It has an artist's eye for detail - and I imagine many scenes as if they were one of France's paintings, with the light, seasons and weather all being important. The Silent Shore is poignant and picturesque.

Her mostly-idyllic childhood is changed by the outbreak of WWI. She has lessons (including Latin and Greek) with Mr Mackenzie and his youngest son, climbs trees, and lies around reading books and eavesdropping on the others' conversations.

The older Purcells are artists and painters, more interested in art than traditional education, but Sarah is bookish and academic. Seven year old Sarah is younger than her sisters - or any of their guardian's family, the Mackenzies. The Purcells are orphaned by their mother's death in 1910. The Silent Shore is the first book in a quartet about four sisters who live near the Quantock Hills in Somerset. Those with an interest in the relationships between sisters will find it particularly appealing, I think! ( ) I did feel that, with the exception of Frances, the other two Purcells - Julia and Gwen - don't really come alive, but then, I guess I will have to read their books! In sum: a work I would recommend to anyone who enjoys quality historical fiction, or emotionally resonant family stories. Her love for Gabriel, the eldest Mackenzie boy - himself deeply in love with Frances - her friendships with Antony and Geoffrey Mackenzie, her gradual awakening to her own calling as a writer and a scholar: all were deeply satisfying themes within a larger story that was itself very satisfying. I also appreciated the fact that, as Sarah grows, her narrative seems to widen and deepen. Sarah's concerns, and her perspective, are genuinely those of a seven-year-old, which I appreciated. Purcell's death, The Silent Shore felt immediately authentic, and completely convincing, to me.

Starting out in a quiet - one almost might say, slow - fashion, with the aftermath of Mrs. Mackenzie is wrapped up in the Purcells' complicated relations with the Mackenzie boys endures the tragedy of World War I, and the loss it brings to her family circle and comes to terms with the fact that, unlike her sisters, she is not an artist, and must follow another path. In between is happiness and heartbreak, as Sarah studies under the tutelage of the Purcells' neighbor, and the village Rector, the Rev. In fact, in the United States the book has been published as Sarah's Story, and that's just what it is, following Sarah from the time of her mother's death, in 1910, through her years being raised by her sisters (as well as the family maid, Annie), to the day she is ready, as a young woman, to go off to study at Oxford. The first of four novels devoted to the lives and adventures of the Purcell sisters - Sarah, Frances, Julia and Gwen - who grow to adulthood in the shadow of Somerset's Quantock Hills, The Silent Shore is told from the perspective of the youngest sister, Sarah.

Julia's Story by Ruth Elwin Harris