Jean Stubbs, long a celebrated writer of

historical fiction, now makes a trium-

phant breakthrough with her new novel.

In A Lasting Spring, she moves from her

highly acclaimed Howarth family series

to a new story of even greater scope and

accomplishment.

The time is England, 1945. Evelyn Fawley

is the product of a family divided against

itself, an apparently happy family with

deeply cut rifts and hidden conflicts. She

has discovered that the closest relation-

ships are the most costly: her mother

Clara died tragically when Evelyn was

four, and her father Gilbert remarried a

woman (herself a widow, with a son) who

is unable to fill Clara s absence. Neither

parent likes the other s child and the

marriage is not one of true minds.

Under the crossfire Evelyn and Michael,

her stepbrother, form a loving comrade-

ship which sustains them through a series

of crises. Michael is adventurous and able

to tackle life on its own terms. Evelyn,

imaginative and musical, overprotected

by reason of her sex and her class, lives

largely in a world of her own making.

Poorly equipped to deal with the mount-