Molly Keane

Jessica and Jane have been living together for six months and are devoted friends - or are they? Jessica loves her friend with the cruelty of total possessiveness; Jane is rich, silly, and drinks rather too many brandy-and-sodas. When the Irish gentleman George Playfair meets Jane and entices her to Ireland, the battle for her devotion begins.

The story of a thoroughbred but impoverished Anglo-Irish family, covering half a century and told from the viewpoint of the daughter of the house. The full significance of the events she describes are not so obvious to her as to the reader, but one tribal custom is firmly stamped on her mind: everything can be dealt with by good manners.

Lady Charlotte French-McGrath has successfully ruled over her family with an iron will, until the arrival of Cynthia - beautiful, young, talented, selfish, and engaged to her son Desmond. Cynthia's life passes in a whirl of hunting, drinking, and romance. But the ghosts of Garonlea are only biding their time and the source of their power is a secret handed down through generations.

The Swifts - three eccentric sisters, defiantly christened April, May, and baby June, and their only brother, Jasper - have little in common. But into their world comes cousin Leda from Vienna, and within days the lifestyle of the Swifts is dramatically overturned - and desires, dormant for so long, flame fierce and bright like never before.