Girl From The South

Gillon Stokes leaves Charleston, South Carolina to take up a job as an art historian in London. At nearly 30, she has retained her close links with her family - her southern belle grandmother Sarah, her mother, Martha, who rebelled against her family's expectations to study psychiatric medicine in New York but returned to practise in Charleston, and her prosperous siblings Ashley and Cooper. It is Ashley's announcement, to her family's delight, that she is pregnant which precipitates Gillon's decision to leave for England. Newly arrived in London, Gillon literally bumps into Tilly, the features editor of an arts magazine, at a party and ends up moving in with Tilly and her wildlife photographer boyfriend Henry. The world into which Gillon is sucked is very different, both emotionally and culturally, from that of South Carolina. The women of her family, even her rebellious mother, a child of the 1960s, have sought their family's approval in finding husbands and have been generally contented in their rather unexciting choices. In London, her new friends have apparently limitless choice of partners but find themselves burdened almost to self-destruction by the fear of making the wrong decision, of not being happily married. Joanna Trollope writes with equal sureness about the familiar setting of London and the more exotic location of Charleston. Her sharp observation of details, particularly architecture and objects, ground the story in believable reality. Though the plot focuses on Gillon's generation, Trollope shows them, particularly Gillon herself, in the context of earlier generations; both Sarah and Martha are strong, well-rounded characters. (Kirkus UK)