Cressida, born after World War II, is haunted by the horrors of the holocaust. Her comatose father lies in an upstairs room in the servants’ quarters tended by a faithful black retainer on an estate in South Africa. She spars with her mother who is addicted to romantic notions of love. Her conventional older sister wakes the household often with her nightmares of being attacked by Germans.
They have been given the use of the servants’ quarters by the owner of the estate, George Harding, disfigured by his own war injury. He goes about in a hat with a veil to hide the hideous burns sustained when he was shot down in a raid. George conscripts the reluctant Cressida to entertain his hapless nephew Edgar who has come to live with him.
As Lynn Freed recounts Cressida’s coming of age over a span of about eight years, characters are revealed to be classic fairytale types: a fairy godmother, a prince under the influence of a spell, a queen grasping at the remnants of her beauty. Hidden secrets are brought to light. As the years from sassy, recalcitrant pre-teen to lovely young woman are recounted, Lynn Freed, in spare concise prose, weaves a spell as magical as any fairytale. ~ Gretchen Echols.