Book description
While the Grey family is visiting the battlefields of France, their
mother becomes seriously ill. Their father is far away, busy with his
work as an explorer. So thirteen-year-old Cecil is left virtually alone
with her brothers and sisters in a French chateau-hotel, owned by
Mademoiselle Zizi. While Cecil watches from the sidelines, her beautiful
older sister Joss falls in love with Eliot, the charming English
gentleman who appoints himself the family's guardian. And while the
greengages grow ripe and sweet in the sun, the sense of danger and
mystery increases.
Rumer Godden, who died in 1998, was one of the UK's most
distinguished authors. She wrote many well-known and much-loved books
for both adults and children, including THE PEACOCK SPRING (also
available as a Young Picador, ISBN 0 330 39738 9) and BLACK NARCISSUS.
Her novel THE DIDDAKOI won the Whitbread Children's Book Award in
1972. In 1993 she was awarded the OBE.
