This is the sort of book I race through and then wish I’d taken a bit more time to savour it. I’ve liked all Clare Morrall’s previous books and this was no exception. It switches between 1942, in the aftermath of the bombing of Exeter with the story centred on a girl’s boarding school (though it’s not in any way a “girl’s boarding school story”), and then back to the same place in 1963. Only a couple of characters from the earlier story appear in the later one, and putting all the pieces together is one of joys of the book. If I had to make a complaint it would be that I would have liked to know a bit more about some of the other characters in the earlier story, but maybe that would have made it a different book, as it’s the effects of the loss of people and places from our lives, and the fact that everything must change, that makes this so interesting.