This delightful novel describes the post-war summer of 1946 - and follows the growing-up of three young women in the months between leaving school and taking up their scholarships at university. Una Vane, whose widowed mother runs a hairdressing salon in her front room ('Maison Vane Glory - Where Permanent Waves are Permanent'), goes bicycling with Ray, the boy who delivers the fish and milk. Hetty Fallowes struggles to become independent of her possessive, loving, tactless mother. And Lieselotte Klein, who had arrived in 1939 on a train from Hamburg, uncovers tragedy in the past and magic in the present.
Rooted in the north of England, THE FLIGHT OF THE MAIDENS is peopled with extraordinary characters, who are evoked with all the humour, compassion and eye for detail that mark Jane Gardam as one of Britain's most gifted and original novelists.

* Large space colour ads in the GUARDIAN and DAILY TELEGRAPH * 15-copy slim bin, with an extra 3 copies FOC and GBP1 off Stickers * Ongoing author PR activity to include media interviews and appearances at literary events * To be submitted for trade promotions * Possibility of backlist title covermount with a high-circulation women's magazine

About the Author
Jane Gardam is the only writer to have been twice awarded the Whitbread/Costa Prize for Best Novel of the Year, for The Queen of the Tambourine and The Hollow Land. She also holds a Heywood Hill Literary Prize for a lifetime's contribution to the enjoyment of literature. She is the author of five volumes of acclaimed stories: Black Faces, White Faces (David Higham Prize and the Royal Society of Literature's Winifred Holtby Prize); The Pangs of Love (Katherine Mansfield Prize); Going into a Dark House (Silver Pen Award from PEN); Missing the Midnight; and The People on Privilege Hill. Her novels include God on the Rocks, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Faith Fox; The Flight of the Maidens; the bestselling Old Filth, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2005; The Man in the Wooden Hat; and Last Friends. Jane Gardam was born in Yorkshire. She now lives in east Kent.

Reviews
A formidably intelligent, gentle, comic genius ... In a hundred years she will be read as Mrs Gaskell is read * A. N. Wilson SPECTATOR *
Gardam ... has written another jewel. This tale of the three young women is made with a concentrate of humour and compassion. Gardam is a brilliantly subtle comedian who can keep the reader enraptured until the last page * THE TIMES *
Jane Gardam has captured the burgeoning renaissance of post-war Britain in her novel THE FLIGHT OF THE MAIDENS. Writing with her usual deft and sensitive touch... Gardam paints scenes like a watercolour and every stroke adds depth and subtlety. The characters are rounded and appealing and humour often bubbles beneath the surface. * Christina McLoughlin, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW *
Gardam has a pleasant, accessible style well-suited to a reassuring tale of regeneration and optimism after adversity. * OBSERVER *
As a celebration of the rites of passage it rings diamond true. It is light, witty, sharp, yet understanding and sympathetic. It is also thoroughly enjoyable * SCOTSMAN *
Gardam blends memory and imagination, intellect and humour, to evoke unsentimentally a vanished England, setting it in the context of the wider world and capturing the bittersweet excitement of leaving childhood behind * DAILY TELEGRAPH *
Jane Gardam, as ever, shapes her narrative with wit and aplomb ... intelligent, inspiriting and entertaining * INDEPENDENT *
She does fiction as it should be done, with confidence and insight -- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie * Observer *



Book Information
ISBN 9780349114248
Author Jane Gardam
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Abacus
Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
Weight(grams) 240g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 130mm * 22mm