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Product Details | Similar Products | Customer Reviews | Author: Elizabeth Jane Howard List Price: £16.99 Our Price: £8.49 You Save: £8.50 (50%) Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours  |
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 | Product Details: Hardcover 454 pages Release Date: 03 October 2008 Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 1405041617 Rating:   Sales Rank: 6689 | | Look for similar books by subject:
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| | Customer Reviews: A huge disappointment (11 December 2008)Elizabeth Jane Howard is one of my favourite authors and I was thrilled at the thought of a new book by her. Unfortunately, despite the rich and descriptive writing, I found the characters in this novel completely unengaging - more cyphers than real people and I did not in the end care what happened to any of them. IT WAS LIKE COMING HOME.. (30 November 2008)I have read every one of Elizabeth Jane Howard's books over a long time and to read this was like coming home. The sophisticated style and the smooth transition from one person's story to the next is vintage Howard - and what a pleasure it gave me. I wanted to devour the whole book immediately but rationed myself because I didn't want to finish it. Although it is apparently set in the late 1960s which were after all, Elizabeth Jane Howard's glory days it seems, the period doesn't matter at all. Except for some references to prices,everything could just as easily have taken place yesterday. The delightful Floy Plover, a garden designer is a wonderful character with a wisdom which one could envy. She is loved deeply by Persephone, her niece to whom she has been a surrogate mother for a long time. They move to the West Country so that Floy can design and deal with the garden of the manor house which Jack Curtis has bought. The Musgroves who used to live in Melton House live in the area and their lives begin to interweave with those of Floy, Persephone and Jack Curtis. This is a skilfully constructed book, in which each character is given a chance to tell his or her story and it is seamlessly woven by a master novelist. The descriptions of the seasons and the atmosphere of the beautiful West Country are a pleasure to read and savour - ' The rooks were flying in their rambling patterns, silhouetted alternately against a sky whose pale blue, molten with the setting sun, was streaked with aquamarine and drifts of peach-coloured cloud, a cómbination, she remembered Francis once saying, that could only be brought off by the celestial.' There is humour and also heart-wrenching tragedy in this book, all presented with skill and flair. I wouldn't have missed this book for anything. Val De Beer. Disappointing (14 November 2008)What a disappointing read. Long and drawn out, with ill-defined characters who were sketchily drawn and unengaging. In fact, I had to keep reminding myself who was who. Couldn't understand why the book was set in the 1960s; the social and moral sentiments of the story would have stood up in a contemporary setting. Indeed, some actions in the book, such as eating pizza and having wine to offer readily at home, seemed rather advanced for the period. There were a few potential intriguing elements of the story that needed more development and other strands that were overdone and tedious. | |
