This delightful novel describes the post-war summer of 1946 - and follows the growing-up of three young women in the months between leaving school and taking up their scholarships at university. Una Vane, whose widowed mother runs a hairdressing salon in her front room (‘Maison Vane Glory - Where Permanent Waves are Permanent’), goes bicycling with Ray, the boy who delivers the fish and milk. Hetty Fallowes struggles to become independent of her possessive, loving, tactless mother. And Lieselotte Klein, who had arrived in 1939 on a train from Hamburg, uncovers tragedy in the past and magic in the present.

Rooted in the north of England, THE FLIGHT OF THE MAIDENS is peopled with extraordinary characters, who are evoked with all the humour, compassion and eye for detail that mark Jane Gardam as one of Britain’s most gifted and original novelists.

edit. 27.8.2011
at first it felt a bit annoying that the story jumped from here to there (or then it was just because I was a bit too tired), but then the book just started to be more and more interesting. Lovely little story and there was really something very profoundly British in this book. Liked it a lot!

The book will now travel to a new reader who picked this up from Yhteinen Eurooppamme –bag.

This is my leter G in the Alphabetical challenge in the Finnish Forum (http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/30/462666/7304744)

Hey, thank you for the book, I look forward to reading it!

I rather enjoyed the book, the more the further I got with it. I thought the stories of the three girls quite nicely complimented and completed each other. I especially liked the old couple who took Lieselotte in in London though would've liked to have learned more about Lieselotte, she stayed a bit of a mystery to the end. Then again, perhaps she didn't know very much about her past either. Well worth reading.

In the mail.

Thank you! However, I am a bit suspicious with this one, maybe unfairly, as I have read some books from the same time period and haven't enjoyed so much. But, I'll give this to some other reader in local meetup this week.

Happy reading and happy bookcrossing!!