Angela Thirkell
1948
4/5 stars
In this seventeenth novel of Bartsetshire, the reader follows the lives and romances of six young adults during the summer of 1947: siblings Lucy and Oliver Marling, brothers Freddy and Charles Belton, and sisters Susan and Jessica Dean. Now in their mid-to-late-twenties, with most of their youth given up to the excitement of war time, these six come in and out of each others lives as they, and all of Barsetshire, still attempt to adjust to peace.
The "ruins" referenced by the title are not physical ruins, but rather the state of life after WWII, when Britain was suffering greatly with inadequate food and supplies and "a state of dull resentful apathy with no hope of relief". Thirkell writes movingly of the struggles faced by post-WWII Britain, but balances it with her usual (sometimes snarky) humor, and with well-developed characters and plot. I highly recommend this series, but it must be read in order, as the characters of the county remain the same, and have aged in real time.
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