Restoring Grace

April 17, 2006
This lighthearted British romance has all the elements of a modern fairy tale: a huge, empty, centuries-old house left by a godmother, an evil older sister and a beleaguered (former) stepdaughter. But despite the fairy tale trappings, the heart of the book is the very modern friendship that develops between the house's inheritor, Grace Ravenglass (or Soudley—she's recently divorced), and the house's lodger, Ellie Summers, newly pregnant with her irresponsible boyfriend's child. Together, the two women and Grace's ex-husband's daughter, Demi, form an unlikely family in the rundown mansion. Between overtures from kind Irishman Flynn Cormack, Grace deals with problems domestic and familial: dry rot, pressure from her sister to sell the house, and recently discovered painted panels that may be worth a fortune if she can get them restored. Ellie works to make their cold, ramshackle home more livable, in the process discovering a love interest, while Demi deals with adolescent resentment toward her parents, both busy with new romances. It's amusing and gratifying, with an ending worthy of a fine murder mystery, in which all the characters gather in one room and the pieces are precipitously wrapped up with a round of happily ever afters.