A Part of the Furniture - Tapa dura

" A novel whose freshness of tone, energy of plotting and sweet nature make it exceptional by any standards" -Eliza Charlton, "Sunday Telegraph" " Few novelists offer such a rich concoction of amoral spice and cleverness; but to judge her work exlusively on this level is to miss more subtle rewards" -Elizabeth Buchan, "Mail on Sunday" " With its brilliant final twist, this is Mary Wesley's best yet" -Katie Campbell, "Evening Standard" "From the Trade Paperback edition." "A novel whose freshness of tone, energy of plotting and sweet nature make it exceptional by any standards" -Eliza Charlton, "Sunday Telegraph "Few novelists offer such a rich concoction of amoral spice and cleverness; but to judge her work exlusively on this level is to miss more subtle rewards" -Elizabeth Buchan, "Mail on Sunday "With its brilliant final twist, this is Mary Wesley's best yet" -Katie Campbell, "Evening Standard "From the Trade Paperback edition.

Early in 1941, having just seen off at Euston Station the two young men whom she has loved for the best part of her seventeen years, Juno Marlowe is hurrying down a London street with her ill-fitting shoes in her hands. Airplanes thunder overhead; a battery of guns opens up. When a stick of bombs falls she cowers, then takes to her heels in flight. She is rescued from this nightmare by a gaunt stranger, frail and older than his years, and, guiding her up his front stairs, he offers her the protection of his house. Given this respite from the bleakness of having no home and no family to turn to, Juno first encounters tragedy, then a series of events which take her to a house in the West Country and the blossoming of an English spring into which war only occasionally intrudes. Here she may find peace; here she will no longer be part of the furniture. Part of the Furniture completes the triptych of wartime novels begun with The Camomile Lawn and A Sensible Life. "From the Trade Paperback edition."