Even the preface to this book admits that (unlike the work of her sister, Rosamond Lehmann) this is a “work of its time” , and can be seen as one of the genre of post WW1 writings that inspired Stella Gibbons’ “Cold Comfort Farm.”
When a ballet dancer wife - married and a mother- goes slowly insane, her sad, author husband is left to raise the 3 children with just a housekeeper, in a mouldering country estate. Eldest daughter Clare devotes herself to her vulnerable father and her (physically) disabled sister and (mentally) adrift brother. Into their world of solitude and love of nature comes a London writer. Damaged by the War, in a difficult marriage, and accompanied by his feckless, effeminate protege….Another arrival is author Max Ralston, whose one bestseller details a remote Pacific island he’s found, and plans to return to with a few likeminded folk. Is it real or a scam? The children’s father believes - passionately- and yearns to go there.
Emphatically one for the charity shop. I kept on reading but not recommended. Very airy fairy 1920s style nonsense. ( )