'Absorbing and quietly uncompromising, redolent with the vibrant smells and colours of Majorca, and of Spain' DAILY TELEGRAPH

'A highly revealing account, not only of a woman's life, but of a whole extraordinary passage in one contemporary European country' FINANCIAL TIMES

'Nina Bawden is one of the really attractive practitioners of the genre the feminine novel-not a dismissive referral in her case' KIRKUS REVIEWS

Elizabeth and Richard, are on holiday in Morocco, travelling from its fertile coast to the barren uplands beyond the Atlas mountains. During the expedition's adventures and mishaps, Elizabeth surveys her eighteen-year marriage and its accumulations of grievance, frustration and betrayal. Nina Bawden allows us to see the ambivalences and deceptions on both sides as this touching and often subversively comic novel moves towards a shocking catastrophe and a wryly surprising coda.