1. Giant’s Bread
Vernon Deyre grows up amid the privileges and emotional neglect of an English country estate, discovering an exceptional musical talent that conflicts with family expectations. His friendships and loves are reshaped by the First World War, financial change and his determination to create work of lasting…
2. Unfinished Portrait
On an island, a woman named Celia has reached the point of suicide when she meets the painter Larraby and begins telling him her life story. She recalls an imaginative childhood, a difficult adolescence, marriage, motherhood and the collapse of the relationship around which she built…
3. Absent in the Spring
Returning to England from visiting her daughter in Iraq, Joan Scudamore is stranded alone at an isolated desert rest house. With no books, companions or practical distractions, she begins reviewing the marriage and family life she has always regarded as successful. Memories that once confirmed Joan’s…
4. The Rose and the Yew Tree
Hugh Norreys, recovering from wartime injuries, narrates the rise of John Gabriel, an ambitious outsider who contests a parliamentary election in a Cornish town. Gabriel’s political energy and appetite for power draw him toward the beautiful and socially secure Isabella, whose world appears closed to him.…
5. A Daughter’s a Daughter
Widowed Ann Prentice has built her life around her daughter Sarah, but their intimacy becomes destructive when Ann plans to remarry. Sarah’s hostility forces Ann to choose between a possible new life and the relationship that has defined her since the aftermath of the First World…
6. The Burden
Laura Franklin grows up believing that her younger sister Shirley displaced her in their parents’ affection. After a family tragedy, resentment turns into fierce protectiveness, and Laura organises her life around safeguarding Shirley from pain and from choices she considers dangerous. The sisters’ relationships carry them…