Mollie Panter-Downes - Böcker

'As profound as Katherine Mansfield, restrained as Jane Austen, sharp as Dorothy Parker' IndependentINTRODUCED BY NICOLA BEAUMAN The lark rose in the brilliant air, higher, higher on its spun-glass spiral of song, knowing nothing of peace or war, accepting joyously the bounty of another day. A hot summer's day in 1946. The village of Wealding is no longer troubled by distant sirens, yet the rusting coils of barbed wire are a reminder that something, some quality of life, has evaporated. Together again after years of separation, Laura and Stephen Marshall must find their way in an altered, shabbier world. Their rambling garden refuses to be tamed, the house seems perceptibly to crumble. Hour by hour, as the glorious weather holds, the Marshalls and their daughter Victoria are preoccupied by the small pleasures and irritations of everyday life. But alone on a hillside, as evening falls, Laura comes to see how much could have been lost - and how much the future might still hold. Exquisitely written and achingly poignant, One Fine Day is an unforgettable portrait of a world, and a marriage, changed forever by war - perfect for fans of Small Pleasures and A Month in the Country.'This short novel lyrically evokes the effect war has had on a small English village and, in particular, on one marriage . . . Beautifully written, it's a tribute to the women who held everything together as their men marched away' Daily Mail

My Husband Simon tells the story of the married life of Nevis Falconer, a young woman novelist, and Simon Quinn. Temperamentally unsuited, they are only kept together by a mutual physical attraction, in spite of innumerable quarrels. They live this superficial existence for three years, until one day Nevis meets Marcus Chard, her American publisher, who has just arrived in London. Soon friendship develops into love. Inevitably the problem faces her. Wife or mistress? Nevis finds herself caught in a whirl of circumstances over which she has no control.Published in 1931 in the immediate aftermath of D H Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover controversy, Mollie Panter-Downes's book explores the different echelons of the increasingly self-conscious middle class and the ways in which the tensions and nuances of vocabulary, dress, occupation, politics, taste and, ultimately, the literary world contribute to the incompatibility of a marriage.