunion with Helen, and their Christmas together, anything but merry.

How does All You Can Books work?

All You Can Books gives you UNLIMITED access to over 40,000 Audiobooks, eBooks, and Foreign Language courses. Download as many audiobooks, ebooks, language audio courses, and language e-workbooks as you want during the FREE trial and it's all yours to keep even if you cancel during the FREE trial. The service works on any major device including computers, smartphones, music players, e-readers, and tablets. You can try the service for FREE for 30 days then it's just $19.99 per month after that. So for the price everyone else charges for just 1 book, we offer you UNLIMITED audio books, e-books and language courses to download and enjoy as you please. No restrictions.

Book Excerpt: 
. . .Oh, Ronnie, I wish I could laugh! But to-morrow is so near. What shall I do when there is nobody here to tell me silly stories?"

"Ask Mademoiselle Victorine to try her hand at it. Say: 'Chère Mademoiselle, s'il-vous-plait, racontez-moi une extrêmement sotte histoire.'"

"Ronnie, do stop chaffing! Go and play me something really beautiful, and sing very softly, as you did the other night; so that I can hear the tones of the piano and your voice vibrating together."

"No," said Ronnie, "I can't. I have a cast-iron lump in my throat just now, and not a note could pass it. Besides, I don't really play the piano."

He stretched out his foot, and kicked a log into the fire.

The flame shot up, illumining the room. The log-fire, and the two seated near it, were reflected fitfully in the distant mirror.

"Helen, there is one instrument, above all others, which I have always longed to play; yet I have never even held o. . . Read More

Community Reviews

I discovered this book while looking for a Christmas-themed story. It's pleasantly old-fashioned, somewhat down the line of The Gift of the Magi.

Nice little story, but so naive.

I've read books by Florence Barclay before that I enjoyed very much (such as The Rosary), but this is not one of them. While sacrificial heroines are staples in her books, this woman took it a country mile farther.

This book is about a married couple who are comfortably well off and live somewhere i

Even though I am very fond of F.L.B. this is not one of her best stories. The description of true, self-sacrificing love is beautiful, but the bad guy is a bit too black. The story about the reflexion in the mirror seems out of place, not belonging to the rest of the story. I wonder what the intenti

View More Reviews