Sarah Harrison

#2

Left a young widow by the Great War, Pamela Griffe goes to work for the Jarvises, a charmingly eccentric couple whose Highgate house is a mecca for artist. She is drawn to the work of waiflike Suzannah Murchie, and to the subject of one of her portraits, John Ashe.

#3

"What begins as a driving holiday in Northern France for two Scotswomen turns into a caustic and funny account of dysfunctional relationships - both between men and women and between women friends. Cassie and Rona - in their late thirties, both single and childless - are on each other's nerves from the moment they cross the Channel: Cassie is testy and cynical, Rona patient and plodding. Both are self-conscious of the fact that they seem to fit the stereotype of two "spinsters" linked by loneliness, and consequently rebel against the notion that a woman needs a man to feel "complete." Faced with the dilemma of "fancying men and not liking them very much," the women ponder the alternatives as they endure one tourist nightmare after another."--BOOK JACKET.