Sweet auburn - Brenda Clarke

Eve Gilchrist is born on New Year's Day 1900. The daughter of a liberal-minded Wiltshire doctor, she grows up in the village of Staple Abbots and attends the local school. Among the farm-workers' children she stands alone, isolated by class through her father and her uncle, the local squire.

But she does make one firm friend in Frank Mailer, a small, intelligent boy who leaves school at the age of twelve to work in the fields. Eve's affection for Frank blossoms into love, and she assumes they will marry; but her uncle has other ideas and intervenes with devastating effect...

As the century stumbles on from tragedy to triumph and back again, Eve finds hope and a kind of fulfilment in the poorer districts of Bristol, as she makes a life for herself in the enthralling saga of courage and conviction.