Beneath the Visiting Moon

Tom came running up pulling at his socks so that there seemed something hiccuping drunken in his progress.We have been cleaning up he said cheerfully.Mrs. Oxford winced. These poor children in their menial roles--And here came Sarah with a smut on her cheek.Left in genteel poverty by the death of their father the Fontayne siblings--Sarah Philly Christopher and Tom--are shaken when their mother loving but dizzy takes a liking to Julian a widowed neighbour with two children of his own. Sarah becomes infatuated with a thirty-something diplomat. Philly endures being painted by a dull local artist. Julians daughter Bronwen a child prodigy who has already published a book deals with the pressures of a literary life. And in the end a valiant attempt is made to revive the decaying long-neglected ballroom of the family home for Sarahs 18th birthday party. All against a backdrop of the ominous approach of World War II.Evoking Diana Tuttons Guard Your Daughters and Dodie Smiths I Capture the Castle Beneath the Visiting Moon is both a glittering funny tale of romance and family life and a brilliant haunting story of youthful hopes and heartbreaks in a world on the brink of devastating change.First-rate comedy. What a delightful little world it is that Miss Cavan has created and how truly representative of the time New York Times