Jubilee

During celebrations for the Queen's Golden Jubilee, Meriel watches her aunt Evie as she scrutinizes the crowds enjoying themselves on the village green. The scene is idyllic, but for Meriel and Evie the day can never be an innocent pleasure. They both remember what happened exactly twenty-five years ago. On that day, Evie's young daughter Jessamy vanished. She hasn't been seen since. Meriel gets on with her life, juggling a demanding job and a new boyfriend, but when news comes of Evie's death, Meriel must return to the village to sort out her aunt's estate. Neighbours tell her of Evie's increasingly eccentric behaviour in the weeks before her death, and the hours she spent in her ancient orchard, staring at the surrounding hills. They talk of how Evie collected photographs of the Queen's Coronation and examined them with a magnifying glass. Determined to work out what was gripping her aunt, Meriel immerses herself in family history, starting with the tragic Marion, Evie's mother, who made a 'terrible mistake' around the time of the Queen's Coronation in 1953. Meriel is convinced that the key to Jessamy's disappearance lies in these events. Spanning the course of a century, Eliza Graham's third novel is an ingeniously plotted and relentlessly gripping literary mystery - about family and community, about our need to understand the past, and the bitter legacy of war.


Genre: General Fiction