Livre d'Or

Ooh, I'm excited to find anyone else who reads Godden at all, she's not exactly fashionable as a writer. (I think papersky is a fan... yup, here's a thinky review.)

And good point about the scary child harm part in the middle, I suppose that didn't really stand out as making the book more grim than is typical of the genre, but I can well imagine parents finding it hard going! The pro-life thing I mentioned because you've got a character who terminates a pregnancy, in rather awful circumstances, and you've also got the narrative thinking badly of her for this, so I can imagine people who find the idea of abortion distressing and people who are pro-choice both being upset by it.