From Library Journal
From 1870 to 1939, the Taverner family faces one misfortune after another. Their estate near Bath, England, draws family members together but also magnifies their animosities. Taverner men die in military conflicts from the Crimea to South Africa to Spain. Those who survive rarely find professional or personal joy. The women range from bubbleheaded socialites to political journalists. Madness, impotence, adultery, and other soap-opera components fill the pages. Readers will likely echo the sentiments of one of the characters who speaks halfway through the book, "I do not think . . . that there is any disaster left to happen." How wrong she is. BOMC featured alternate. Kathy Piehl, Mankato State Univ. Lib., Minn.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
A sixth novel for this descendent of the other Trollope, which, like its predecessors (Eliza Stanhope, The City of Gems, The Steps of the Sun, etc.), is a lush historical tract but one possessing considerable dignity. Encompassing the years 1870-1939, it traces a baronial family emanating from southern England and flowing out into Wales, Crete, Spain, Africa and Italy. Sir Thomas Taverner dies in the Crimea at age 35, leaving a formidable wife, Charlotte, behind at the family seat of Buscombe to raise Tom, Jr., and two daughters. Tom, Jr., promptly impregnates the keeper's daughter, and from there moves on to an unhappy union with the neurotic Rosalind (who absconds to Italy with the family jewels, then enters a nunnery). Meanwhile, Tom's cousin, Charlie Taverner, makes an equally disastrous marriage to the weak but lovely Rose, who reinherits the stolen gems, then has an affair with Charlie's brother, leaving Charlie to daily with Eleni, daughter of his Greek archeology professor. From these liaisons springs a new generation of Taverners: Rose's late-in-life son Rob competes with Eleni's son Carlo for the love of Bay, daughter of a local Buscombe family; their rivalry ends only with Socialist Rob's demise in the Spanish Civil War. On the eve of WW II, a newly married Captain Carlo Taverner departs for military duty, and the saga seems destined to continue. Suffering from a stilted, dull opening that's clearly meant to be bawdy and warm, this nonetheless proceeds briskly on to a racier, more compelling mode, finally providing a rich and satisfying entertainment. (Kirkus Reviews)
