An elegantly written book which beautifully and melancolically describes life in a small, insular village. The subject matter - a middle-aged woman attempting to run a book shop in rural East Anglia - initially seems ridiculously slight and inconsequential, but Fitzgerald's writing is compelling: everywhere you look there is a great phrase, a wonderful image, a laugh-out-loud moment, or a brilliantly evoked scene. I'll confess to being completely baffled by the people who have given this one or two stars on the basis that the ending is (fittingly) downbeat; clearly they were reading a completely different book to me. I'd also add that I preferred this to The Blue Flower; for me, the author is more in her element here.