Promotional Information

A compartmentalized life becomes entangled.

About the Author

Mary Wesley was born near Windsor in 1912. Her education took her to the London School of Economics and during the War she worked in the War Office. Although she initially fulfilled her parents' expectations in marrying an aristocrat she then scandalised them when she divorced him in 1945 and moved in with the great love of her life, Eric Siepmann. The couple married in 1952, once his wife had finally been persuaded to divorce him.

She used to comment that her 'chief claim to fame is arrested development, getting my first novel Jumping the Queue published at the age of seventy'. She went on to write a further nine novels, three of which were adapted for television, including the best-selling The Camomile Lawn. Mary Wesley was awarded the CBE in the 1995 New Year's honour list and died in 2002.

Reviews

Delightful, intelligent entertainment
*Sunday Telegraph*

Tremendously lively, very funny, touching, spirited
*Susan Hill*

Hugely enjoyable
*The Times*

Warm, wise, witty, sexy
*Boston Globe*

Delightful, intelligent entertainment * Sunday Telegraph *
Tremendously lively, very funny, touching, spirited * Susan Hill *
Hugely enjoyable -- Nicholas Shakespeare * The Times *
Warm, wise, witty, sexy * Boston Globe *

Despite a somewhat melodramatic start this is an entertaining tale about an unconventional young Englishwoman and her friends, lovers, and son. As a teenager pregnant Hebe had run away from home to bear her child and create a new life. Now, 12 years later, she is living in a seaside town, working alternately as a gourmet cook and a prostitute, and doing both on her own terms and with flair. Hebe's son is having a rough time at the pretentious upper-class school his mother sends him to. A change in his summer vacation plans sets things in motion as Hebe's assorted acquaintances meet up unexpectedly, and her discreet-seeming existence goes wildly askew. Eventually, character triumphs, and snobs receive their just desserts. Coincidental meetings aboundbut Britain is a small island, after all. First published at 70, the author achieves comic turns and lively pacing that belie her age. Laurie Spector Sullivan, Regis Coll. Archives, Weston, Mass.