Gulls Fly Inland

It is October 1939. BlancheLancretis a French exile in England, looking afterherAmericanfriend Annabelles baby. She is waiting for news of Annabelles brother Vernon, who isserving with anambulance unitinnewly-invadedFrance, and of her surrogate mother Tante Julie, a richdmimondainenursing her dying husband Otto on the French Riviera.To maintain her sang-froid Blanche writes her journal,recalling how she metVernonas a schoolgirl,her girlhoodwithTante Julie inParisand with her father in Italy, and her inexplicable betrayal byTanteJulies servants, who ensure that Blanche and Vernonfail tomeetat a crucial point in their courtship. Vernonthen marriestheimpervious Bostonian Leonora and Blanchebelieves him to be lost to her forever.Until Vernon realises that Blanche is about to sail back to Europe and appears in her stateroom asking her to stay Asthe years wind forward Blanche and Vernonremain separated byotherpeoples machinations, and only the war might setthemfree.SylviaThompsons glorious, passionate novel ofthe1930s and the early years of theSecond World War is a sumptuous romance set in the imperturbable correctness ofinterwarParis, and in fast-moving 1930s London and Boston.Thompsonsstorytelling isdevastatingin its emotional truth.This is awonderful forgotten novel from 1941, now reissued with an introduction by Faye Hammill, Professor of English at the University of Glasgow.