Summer of the Flamingoes

As this first - person narrative opens, middle-aged Lisa Hamilton is returning to Lancashire for the burial of her grandmother, a formidable matriarch whose disapproval marred Lisa's childhood. In flashback we learn that Lisa's childhood in Kenya was shadowed by the scandal of her parents' deaths, brought about, in part, by her mother's love for her husband's brother. Taken back to England, raised in the malevolent atmosphere fostered by her unforgiving grandmother, Lisa was pitted against a favored granddaughter, the beautiful, willful Jessica. Now Lisa falls in love with Jessica's fiance, but avoids repeating her mother's tragedy. Hylton ( My Sister Clare ) unfolds her story smoothly if unsurprisingly, punctuating it with details of comfortable manor houses and a full complement of family characters. (May)