Description

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BESTSELLING AUTHOR ROSIE THOMAS

By the author of Black Narcissus and The River

‘One of our best and most captivating novelists’ Philip Hensher

‘[Godden has] a genius for storytelling’ Evening Standard

Breakfast with the Nikolides was always to be the last hour of her childhood

For Emily Pool, India is a magical place where she has the freedom to escape her mother’s suffocating influence. Her days are spent exploring the canals and gardens of East Bengal and observing her neighbours, the Nikolides. While her parents paper over the cracks in the family home – and their veneer of respectability – the Nikolides offer a glimpse of glamour and sophistication. Then a tragic crisis plunges Emily into a world of adult deceit, and reveals that nothing in the community is quite as it seems . . .

Publisher Review

She has distilled in simple, luminous prose the experiences of expatriate India, of childhood and its innocence -- Lucy Hughes-Hallet * Sunday Times * [Godden's] distinctive, poised and unsentimental books have never lost a shred of their almost hypnotic appeal -- Rosie Thomas * Guardian * [Godden has] a genius for storytelling * Evening Standard * All [Godden's novels] have one important thing in common: They are beautifully and simply wrought by a woman of depth and sensitivity * Los Angeles Times *