The Greengage Summer: The Haunting, Beautiful Coming-of-Age Novel from the Author of Black Narcissus
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‘Rumer Godden’s novels pulse with life’ – Daily Telegraph
When their mother is suddenly taken ill on holiday, five siblings are left to fend for themselves at the elegant, faded hotel, Les Oeillets.
Under the increasingly jealous gaze of the glamorous patronne, Mademoiselle Zizi, the children gravitate towards her mysterious and charming lover, Eliot, for comfort.
And, amongst the gnarled trees of the old orchards, thirteen-year-old Cecil watches from the side lines as her achingly beautiful sister, Joss, is drawn into the heart of a toxic affair . . .
‘An exciting tale, this novel has both charm and atmosphere’ – Evening Standard
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About the author
Rumer Godden (1907–1998) was the author of more than sixty works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and children’s literature, and is considered by many to be one of the foremost English language writers of the twentieth century.
Born in Sussex, England, she moved with her family to Narayanganj, colonial India, now Bangladesh, when she was six months old. Godden began her writing career with Chinese Puzzle in 1936 and achieved international fame three years later with her third book, Black Narcissus. She returned to the United Kingdom for good at the end of World War II and continued her prolific literary career with the acclaimed novels The Greengage Summer, In This House of Brede, and numerous others.
Godden won the Whitbread Award for children’s literature in 1972, and in 1993 she was named an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Nine of her novels have been made into motion pictures. She died at the age of ninety in Dumfriesshire, UK.
