'Barbara Pym is one of my most favourite novelists. Few other writers have given me more laughter and more pleasure' Jilly CooperBetween the amorous antique dealer Humphrey and his good-looking nephew James glides the magnificent Leonora, delicate as porcelain, cool as ice. Can she keep James in her thrall? Or will he be taken from her by a lover, like Phoebe . . . or Ned, the wicked American?'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' Richard Osman'Faultless' The Guardian'Her characters are all meticulously impaled on the delicate pins of a wit that is as scrupulous as it is deadly' The Observer'A coldly funny book' The Sunday Telegraph'Highly distinctive . . . The critics who have recently insisted on Miss Pym's too long neglected gifts have not been wrong' Financial Times
