Wilfred Davis, respected widower, is sitting sobbing on a park bench. He has lost his daughter and any sense of purpose. A mysterious stranger passes him a handkerchief and strikes up a conversation that leads to friendship and an unconventional new home for Wilfred.
Mary Davis wants only four things out of life: a husband and three children, so at seventeen she runs away from school, her father and her home, and moves to London to find them. Only a few months later Mary is engaged but love and marriage promise to be very different from her childhood daydreams.
For Mary and Wilfred, it seems Fate has taken a hand or is there another kind of guiding spirit at play?

Another unusual tale of quite ordinary folk mixed with a tale of definitely not ordinary folk with an air of mystery, menace, peace and hope encompassing all. No-one writes like Ms Gibbons. I find her work totally fascinating. My favourite so far is "Starlight" but this novel comes a close second.

This book is going in the Colours bookring.

Delighted to get a Stella Gibbons I haven't read in the Colours bookring, thank you very much!

Six months after his wife dies, Wilfred Davis's daughter Mary runs away to London, leaving him devastated. He is comforted by a mysterious stranger, and when later he sees a yellow house the colour of sunlight, he discovers that Tavener lives there with two equally mysterious women. Soon he is a regular visitor at the yellow house, taking him away from his difficult lodger, Mrs Wheeby. Meanwhile the level-headed Mary has found herself a job and a lodging, and has escaped her parents' ambition for her to go to university to look for what she really wants - a husband and children. But when she sees a beautiful Japanese stranger it's clear that her future won't quite be as she planned. It seems like providence is smoothing the way for Wilfred, Mary, and Mrs Wheeby - but who is it that's really giving a helping hand? This is Stella Gibbons'  final novel, published posthumously. It's beautiful, atmospheric, and with many things hinted at but left unexplained for the reader to imagine.

Off to penelopewanders who chose it from Alphabet VBB round 20.

This has arrived safely in the Swiss Alps, selected from the Alphabet VBB. Thanks so much for sending (and the interesting card)!