Author(s): Elizabeth Jolley

Fiction

In this potent tale of love and loneliness, Elizabeth Jolley has woven two parallel stories into a dazzlingly original novel. Arabella Thorne is a brilliant, witty and accomplished woman. The exotic tale of this flamboyant eccentric and her European travels - with jealous secretary and shy schoolgirl protegee - is the inheritance that transforms the uneventful suburban life of Miss Peabody. After it's publication in 1983, it was released in France and the United States, and was shortlisted for the National Book Council Award.