Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1021 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Synopsis
The Delanceys and the Traffords hate each other. But this is no ordinary neighbours' feud ...In l947, Stanley Trafford, the gardener, was cruelly evicted from Melcombe Abbey by his employer Edmund Delancey. Forty years on, the tables have turned. Edmund's near-bankrupt son, Sam, has been ousted from his beloved house by Mark Trafford, now a property millionaire, with his vengeful father in tow. To add insult to injury, Mark's wife Janice is set on modernising the centuries-old Abbey. Furthermore, the Traffords are hoping their 'new' money will entice old county society - if Sam and his wife Fred will allow it. But the house has secrets. And when young Joe Trafford and Laura Delancey embark on a clandestine romance, these start to tumble out. For what nobody knows is that Stanley and Edmund were once the greatest of friends - as were their wives, Effie and Hester. The war bound them even closer. So what happened to turn the relationship so poisonous? Hester Delancey is now too confused to remember, and Stanley's not telling. Or is he?This tender and compelling story follows the fortunes of both families over the course of one devastating year, when everything is turned upside-down.

Customer Reviews

Disappointing
I had high expectations for this book - the other Amazon reviews are glittering - so I was more than a little dismayed to find it a big let down. Quite simply, I found the writer's style to be clumsy (i.e. awkward use of adverbs such as 'very brazenly') and the plot rambled on dreadfully until, in the final pages, it fizzled out in one of the biggest anti-climaxes I've experienced in fiction. I persevered with the story in the vain hope that it would suddenly improve and contain some startling revelation. However, one of the so-called twists was embarrassingly obvious and the other was so under-developed as to be meaningless. Give it a miss!

A new author to love
This book was recommended to me by Amazon based on my previous purchases of Clare Chamber's books (In A Good Light, Learning To Swim, The Editor's Wife, incidentally all rollicking good reads) and having read the other reviews I thought I'd give it a try. I'm so glad that I did and am now eagerly awaiting delivery of her other books.

I found this to be a gripping read and the plot moves seamlessly from the past to the present. The hatred between the two families is totally gripping and I was reading well into the small hours desperate to find out WHAT caused the rift in friendship. As a previous reviewer mentions their are some great twists in this story, likewise one I guessed and one I didn't.

The characters are very well drawn and utterly convincing, the differences in class and status and how this affects the peoples behaviour both during the war years and then back in the present is genuinely moving.

If you are looking for a good read, a real page turner with characters you can care about and you like books with a really satisfying, but not obvious ending, then buy this now.

Truly addictive
I had been eagerly awaiting Annabel Dilke's next book. I was completely gripped by the story from the very first page. I began reading in the train home, could not put the book down and nearly missed getting out at my station.

It is such an amazingly original story with a complex plot -with two twists. The first I suspected but not the second. It was a real surprise.

Dilke has written another rich absorbing story of two families.It is set before,during and after the second world war. During the war, for a short time, the gap between the classes disappeared, only to emerge again after the war finished.

I am addicted to Annabel Dilke's books.
Rumia