The Finest Type Of English Womanhood

Bol Partner

It's 1946, and seventeen-year-old Laura Trelling is stagnating in her dilapidated Sussex family home, while her quietly eccentric parents slip further into isolation. Then she meets Paul Lovell - a chance encounter that will change the course of her destiny, and bring her a new life in pre-apartheid South Africa. Three years earlier, and many miles north, sixteen-year-old Gay Gibson is no less desperate to escape England. Gay's heart is set on stardom - but first she must find a way out of Birkenhead and the dreary prospect of secretarial college. When their paths cross in Johannesburg, Laura is exposed to Gay's wild life of parties and liaisons. Thrown together, each with her own agenda, the girls find their lives inextricably entangled, with fatal consequences. A highly accomplished, startling debut, The Finest Type of English Womanhood is a chilling portrait of racial tension, social immorality, betrayal and love, and an assured and atmospheric examination of the end of innocence.

Bol

It is 1946, and seventeen-year-old Laura Telling is stagnating in her dilapidated Sussex family home, while her eccentric parents slip further into isolation. A chance encounter with Paul Lovell offers her the chance to alter the course of her destiny - and to embark on a new life in South Africa. Many miles north, sixteen-year-old Gay Gibson is desperate to escape Birkenhead. When the girls' paths cross in Johannesburg, Laura is exposed to Gay's wild life of parties and inappropriate liaisons. Each in their own worlds, but thrown together, the girls find their lives inextricably entangled, with fatal consequences...