The Summer Before The War: A Novel

"Helen Simonson is back after Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand with The Summer Before the War, a comedy of provincial manners that rivals her first in the charm department. In the Sussex countryside just before the U.K. enters World War I, few Brits have an inkling of the changes that will befall them — their rural realm is still a place of peace and quirky goings-on. Enter a clever aspiring writer, Beatrice Nash, who falls in with an eccentric local family. The contrast between pastoral peace and the violent chaos of war is what gives this delightful book its heft."