On the banks of the River Avon, five sisters are born. The seasons come and go, the girls take their lessons under the ash tree, and always there is the sound of water swirling through the weir. Then, unexpectedly, an air of decay descends upon the house: ivy grows unchecked over the windows, angry shouts split the summer air, the milk sours in the larder and their father takes out his gun. Tragedy strikes the family, and before long the furniture is being auctioned off and the sisters dispersed among relatives. In her daring first novel, originally published in 1947, Barbara Comyns' unique young heroine relates the vivid, funny and bittersweet story of a childhood.

Sisters by a River (Virago Modern Classics)

Literature & Fiction

Barbara Comyns

Literary

Penguin??Books

<p>Mr Fox is a spiv, dealing in second-hand cars and black-market food, and skilled in bending the law. When a woman and her young daughter are deserted at the start of World War II, he offers them a roof over their heads, and a shared, if dubious future. By the author of "The Juniper Tree".</p>

Mr. Fox (Methuen Modern Fiction)

Contemporary

Mandarin

In their idyllic garden, Gertrude and Bernard forge a perfect triangle of friendship with Bella, the scarred mother of an illegitimate child. Then Gertrude conceives the child which has long eluded her, and the spell breaks into foreboding, menace and madness. By the author of " The Vet`s Daughter" .

Juniper Tree (Modern Fiction)

Methuen Publishing

If not exactly tarts, the four ladies who live in Amy's Doll's house have built up a modest but successful "little business" entertaining their elderly gentlemen friends. But Amy is far from happy about the situation. By the author of "The Vet's Daughter" and "The Juniper Tree".

The House of Dolls

Methuen/Mandarin

In their idyllic garden, Gertrude and Bernard forge a perfect triangle of friendship with Bella, the scarred mother of an illegitimate child. Then Gertrude conceives the child which has long eluded her, and the spell breaks into foreboding, menace and madness. By the author of "The Vet's Daughter".

The Juniper Tree

The Vet's Daughter

Sterling Audio Books

The Vet's Daughter combines shocking realism with a visionary edge. The vet lives with his bedridden wife and shy daughter Alice in a sinister London suburb. He works constantly, captive to a strange private fury, and treats his family with brutality and contempt. After his wife's death, the vet takes up with a crass, needling woman who tries to refashion Alice in her own image. And yet as Alice retreats ever deeper into a dream world, she discovers an extraordinary secret power of her own.Harrowing and haunting, like an unexpected cross between Flannery O'Connor and Stephen King, The Vet's Daughter is a story of outraged innocence that culminates in a scene of appalling triumph.

VETS DAUGHTER (Virago Modern Classics)

Virago Press Ltd.

TOUCH OF MISTLETOE

Virago Press, Limited

Our Spoons Came From Woolworths  (Virago Modern Classics)

SISTERS BY A RIVER

Virago Modern Classics / Virag

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Books by Barbara Comyns