I only finished this book due to my stubbornness. I found it painful to read in sections. The writing isn't bad...the author was a Man Booker Prize Finalist for this book. I did not care one bit for any of these characters, and thought the story didn't really invoke the feeling it was going for. Obviously many readers have liked this book, but it was certainly not my cup of tea.

From the back:

One postwar summer in his home of rural Warwickshire, Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country physician, is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once impressive and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. Its owners—mother, son, and daughter—are struggling to keep pace with a changing society, as well as with conflicts of their own. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become intimately entwined with his.

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