`A WORD-OF-MOUTH HIT` - Evening Standard `Perfect` - India Knight `A very fine book... It`s witty and sharp and reads like something by Barbara Pym or Anita Brookner, without ever feeling like a pastiche` - David Nicholls `Beautiful` - Jessie Burton `Effortless to read, but every sentence lingers in the mind` - Lissa Evans `This is one of the most tender, beautiful books I have ever read. Please, please order it now. I honestly don`t want you to be without it. It is exquisite` - Lucy Mangan `A gorgeous, gentle novel about love and loneliness set in the 1950s. If you`re looking for something escapist and bittersweet, I could not recommend more` - Pandora Sykes `Remarkable... Small Pleasures is no small pleasure` - The Times `Chambers` eye for undemonstrative details achieves a Larkin-esque lucidity... There is compassion and quiet humour to be found in this tale of postwar Britain` - Guardian `An irresistible novel - wry, perceptive and quietly devastating` - Mail on Sunday `The 21st century heir to Jane Austen, Barbara Pym and Elizabeth Taylor` - Amanda Craig, author of The Golden Rule `Will draw you in from the first page and keep you gripped until the very end` - Ruth Hogan, author of The Keeper of Lost Things 1957, south-east suburbs of London. Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper, disappointed in love and - on the brink of forty - living a limited existence with her truculent mother. When a young Swiss woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, it is down to Jean to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud. But the more she investigates, the more her life becomes strangely (and not unpleasantly) intertwined with that of the Tilburys: Gretchen herself, her husband Howard - with his dry wit and gentle disposition - and her charming daughter Margaret. But they are the subject of the story Jean is researching for the newspaper, a story that increasingly seems to be causing dark ripples across all their lives. And yet Jean cannot bring herself to discard the chance of finally having a taste of happiness. But there will be a price to pay - and it will be unbearable.