Really interesting and enjoyable for its evocation of a time and place. At times somewhat gothic in its description of the Irish manor. Subtle in its description of human emotions--in advance of its era. The story takes place one summer in Ireland. It involves a middle aged childless couple returning to the wife's family manor in Ireland from a life in Burma; in particular the story centers around the wife, her complicated memories of the past, and how her life and her husband's are changed when their college aged American niece and the niece's boyfriend come to visit. Surprising detail: how much all involved drink and smoke! ( )

A quiet novel, that at first seems to be about the relationships between the protagonists: Violet Dene Gordon and her husband, Charles, who have recently returned to Violet's family home of Dene's Court in Ireland, and Violet's American niece, Sally, who has made a poor attachment to an actor in the States, when in fact the entire novel is truly about emotion, and what happens when emotions become too volatile within a small group of people in an enclosed space. The enclosed space, in this case, is Dene's Court itself, which could almost be considered a character on its own, as its presence in the novel is just as important as the main characters are. There is no plot, per se,as we seem to be just dropped into these people's lives for one summer, but Sarton handles this smoothly and poetically, not needing a lot of back story, just telling the story in its own present. This could be one of my favorites. ( )