Elizabeth Bowen

As she deftly and delicately exposes the cruelty that lurks behind the polished surfaces of conventional society, Bowen offers the piercing story of innocence betrayed at a 1930s British seaside resort. "One of the finest, one of the deepest ... of contemporary English novels."--"Saturday Review."

In 1920, a young woman struggles with her longings for love and the yearning for freedom as the war for Irish independence escalates around her family of Anglo-Irish aristocrats and their estate in County Cork.