Major international bestseller and critically acclaimed author Harriet Evans weaves an “absorbing tapestry…with a comic touch even in the midst of tragedy” (Kirkus Reviews) in this stunning family drama that will surprise you at every turn.
When Martha, a wife and mother of three, sits down one late summer’s morning to write out the invitations to her eightieth birthday celebration, she knows that what she is planning to reveal at the party could ruin the idyllic life she and her husband, David, have spent more than fifty years building.
But her family must know what she and David have sacrificed. She cannot live a lie anymore.
The invitation goes out far and wide, calling her children and grandchildren back home to Winterfold, their rambling house in the heart of the English countryside. Bill, a doctor, was once a sweet, serious boy, eager to help his mother, but he’s not the man Martha thought he’d become. Florence—passionate, intellectual, one might say a little eccentric—is now an art history professor in Italy. And Daisy, the dark heart of the family, left years ago to be a charity worker abroad and never really came home. The reunion becomes a catalyst for a cascade of shocking secrets and unexpected events as the Winters grapple with the joy and the pain of the past.
