This is a great book, and I haven't enjoyed reading anything this much since I finished A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. It's so good that I wanted to start recommending it to people before I had even got to the end, and when I take it back to the library, I will be sorely tempted to point it out to another reader so they don't miss out. It's exactly the kind of book I wish I could write myself. It begins in 1919 in a large county house in Dorset where we meet three year old Cristabel wandering around in the woodland surrounding her house. She is hiding from her nanny her time until her new mother arrives, and she knows that will be soon, as all the uniformed members of staff are assembled outside to welcome home the master of the house with his young bride. Cristabel doesn't remember her real mother, as she died on the day Cristabel was born, but the new mother will soon become the lady of the house and one of the maids has suggested that soon there may ...