On a cruise ship between Algiers and Venice, Martin Boyne, an unmarried engineer in his forties, encounters a wild, ebullient menagerie of stepbrothers and sisters, kept together as a 'family' by the efforts of the eldest, the lovely, fifteen-year-old Judith. Caught between genuine outrage at the plight of the precocious and fought-over children and his disturbing feelings for their fifteen-year-old sister-protector, Boyne finds himself increasingly drawn to their enchanting, improper and liberating ways.
But awaiting Boyne in Switzerland is Rose Sellars: tactful, genteel, old New York incarnate, patiently anticipating marriage. Caught between old money and new, Martin Boyne is a tragic and poignant knight errant caught on the cusp of a changing world.
- ISBN10 0860684954
- ISBN13 9780860684954
- Publish Date 5 March 1998 (first published 1 May 1985)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 24 January 2006
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
- Imprint Virago Press Ltd
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 368
- Language English