Allen & Unwin, 2010, Softcover, Book Condition: Good, Unstated
Betrayal and a double suicide are among the legacies bequeathed by an aristocratic Polish family to a frail baby girl, illegitimately born in 1931. Ostensibly to protect her young daughter from shame, but at least as much to vindicate her own unhealed anguish, the child's grandmother, the Countess Valeska, abandons the infant in a convent in the south of France, convincing her daughter of her baby's death. Bright, curious, fearless, the child Amandine wants to know who she is, who is her mother, and where she comes from. Championed by Solange - her young French governess - and tormented by the aging Abbess and the convent's flock of spoiled upper-class students, Amandine confronts the tragic events of her childhood with unusual courage and grace. As war looms outside the convent doors, Solange and Amandine flee their oppressors, setting out for Solange's childhood home in the north. What begins as a two-day journey by train becomes a perilous years-long odyssey across Occupied France. A story of mothers and daughters and the pardonable - and unpardonable - sorrows which so often plague them, Amandine is a sumptuously told tale of treachery and unexpected love. Card Covers With Flaps. Size: 180mm - 250mm. 389 pages. Remnants of old price label on the rear cover.. Spine has a reading crease. Edges browned slightly. Covers have some shelf-wear as well as some bumping to corners and extremities. Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Under 1 kilo. Category: Fiction; ISBN/EAN: 9781741757125. Inventory No: 50954.
Betrayal and a double suicide are among the legacies bequeathed by an aristocratic Polish family to a frail baby girl, illegitimately born in 1931. Ostensibly to protect her young daughter from shame, but at least as much to vindicate her own unhealed anguish, the child's grandmother, the Countess Valeska, abandons the infant in a convent in the south of France, convincing her daughter of her baby's death. Bright, curious, fearless, the child Amandine wants to know who she is, who is her mother, and where she comes from. Championed by Solange - her young French governess - and tormented by the aging Abbess and the convent's flock of spoiled upper-class students, Amandine confronts the tragic events of her childhood with unusual courage and grace. As war looms outside the convent doors, Solange and Amandine flee their oppressors, setting out for Solange's childhood home in the north. What begins as a two-day journey by train becomes a perilous years-long odyssey across Occupied France. A story of mothers and daughters and the pardonable - and unpardonable - sorrows which so often plague them, Amandine is a sumptuously told tale of treachery and unexpected love. Card Covers With Flaps. Size: 180mm - 250mm. 389 pages. Remnants of old price label on the rear cover.. Spine has a reading crease. Edges browned slightly. Covers have some shelf-wear as well as some bumping to corners and extremities. Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Under 1 kilo. Category: Fiction; ISBN/EAN: 9781741757125. Inventory No: 50954.