Our selection of 5 novels written by women where the setting becomes a character

Our Anna Hope Legacies

Ed. Gallimard, 448 p.; €24.

A grandiose 18th century manor house, in the English countryside of Sussex, with its twenty rooms, its outbuildings, its river, its hills, its thousand-year-old oak tree, its treehouses, and its faithful guardians Jack and Ned: here is a perfect place for a high-tension family session. In the main residence, Philip and Grace Brooke. In the cottage near the river, Frannie, their eldest daughter, rigorous manager of the estate, and Rowan, their granddaughter.

Frannie persuaded her father to return the space to nature by transforming the ancient coniferous forests into a biodiversity reserve. This upheaval was a success: thanks to the “Albion” project, species are coming back.

But when the patriarch dies, everything goes down the drain. The mother, Grace, deserts her fickle husband’s mansion, where she lived, unhappy, under the gaze of the ancestors whose portraits adorn the walls. Without even asking their opinion, she moves into Frannie and Rowan’s cottage. The funeral is being prepared. Milo and Isa, Grace’s two other children, arrive, as does a hypothetical half-sister, Clara, who came expressly from the United States. Ambitions are displayed, differences are asserted, secrets are revealed. Especially one, which we didn’t see coming, and which will turn everything upside down. The novelist (The ballroom, Our hopes) and actress (Doctor Who) British succeeds in his great return to the novel with this family drama with impeccable construction, epic breath, right up to the thundering finale!

Our opinion: PPP