Once upon a time Lucy would have agreed with her father. But now, won over by her mother's memories - of Patmore, the family estate; of Gervase, her first love; of a past never less than perfect - she wouldn't dream of criticising the yearly ritual of tea at Gunter's.

For it is there that her mother still meets Gervase; there that she can talk endlessly of the golden days before 1914, of the great might-have-been.

But perhaps Lucy's mother can recreate the past through her daughter?

Tea at Gunter's is an excellent novel, highly sensitive, delicate, and moving.