INTRODUCED BY HILARY MANTEL WITH A BEAUTIFUL COVER BY TEXTILE DESIGNER FLORENCE BROADHURST
‘The perfection of its tone and prose is matched by an anguished wit’ AMANDA CRAIG, GUARDIAN
‘Wonderfully sinister, so enchantingly written and so sad. Everyone should read it’ JILLY COOPER
‘A subtle and beautiful book . . . Very few authors combine her acute psychological insight with her grace and style’ HILARY MANTEL, SUNDAY TIMES
Imogen, the beautiful wife of barrister Evelyn Gresham, is facing the greatest challenge of her married life. Their neighbour Blanche Silcox, competent, tweedy, middle-aged and ungainly – the very opposite of Imogen – seems to be vying for Evelyn’s attention. And to Imogen’s increasing disbelief, she may be succeeding – for in affairs of the heart the race is not necessarily won by the swift or the fair.
‘The perfection of its tone and prose is matched by an anguished wit’ AMANDA CRAIG, GUARDIAN
‘Wonderfully sinister, so enchantingly written and so sad. Everyone should read it’ JILLY COOPER
‘A subtle and beautiful book . . . Very few authors combine her acute psychological insight with her grace and style’ HILARY MANTEL, SUNDAY TIMES
Imogen, the beautiful wife of barrister Evelyn Gresham, is facing the greatest challenge of her married life. Their neighbour Blanche Silcox, competent, tweedy, middle-aged and ungainly – the very opposite of Imogen – seems to be vying for Evelyn’s attention. And to Imogen’s increasing disbelief, she may be succeeding – for in affairs of the heart the race is not necessarily won by the swift or the fair.
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Reviews
My best book of almost all time is The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins . . . wonderfully sinister, so enchantingly written and so sad. Everyone should read it
One of my favourite classics. Elegant and ironic, its continuing charm lies in its quirky and enigmatic love story which becomes more beguiling with each re-reading
Deliciously subtle . . . A lost world of tweeds and twin-sets . . . a classic novel of the fifties
A subtle and beautiful book ... Very few authors combine her acute psychological insight with her grace and style. There is plenty of life in the modern novel, plenty of authors who will shock and amaze you - but who will put on the page a beautiful sentence, a sentence you will want to read twice?
The perfection of its tone and prose is matched by an anguished wit
As smooth and seductive as a bowl of cream
