The Bay of Angels

'One of her very best' Spectator 'Subtle, original and emotionally resonant' Sunday Telegraph 'It was at Millie's party, on that Friday evening, that she met her second husband, my stepfather-to-be, and thus changed both our lives . . .' Zoë is delighted when her widowed mother marries Simon, a generous older man who owns a villa in Nice. She is enchanted by the visits to France that follow, but they come to an abrupt end when Simon suffers a bad fall. Finding themselves thrust into uncertainty and surrounded by well-meaning strangers, Zoë and her mother must learn how - and how not - to trust appearances . . . 'Brookner in all her wisdom, eloquence and power' Spectator 'Anita Brookner has proved herself so fine a novelist that she deserves to be judged always in a class of her own' Selina Hastings 'Each book is a prayer bead on a string, and each prayer is a secular, circumspect prayer, a prayer and a protest and a charm against encroaching night' Hilary Mantel, praise for Anita Brookner