* This exquisite novel tells a love story with a difference. * 'One of my favourite classics' Carmen Callil

INTRODUCED BY HILARY MANTEL WITH A BEAUTIFUL COVER BY TEXTILE DESIGNER FLORENCE BROADHURST

'The perfection of its tone and prose is matched by an anguished wit' AMANDA CRAIG, GUARDIAN

'Wonderfully sinister, so enchantingly written and so sad. Everyone should read it' JILLY COOPER

'A subtle and beautiful book . . . Very few authors combine her acute psychological insight with her grace and style' HILARY MANTEL, SUNDAY TIMES

Imogen, the beautiful wife of barrister Evelyn Gresham, is facing the greatest challenge of her married life. Their neighbour Blanche Silcox, competent, tweedy, middle-aged and ungainly - the very opposite of Imogen - seems to be vying for Evelyn's attention. And to Imogen's increasing disbelief, she may be succeeding - for in affairs of the heart the race is not necessarily won by the swift or the fair.

"As smooth and seductive as a bowl of cream" - Sunday Times

"The perfection of its tone and prose is matched by an anguished wit" - Guardian

"Deliciously subtle . . . A lost world of tweeds and twin-sets . . . a classic novel of the fifties" - Daily Mail

"A subtle and beautiful book ... Very few authors combine her acute psychological insight with her grace and style. There is plenty of life in the modern novel, plenty of authors who will shock and amaze you - but who will put on the page a beautiful sentence, a sentence you will want to read twice?" - Hilary Mantel, Sunday Times