Angela Maria Helps ontpopte zich als een schrijfster die bedreven was in het doorgronden van de complexiteit van de Britse sociale geschiedenis en menselijke relaties. Haar werken verkenden vaak de ingewikkelde aspecten van het aristocratische leven en de vluchtige aard van vredige perioden, gekenmerkt door inzichtelijke portretten van de psychologie van personages. Met haar proza bracht ze vervlogen tijdperken tot leven en onthulde hun subtiele nuances. Haar schrijfstijl wordt geprezen om zijn gevoeligheid en zijn vermogen om diepe emoties op te roepen, wat lezers een meeslepende literaire ervaring biedt.
The story explores the unexpected romance between Harriet Capel, a newly widowed woman, and Oliver Gaunt, her daughter-in-law's father. As their relationship deepens, it brings unforeseen challenges and repercussions for their families, altering the dynamics of their lives. This poignant narrative delves into themes of love, loss, and the complexities of family ties, revealing how new beginnings can emerge from the most surprising circumstances.
Two men, one a wing commander, the other an NCO, meet at a hospital where their wives are being treated. They meet again at the cemetery. Everything about their lives has been different, but from these two meetings their lives come together until they move in together for companionship.
How did a 19 year-old, middle-class, Catholic girl from Munich become Hitler's mistress and what kept him faithful until the end of their lives? Angela Lambert has dug deep into Eva's background and brought into sharp focus a fascinating and unexpected relationship, hitherto neglected by male historians.
The year is 1921. The Great War is over, but its aftermath casts a long shadow. That summer, six thousand miles apart, two children are born. Sam Savage, the youngest child of a farm worker, grows up in an idyllic Suffolk village where apparent serenity hides poverty, hunger and the brutality of Sam's father, from which Sam is compelled to escape. Lakshmi is the unwanted fourth daughter of a sweeper and his wife, living in an outcasts' settlement near Kanpur in north-west India, in an outcaste settlement whose culture is as rich as their daily life is poor. At the age of fifteen, these two come together in extreme circumstances, in the midst of the monsoon - an encounter that will have tragic and lifelong consequences. Back in Suffolk eighteen years later, in Coronation Year, the rains return to bring about an appalling retribution. Angela Lambert writes as compellingly as ever about the patterns and pitfalls of family life, but in this searing novel she also analyses the great historical conflicts that led to the loss of Empire. The Property of Rain is her most ambitious and unusual novel yet.