Barsetshire in the latter years of the Second World War is a peaceful and gossipy place, but there has been one lively change. A girls' school, evacuated from London, has taken over Harefield Park. Miss Sparling seems to be the perfect headmistress: she dresses as a headmistress should and is an easy and erudite conversationalist. Her new neighbours like her and her pupils respect her, but there is something missing from her life; something which - though she never dreamt it when she arrived - perhaps Barsetshire can provide...

"You read her, laughing, and want to do your best to protect her characters from any reality but their own" - New York Times

"The novels are a delight, with touches of E. F. Benson, E. M. Delafield and P. G. Wodehouse" - Independent on Sunday

"Charming, very funny indeed. Angela Thirkell is perhaps the most Pym-like of any twentieth-century author, after Pym herself" - Alexander McCall Smith