This autobiographical novel set in Dublin between the wars has its moments. However, it is gushingly romantic, with handsome heroes and folksy servants and a series of poorly-sketched characters who intermittently flit in and out of the drama. Centre-stage is Lia, who loses her father in the first World War and her mother to a stepfather, who is then banished after attempting to rape the young girl. But Lia has an unlikely friend in medical student Tadek who, being poor and Jewish, is forbidden territory, The novel sweeps through convent school to the Abbey Theatre and into the civil service, where moral propriety is not totally restrained. Dashing men, pregnancies and anti-Semitism all feature as war again looms and nothing can be taken for granted. The period detail is rather slimline, but a sense of nostalgia shines through in patches.