We That Are Left Lib/E

It is 1910. Jessica and Phyllis Melville have grown up at Ellinghurst, their family estate. A headstrong beauty, Jessica longs for London--the glitter and glamor of debutante life-- while bookish Phyllis dreams in vain of attending the university. Neither girl questions that it is Theo, their adored brother, whom their mother loves best. Theo eclipses everyone around him, including the diffident Oskar Grunewald, who is a frequent visitor to Ellinghurst. Fascinated by the house but alternately tormented and ignored by the Melville children, Oskar seeks refuge in Ellinghurst's enormous library. Over the next decade, as the Great War devastates and reshapes their world, the sisters come of age in a country unrecognizable from the idylls of their youth. As they struggle to forge new paths in a world that no longer plays by the old rules, Oskar's life becomes entwined with theirs once again, in ways that will change all of their futures forever.

Clare Clark is the award-winning author of several highly acclaimed historical novels, including The Great Stink; The Nature of Monsters; Savage Lands, which was longlisted for the Orange Prize; and Beautiful Lies. A graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, she is a regular contributor to the Guardian's literary pages, reviewing both fiction and nonfiction, and writes for several other broadsheet newspapers, both in the U.K. and the U.S. Clare works as a tutor in the Creative Writing MA program at City University. She lives in London with her husband and two children.