Soon the limits of progress, and the old ways, will be tested as this small Sussex town and its inhabitants go to war. For despite Agatha's reassurances, the unimaginable is coming. For her part, mourning the death of her beloved father, who has left her penniless, Beatrice simply wants to be left alone to pursue her teaching and writing.īut just as Beatrice comes alive to the beauty of the Sussex landscape and the colorful characters who populate Rye, the perfect summer is about to end. When Beatrice Nash arrives with one trunk and several large crates of books, it is clear she is significantly more freethinking-and attractive-than anyone believes a Latin teacher should be. And Agatha has more immediate concerns she has just risked her carefully built reputation by pushing for the appointment of a woman to replace the Latin master. Agatha's husband works in the Foreign Office, and she is certain he will ensure that the recent saber rattling over the Balkans won't come to anything. Hugh Grange, down from his medical studies, is visiting his Aunt Agatha, who lives with her husband in the small, idyllic coastal town of Rye. It is the end of England's brief Edwardian summer, and everyone agrees that the weather has never been so beautiful. Her novels, Major Pettigrews Last Stand and The Summer Before the War, are New York Times Bestsellers.The bestselling author of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand returns with a breathtaking novel of love and war that reaches far beyond the small English town in which it is set.Įast Sussex, 1914. Simonson's literary inspirations include Virginia Woolf and Henry James. and currently resides in the Washington, D.C. Helen Simonson was born in England, lived many years in Brooklyn, N.Y. Here, these characters and others we come to love and root for become characters we hope and pray for when the shadow of the Great War looms ever closer to home.ġ3 audio discs (approximately 16 hr.) : digital 4 3/4 in. When Hugh is sent to pick up Beatrice from the train station - life, of course, changes. Agatha's nephews, meanwhile, have come to spend the summer months, as always, both with dreams of their own. Agatha Kent is expecting an unusual candidate to be the school's Latin teacher: Beatrice Nash, a young woman of good breeding in search of a position after the death of her father.

Bestselling author Helen Simonson returns with a splendid historical novel full of the same wit, romance, and insight into the manners and morals of small-town British life as her beloved 'Major Pettigrew's Last Stand.' It's the summer of 1914 and life in the sleepy village of Rye, England is about to take an interesting turn.

The summer before the war