As a smart but socially inept ten-year-old boy, Oskar Grunewald prefers to hide in the library when visiting his mother's friends, the aristocratic Melvilles, at the grand Ellinghurst estate. The younger Melville daughter, Jessica, finds enjoyment in teasing and torturing him, while the elder daughter, Phyllis, who is a quiet, introspective sort, mainly keeps to herself. The years pass and World War I has a devastating effect on the Melville family. Phyllis moves to London and becomes a nurse, while Jessica feels isolated and ignored by her parents at Ellinghurst. After the war, Phyllis heads off on an archaeological dig, and Jessica schemes her way into a London flat and women's magazine job. Meanwhile, Sir Aubrey Melville is trying to complete an exhaustive history of Ellinghurst as the estate falls further into debt and disrepair. Oskar is off studying physics at Cambridge when tragedy strikes at home, bringing Oskar and the Melville daughters back together once again. Both the Melville daughters have had a profound effect on Oskar in his youth and later as a young man. Secrets in both Oskar's family and the Melvilles change the fates of all involved.
Told from the alternating perspectives of Jessica and Oskar, readers will enjoy watching both of them grow up, their triumphs and mistakes. Jessica is self-absorbed and spoiled, which may turn off some readers, but her vivacity and tenaciousness should still earn her the reader's respect considering her absentee parents. Oskar, a sweet, kind and shy boy, remains so as a much more self-assured, mature man. For fans of historical fiction set during the Great War and for fans of fiction set on sprawling British estates like Downton Abbey.
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