When her married lover loses his long battle with Parkinson�s, actress Elfrida Phipps must leave her home and her life. She leaves London for the simplicity of country living. Welcomed into her new community, especially by Oscar Blundell, his wife Gloria and their daughter Francesca, she�s soon quite comfortable about her future.

Oscar and Elfrida are strongly drawn to each other, but the relationship remains as it should, a friendship deepened by the hint of a great love that might have been. Elfrida takes a month-long vacation, visiting relatives, remembering her past and settling into her retirement. While she�s gone, Gloria and Francesca are killed in a highway accident. She returns to find that the funeral is already over, but Elfrida immediately visits Oscar.

The great surprise of Oscar�s life has been marrying late and becoming a father well into his fifties. The loss, especially of his daughter, has thrown him into grief that isn�t �a state of mind but a physical thing, a void, a deadening blanket of unbearable pain, precluding all solace.� In addition, Oscar faces immediate eviction because his wife left the house to her sons by her first marriage and they�re anxious to sell.

Elfrida, honest, always direct and emotionally independent, helps Oscar with all the surprises that come. Her quiet strength helps mend her own life, Oscar�s and several in her extended family.

Elegant reading in which Rosamunde Pilcher provides the two hallmarks of her writing: gentle, atomospheric recreation of English lifestyles and an appealing cast of interesting people whose lives come together for new experiences while they�re making other plans. (Jul., 464 pp., $27.95)