by Joanna Quinn
Reviewed by Linda:
In this sweeping, somewhat old-fashioned novel, Cristabel is the oldest of three cousins being raised on a grand British estate between the wars. Utterly neglected by their socialite parents who fill the house with visiting eccentrics, the children, led by Cristabel, create an almost magical theatre on the beach under the washed-up bones of a whale. The novel follows the children into their adulthood, when all three join the war effort, facing different types of peril.