Julianna Kiss, twenty-one, inexperienced and gentle, arrives in England from rural Hungary in May 1990. She's a student and has come to earn money and see the country where her grandmother was born, by picking fruit on a farm in southern England. It's a lush, pastoral pasage, where she falls in love with Matthew, son of the reluctant farmer, Gerard Woods, and his unfulfilled wife, Miriam.
In September, after the death of her much-loved grandmother, Julianna and Matthew arrange to meet in London, where he is going to university, to spend a final month together before she returns to Hungary to college. His mother intervenes and he never arrives to pick her up, and her bag and her summer's savings are stolen. Julianna ends up staying and working in a restaurant by night, dry cleaners by day. Dead broke and surviving on the margins of London, Julianna discovers her own will and strength for the first time…
- 'MacDonald's characters are carefully and tenderly drawn, and she expertly weaves together the strands of their lives. Through them, she explores loneliness, desire, loss and love with a deftness and creativity that mark this out as an intelligent and satisfying read.' SUNDAY TIMES
- 'A timely and engrossing story, which puts its finger on the emotional, as well as economic, reasons behind the westward move from eastern Europe' GUARDIAN
Paperback:
£7.99
Published 18/01/2007
Add to basket