'A wonderful debut. Actually, a tour de force' Sarah Winman, author of Still Life'Utterly captivating... Written with great heart, humour and humanity, it's the kind of book you want to escape normal life to read at every available opportunity' Elizabeth Day, author of Magpie'This is a book that will be loved unreasonably and life-long, I believe, like I Capture The Castle' Francis Spufford, author of Light Perpetual'One of those writers who has her finger on humanity's pulse.

'A wonderful debut. Actually, a tour de force' Sarah Winman, author of Still Life'Utterly captivating... Written with great heart, humour and humanity, it's the kind of book you want to escape normal life to read at every available opportunity' Elizabeth Day, author of Magpie'This is a book that will be loved unreasonably and life-long, I believe, like I Capture The Castle' Francis Spufford, author of Light Perpetual'One of those writers who has her finger on humanity's pulse.

For an unwanted orphan who grows into an unmarriageable young woman, there is no place at all for her in a traditional English manor. But from the day that a whale washes up on the beach at the Chilcombe estate in Dorset, and twelve-year-old Cristabel plants her flag and claims it as her own, she is determined to do things differently. With her step-parents blithely distracted by their endless party guests, Cristabel and her siblings, Flossie and Digby, scratch together an education from the plays they read in their freezing attic, drunken conversations eavesdropped through oak-panelled doors, and the esoteric lessons of Maudie their maid.

But as the children grow to adulthood and war approaches, jolting their lives on to very different tracks, it becomes clear that the roles they are expected to play are no longer those they want. As they find themselves drawn into the conflict, they must each find a way to write their own story...