The Lighted Rooms

by RichardMason (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $6.18

  Joan, once-passionate and creative, is now trapped in an expensive care home, seeking comfort in the richer worlds of the past and her own mind. Eloise, her daughter, is a relentlessly disciplined businesswoman, torn between guilt and filial responsibility, who has gambled everything on a chance remark made by her old lover. Moving between 19th-century England and South Africa, war-time Paris and 21st-century London, this is a stunningly-written novel about family, history and duty.

• Used

  Paperback
  2009

  $3.42

  A stunningly incisive and poignant novel about family, duty and the challenging world of the mind. Joan McAllistair is about to embark on the 'Trip of a Lifetime' with her daughter Eloise; a journey back to her childhood South Africa and the family homestead in the old Boer Republic of the Orange Free State. For Eloise, the trip is partly a gift, partly a means of assuaging her guilt at moving her mother into a care home. For Joan, the discovery of her grandmother's journal transports her to the troubled times of the Anglo-Boer war. Eloise, in the meantime, has gambled her business's entire fortune on a promise made by an old lover. As their stories unravel, Joan takes increasing refuge in the landscape of her mind - in journeys to her own past. She also finds an unexpected friend in a lonely teenager who shares her fascination with history.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2008

  $3.42

  Joan McAllistair is about to embark on the 'Trip of a Lifetime' with her daughter Eloise; a journey back to her childhood South Africa and the family homestead in the old Boer Republic of the Orange Free State. For Eloise, a successful hedge fund manager, the trip is partly a gift, partly a means of assuaging the guilt she feels at moving her mother from her own flat to an expensive care home. Joan has not visited the country since she was twenty-two but the chance discovery of her grandmother's journal transports her to the troubled times of the Anglo-Boer war. Eloise, in the meantime, has gambled her company's entire fortune on a promise made by an old lover - a scientist whose life's work has been stalled by a broken heart. As their stories unravel and Joan is faced with the prospect of being surrounded by strangers who do not understand her, she takes increasing refuge in the landscape of her mind - in journeys to her own past. She also finds an unexpected friend in a lonely teenager who shares her fascination with history, in particular the haunting story of a young girl and boy who once lived in the home.Moving between nineteenth-century England and South Africa, war-time Paris and London, The Lighted Rooms is a stunningly incisive and poignant novel about family, duty and the challenging world of the mind.