Wendy

The story, inspired by Peter Pan, recreates an Edwardian world where a veneer of respectability conceals a mass of family secrets - a series of events which puts an intolerable strain on relationships and exposes the shallowness of upper-class morality. Wendy Darling, caught up in her parents' unhappy marriage, escapes into a world of fantasy which is repeatedly and cruelly shattered. The luxuries with which the wealthy surround themselves are sharply contrasted with the privations of the strengthening Suffragette movement and the cruelties which both children and adults inflict on each other, leavened by Wendy's compassion for Thomas, her mentally handicapped brother, and Letitia, a spoiled, lonely and frightened child whom she is forced to befriend. Perhaps events are layered rather too neatly - a systematic accumulation of catastrophe followed by an equally swift resolution of the problems. This, however, contributes to the deliberate artificiality of the book and, in addition, ensures a page-turning read.