The reader who opens Carney's House Party with no previous knowledge of Maud Hart Lovelace's engaging books for young people will find a gay, exciting, sometimes touching account of what happened when Carney Sibley, home from Vassar, gave a house party during the summer of 1911.

To Betsy-Tacy readers, the book answers a question which readers all over the country have asked Mrs. Lovelace, "Did Larry ever come back?" For Carney and Larry had been high school sweethearts until the Humphreys moved to California, and neither one could seem to get interested in anyone else without first discovering whether the old magic held.

In this eventful summer Larry does come back to see Carney. But Sam Hutchinson drives into her life in his big black Locomobile, and complicates things for the house party guests—Isobel Porteous, the glamorous Vassar roomate; Bonnie Andrews, back from Paris and Betsy Ray. . .

Yes, the buoyant Betsy is back, along with Joe Willard, Cab, Winona, and Dennie, but this isn't Betsy's story. Carney steps into the limelight as a most loveable heroine in her own right.

Mrs. Lovelace writes of the joys and heartaches of the college set with the same tender insight that she showed in previous Betsy-Tacy stories. She also proves again that girls of Mother's time are much the same as girls today—except in the Vassar chapters! The difference between women's colleges in 1911 and today make for many a chuckle.

From the dust jacket