From Publishers Weekly
Here is a great vacation read but it's definitely not a throwaway. Prolific English novelist Gardam, Whitbread Award winner for both The Hollow Land and Queen of the Tambourine, has crafted a story through which readers can step into 1946 England. The war is over and the world is profoundly changed, though some of the old trappings remain, reminders of a faded past. Three Yorkshire girls of considerable intelligence but modest means have earned scholarships to universities in Cambridge and London; the novel is set during the summer before their departure for university. Hetty Fallowes decides "to be ruthless and positive and in charge of [her] own soul." She rebels against her quirky parents, especially her pious mother, who married her intellectual, grave-digging father for love and now regrets it. Plucky Una Vane's mother is using her dead father's office (he was a doctor) as a beauty parlor; Una develops leftist leanings and embarks on a romance with Ray, a boy of questionable background. Lieselotte Klein is a Jewish-German refugee who came to the village as a child to live with a Quaker family. At 17, she is suddenly sent to stay with a strange, elderly Jewish couple in London and finally, briefly, with distant relatives in California. All characters, major and minor, are superbly developed and convincing. The portrait of postwar England as conventions crumble and the country is rebuilt is terrific, drawn by a writer whose attention to detail recreates, lovingly and with bright flashes of wit, another time and place. (July)Forecast: Strong reviews and favorable word-of-mouth will be crucial to help build an American readership for this fine import.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
It is the summer of 1946 in Yorkshire, England. Food and clothing are still being rationed, and everyone is struggling to cope with the changes brought about by World War II. To the delight of the town, three local girls, best friends from secondary school, have won prestigious scholarships to universities in London and Cambridge. But before they depart, they must survive the summer. While Hetty struggles to escape from her battle-scarred father and possessive mother by reading books, Una haltingly asserts her emerging womanhood with a young man from the wrong side of the tracks and of a decidedly leftist political bent. Meanwhile, Liselotte, a Jewish refugee living with a Quaker family since her arrival in 1939 via the Kindertransport, is whisked off to California to meet her last surviving relative. Gardam, two-time winner of the Whitbread Award for The Hollow Land and Queen of the Tambourine, has written a charming and sensitive story of friendship and emotional maturation in a direct, polished style not without humor and irony. Fans of Maeve Binchy as well as the fine British writers of the 1940s and 1950s will find her prose and characters engaging. Recommended. Susan Clifford Braun, Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, CA Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The summer between high school and college is always a bittersweet time, but for Hetty, Una, and Lieselotte, this transition is especially trying. Their English village school years coincided with World War II, and even though their futures are bright since all have won college scholarships, their hearts are heavy. Literary Hetty is desperate to escape her interfering and envious mother, if not her beloved grave-digger father, whose spirit was shattered by the First World War. Athletic Una, in love with a boy even poorer than herself, feels responsible for her eccentric but shrewd widowed mother. And shy and intellectual Lieselotte, a German Jewish refugee taken in by Quakers, is wrapped in impenetrable sorrow and loneliness. As each young woman embarks on an unexpected and transformative adventure, Whitbread Award winner Gardam entertains and enlightens with vibrant descriptions and martini-dry wit while subtly musing on the psychic wounds of war, the hazards of sex, the limitations of religion, and the comfort of books. Ebullient, humorous, and wise, this is a novel to savor. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"It is the summer of 1946. It is a time of clothing coupons and food rations, of postwar deprivations and social readjustment. In this precarious, new world Hetty Fallowes struggles to become independent of her suffocatingly possessive mother, whose jealousy of her daughter runs almost as deep as her pride in Hetty's accomplishments. While the bookish Hetty rebels intellectually against her family, her best friend, Una Vane, asserts her nascent womanhood with a sexually interesting fellow from the wrong side of the Yorkshire tracks and the left side of local politics. And Liselotte Klein, a Jewish refugee who arrived solitary, plump and clever from Hamburg in 1939 to be billeted by Quakers, comes through painful trials in London to surprising possibilities." "By the summer's end, all three young women in this poignant, beautifully realized novel have begun to learn that they, like their parents, know neither everything nor nothing - and that a ticket to the future is issued in the past."--BOOK JACKET.

FROM THE CRITICS

Atlantic Monthly

Gardam's lean, fast-paced prose is at turns hugely funny and deeply moving... [Her] characters are acutely and compassionately observed.

New York Times Book Review

Splendid... Gardam's style is perfect...

Baltimore Sun

Quirky, enchanting...with lively, laugh-out loud elan.

Publishers Weekly

Here is a great vacation read but it's definitely not a throwaway. Prolific English novelist Gardam, Whitbread Award winner for both The Hollow Land and Queen of the Tambourine, has crafted a story through which readers can step into 1946 England. The war is over and the world is profoundly changed, though some of the old trappings remain, reminders of a faded past. Three Yorkshire girls of considerable intelligence but modest means have earned scholarships to universities in Cambridge and London; the novel is set during the summer before their departure for university. Hetty Fallowes decides "to be ruthless and positive and in charge of [her] own soul." She rebels against her quirky parents, especially her pious mother, who married her intellectual, grave-digging father for love and now regrets it. Plucky Una Vane's mother is using her dead father's office (he was a doctor) as a beauty parlor; Una develops leftist leanings and embarks on a romance with Ray, a boy of questionable background. Lieselotte Klein is a Jewish-German refugee who came to the village as a child to live with a Quaker family. At 17, she is suddenly sent to stay with a strange, elderly Jewish couple in London and finally, briefly, with distant relatives in California. All characters, major and minor, are superbly developed and convincing. The portrait of postwar England as conventions crumble and the country is rebuilt is terrific, drawn by a writer whose attention to detail recreates, lovingly and with bright flashes of wit, another time and place. (July) Forecast: Strong reviews and favorable word-of-mouth will be crucial to help build an American readership for this fine import. Copyright 2001 Cahners BusinessInformation.

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