SALLY MORRIS

FOREST SILVER

by E.M. Ward (British library £9.99, 256pp) it’s 1941 and traumatised war hero Richard Blunt, invalided out of the RaF, retreats from his jilted fiancée to the ( beautifully described) lake District where 17-year-old Corys agrees to rent him a dilapidated island cottage on the estate she inherited from her grandfather.

unconventional ‘tomboy’ Corys resents the influx of city evacuees who try to buy her beloved Grasmere land to build houses. But the central drama is Blunt’s growing and disconcerting feelings for headstrong Corys as she faces a crisis decision.

the tension between locals and flashier newcomers (wonderfully drawn) feels oddly modern, as does Corys’ ambiguous sexuality, yet — published during the war

— there’s an uncertainty about the future that underpins everything in this witty, touching, period piece.

THE SCHOOLMASTER

by Earl Lovelace (Faber £9.99 192pp) a stuNNiNG new jacket introduces this reissue of lovelace’s tragic tale set in the trinidadian rural village of Kumaca, where the old ways conflict with progressive pressures to build a school.

Father Vincent, the priest from the nearby town, warns that change can bring danger, but agrees to employ Winston Warrick, who soon establishes a hold over the villagers. among them is young Pedro, desperately in love with intelligent Christiana, chosen as Warrick’s assistant.

then something terrible happens that shatters the lives of everyone, bearing out Father Vincent’s warning.

Rich in local dialect, this sad story of men behaving badly deserves wider reading.

THE TIME OF CHERRIES

by Montserrat Roig, translated by Julia Sanches. (Daunt Books £10.99, 300pp)

PuBlisHED in English for the first time, this Catalan classic follows Natalia, who returns to Barcelona in 1974 after 12 years away, much of it spent in England.

Her unloving mother has died, she’s estranged from her father and there’s friction between her and her brother.

Natalia’s closer to her widowed aunt Patricia and it’s this fractured family, and the changing focus on relationships between them, that creates a complex, multi-layered portrait of a society torn between its wartime past (Franco’s fascists still hold sway) and a younger generation hungry for change. Women are, generally, mistreated by men but support each other (there’s an unruly tupperware party) as some dark family secrets are revealed and memories revised.