Love All

The late 1960s. For Persephone Plover, the Anglo-Greek daughter of distant, neglectful and constantly absent parents, the innocent isolated days of her childhood are long past. Now she must deal with the emotions of an adult world.Meanwhile in Melton, in the West Country, Jack Curtis - a self-made millionaire - has employed her aunt, Florence, a garden designer in her sixties, to deal with the terraces and glasshouses of the once beautiful local manor house, which he has acquired and renovated at vast expense. He also has plans to start an arts festival - as a means to avoid the loneliness of the recently divorced.Also in Melton are the Musgrove siblings, Thomas and Mary - whose parents originally owned and lived in Melton House - still trying to cope with the tragic emotional consequences of the death of Thomas's wife, Celia...as is Francis, Celia's brother, who has come to live with them and thereby, perhaps, to find his way through life.With seemingly effortless grace, craft and intelligence concerning the inner lives of her characters, Elizabeth Jane Howard - one of Britain's best-loved novelists - weaves together an unforgettable novel about love and the consequences of its absence.