THE SUMMER BEFORE THE WAR

Beatrice Nash, 23, cycles the ribbons of Sussex English country lanes. Daringly unconventional, the new Latin tutor likes bridge and port, hurling conservative Rye village into a spin. The daughter of an American writer father and French mother, she is multilingual and a writer, too. Yet, as her progressive patron Agatha Kent sagely says, “I would not be public about yearnings to write. It would be a disaster for a lady in your position to earn a reputation as a bohemian.” In the fragile days before Germany declares war on Belgium in 1914, Simonson’s bespoke 500-page parachute into a Downton Abbey- esque community painstakingly charts the “despond” that unites a clipped community when nothing is normal. In picturesque Simon son-style (she’s author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand), we wallow in love, hope and humour. Gentle, astute and observant.