The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden is a 1958 coming-of-age novel, crackling with suspense, and portraying love and deceit in the Champagne country in France.

Thanks to Godden's bifocal storytelling, we know that Cecil lives, unscathed, for the most part, to tell the story vividly in this unforgettable book.

Joss and I felt guilty; we were still at the age when we thought being greedy was a childish fault, and this gave our guilt, a tinge of hopelessness, because, up to then, we had believed that, as we grew older, our faults would disappear, and none of them did. Alongside this, the reader is treated to an intriguing mystery in the form of Mr Eliot, who is an absolutely fascinating and appalling character in equal measure.

But she is a wonderful narrator, displaying the naiveté of her age, while occasional moments of astuteness shine through. When their mother is suddenly taken ill on holiday, five siblings are left to fend for themselves at the elegant, faded hotel, Les Oeillets. Best quality of read in spirit and in lyrical prose for the year and exactly what I needed for a gloomy spring.The characters are well described and feel like real people, and I am sure this is down not only to the cleverness and skill of the author in remembering what it was like to be a teenager but also because much of what happens really happened to her and her family.