Summer 1967: Thirteen-year-old Maisie is at her
family's home, a decaying medieval abbey in the
heart of rural Suffolk. Lucas, a student and friend,
painting a portrait of Maisie and her older
sisters, Julia and Finn. In turn, Maisie embarks
upon a portrait of her own: she begins an
account of her family and of a summer in which
their lives will irrevocably, and terribly, change.
She introduces us to arrogant, beautiful Julia; > intellectual, magnetic Finn; to honorable, con:ntional Nicholas, a neighbor training to be a octor; and Gypsy-blooded Daniel Nunn, a vilge friend to the sisters and a longtime idol of Maisie's.
More than twenty years later, Lucas's nowmous portrait of the three Mortland sisters hangs in a London retrospective show of his artwork. Daniel, who's risen from rural poverty to a healthy but soulless and troubled London existence, finds himself still obsessed with the three sisters and haunted by the summer of 1967. Now he embarks on a journey to understand what happened to their lives-and seek redemption for his own.
A dramatic, atmospheric novel in a grand storytelling tradition, beguiling, complex, hauntingly sad, and often funny. A tour de force of tales within «. it sets the capstone on bestselling author Sally Beauman's literary career.