The Children's Hour - Hardcover

A novel which reminded me of L P Hartley's Eustace and Hilda trilogy. It is all about forgotten memories and secrets of childhood set in a beautiful old house in Devon. Both Nest and Mina, now elderly, live there still, but the children have flown the coop. They welcome them back for visits with their offspring, especially Lyddie, their niece who lives in Cornwall with her husband Liam. Then their sister Georgie comes for an extended stay: she is frail and malicious, with a failing memory, and starts to cause trouble. It is a warm novel with echoes of the past and an endearing simplicity. It makes for easy reading.

Nest and Mina still live at Ottercombe, their beautiful old rambling childhood home in the depths of Devon. They came to the house before the war, when as small children they played with their sisters and brothers in the gardens and the woods and the nearby beach while their mother read them stories and their father visited at weekends. It was, in retrospect, an idyllic time, when tragedy seemed far distant. Now they welcome their children and grandchildren , and especially young Lyddie, their niece, who lives in Cornwall with her handsome husband Liam.

But when their sister Georgie, now somewhat frail and forgetful, comes to stay with them, aspects of their past start to revisit them. For Georgie knows all their secrets, secrets which she wants to share...