This delicately wrought story of several generations of the Quin family of Cornwall is partly a family saga and partly a sensuous tribute to food, flowers and books. Godden's paeans to domesticity and gardens deploy language as beautiful as that of Colette's writings on the same subject. As with all of Godden's work, unrequited love, convention, and death are touched on, all with exquisite restraint and tremulous feeling. This is a quintessentially English novel and a book to treasure.

Tracey tries to follow her grandmother's wishes and find a way to save the house that has meant so much to both of them. One generation's trash is truly another generation's treasure and the passion of one character becomes the salvation of another.