A sheltered library assistant, the daughter of the vicar in her small Yorkshire village, falls for the tennis ace playboy Nicky. There is whisking to St. Tropez, embarrassingly failed assignations, insecurity and disillusionment, a make-over scene, confusing feelings for the grizzled Irish journalist who takes her under his wing, and a happy ending. It’s intelligent, warm, funny, bitchy, and propulsively entertaining.

See this appreciation by a Cambridge don in the London Review of Books. https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n10/ian-patterson/miss-dior-prodigally-applied He makes favorable comparisons to Dickens and Trollope. ( )

My second favourite of Jilly's earlier novels ( )