NATIONAL BESTSELLER - MAN BOOKER PRIZE NOMINEE - From the Booker
Prize-winning, bestselling author of Possession a story that spans the
Victorian era through World War I about a children's author and the
passions, betrayals, and secrets that tear apart the lives of her family
and loved ones.
"Majestic ... Dazzling ... Wonderful." --The San Francisco Chronicle
When children's book author Olive Wellwood's oldest son discovers a
runaway named Philip sketching in the basement of a museum, she takes
him into the storybook world of her family and friends. But the joyful
bacchanals Olive hosts at her rambling country house--and the separate,
private books she writes for each of her seven children--conceal more
treachery and darkness than Philip has ever imagined. The Wellwoods'
personal struggles and hidden desires unravel against a breathtaking
backdrop of the cliff-lined shores of England to Paris, Munich, and the
trenches of the Somme, as the Edwardian period dissolves into World War
I and Europe's golden era comes to an end.