'Elizabeth Smither brings wit, warmth and wisdom to this absorbing and beautifully written inter-generational story.' Peter Simpson

'Smither has written a deeply felt, closely observed, tightly patterned novel about how we treat each other and how we should treat each other.' Paul LIttle, North & South

'Such is the grace and skill at work in Smither's writing, I put it down feeling I'd been contemplating art.' Catherine Woulfe, NZ Listener

'A work of deft characterisation . . . a novel whose plot and cast are charted with particular, poetic and plentiful care.' Siobhan Harvey, The New Zealand Herald


Sylvie rows across a lake to her wedding.

Madeleine flees to Paris and works in Le Livre Bleu bookshop.

Isobel is summoned to her doctor's surgery late one afternoon.

Elizabeth Smither takes us into the richly imagined worlds of three women - Sylvie, her mother Madeleine and grandmother Isobel. The narrative shifts between the three women in three different cities: Auckland, Paris and Melbourne. Elizabeth tells their stories with warm, deeply observant humour, through their love affairs, rivalries, marriages and all the beautiful minutiae of everyday life. She draws the threads together subtly and surprisingly to achieve a perfectly resolved ending.

Described as having 'a gift for wry comedy combined with an eye for pinpoint detail', Elizabeth is one of New Zealand's finest writers.