Book Description

''A powerfully emotive family drama featuring well-drawn and sympathetic characters set against a little known but momentous event in US history, which will strike a chord with those who enjoyed Pat Barker's Regeneration and Richard Flanagan's The Narrow Road to the Deep North

WE LOVE THIS BOOK

From the author of TV BOOK CLUB PICK, TIGER HILLS

Jim Stonebridge lives a solitary life with his father, a haunted man, on an apple estate in deepest Vermont. The year is 1932 and the grand house, once filled with laughter and parties, now stagnates under the weight of secrets and stories untold.

Jim is out fishing in the quietness of the woods one day when he spots a plane banking low over the river. From behind the pilot streams a mass of balloons, held by a woman with rich red hair. Madeleine Scott, a spirited bohemian, bursts into their lives, bringing light and laughter to the estate once more. But with the bittersweet unravelling that love brings come memories. Of a friendship forged on battlefields and a past denied.

''A novel of great ambition and power'' THE TIMES