Fabulous family saga of secrets held through two generations, set against the atmospheric background of the Lake District at Christmas The year of 1936 is drawing to a close. Winter grips Wetmoreland and causes a rare phenonmenon: the lakes freeze. For two local families, the Richardsons and the Grindleys, this will bring unexpected upheaval, as the frozen lake entices long-estranged siblings and children to return home for the holiday season. Some are aware of what is happening in Europe; others don't want to know. Everyone's keen to put aside their troubles -- money worries, love tangles, career problems, domestic rifts -- and enjoy themselves skating while they can. But one visitor carries the seed of violence and not even the redoubtable matriarch of the Richardson clan can prevent the carefully buried secrets of the past from reappearing and transforming everything. A compelling blend of family closeness and strife, dazzling passion and the dark influence of history, this is an enthralling read to curl up and savour.
Elizabeth Edmondson (who also writes as Elizabeth Aston) was born in Chile to an impeccably English father and a distinctly un-English Argentine mother. Educated by Benedictine nuns in Calcutta, Fabians in London, and Inklings at Oxford, she's lived in India, England, Malta and Italy.
Married, with a grown-up son and daughter, she's always been fascinated by the complexities of family life, especially the secrets, violence and intrigues that lie beneath the smooth façade of twentieth-century upper class English families, which are the subject of her novels.
