Once a year cousins Madge and Paul visit Goldengrove, their grandmother's idyllic Cornish home. But one year as Summer turns to Autumn and as they are drawn from childhood to maturity, their seemingly indomitable grandmother turns to Winter, and the precious moments of innocence begin to be leached away... Years later Madge, now living at Goldengrove, reflects on her own grandchildren and the events and revelations which disturbed the tranquill idyll that was her childhood. With wisdom and understanding, Jill Paton Walsh creates memorable mood-music for the ebb and flow, calm and storm of changing lives and in so doing has formed a lasting tale of innocence and beauty. An extremely good story, marvellously told. As the story gathers momentum, the deeply understood characters, the golden atmosphere, the small change of everyday pleasures and ageless tragedies are all put over with such newly seen immediacy and such controlled mastery that the reader is carried along like a surf rider on the crest of a wave, knowing it must soon break' Times Literary Supplement 'Written with an intensity of feeling and care, with a Woolf-like awareness of the instant's sensation- a story