For this, Helen Dunmore's first novel, the author won the McKitterick Prize which is an award given to the first novel by an author over 40. The dual threads follow the lives of Clare Coyne and her two friends, Hannah and Peggy, who are fictional characters living in Zennor, Cornwall, and of D H Lawrence and his German wife Frieda, real life individuals who lived in a cottage near Zennor during part of the First World War. Lawrence and Frieda have chosen a remote place to live partly to escape the prejudice against Frieda because of her German nationality and the fact that her maiden name was von Richthofen. She was a relative of the famous ace German pilot of the Great War. Also Lawrence had ideas of a self sufficient artists' community which he founded with Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murray in Zennor but Murray and Mansfield soon gave up and left because of the remoteness and basic way of life.
Clare Coyne is fond of her cousin, John William who is also Hannah's brother. He has been fighting at the front and is soon to return to Cornwall on leave before he is made up to an officer. The short novel recounts the relationship between the cousins and their other relations in the tight knit community when they were children. The story particularly highlights the development of the relationship of Clare and John William. Clare also accidentally meets Lawrence whilst walking on the cliffs and they strike up a friendship. Clare is a budding artist, thus far concentrating on accurate flower drawings for her father's book. She quickly sketches Lawrence and gives him the picture and offers to sketch Frieda and is invited to tea in their cottage.
The language of the book is rich and evocative reflecting the style of Lawrence in his determination to describe nature and the world in the most honest way possible. Dunmore is also a poet which can be seen in her use of extended descriptions.
This first novel does have a slightly halting nature to the structure and the way that the scenes shift about but does foreshadow her better work which is to come.
