The Tortoise and the Hare

A love story with a difference, this exquisite novel subtly demonstrates that in affairs of the heart, the race is not necessarily to the swift—or the fair. It comes with a beautiful cover by Florence Broadhurst.

The magnetic Evelyn Gresham, 52, is a barrister of considerable distinction. He has everything life could offer—a gracious riverside house in Berkshire, a beautiful young wife, Imogen, who is devoted to him, and their 11-year-old son, a replica of his father. Their nearest neighbor is Blanche Silcox, a plain, tweed-wearing woman of 50 who rides, shoots, fishes, and drives a Rolls Royce—in every way the opposite of the domestic, loving Imogen. Their world is conventional country life at its most idyllic: how can its gentle surfaces be disturbed?

Elizabeth Jenkins (1905–2010) was a distinguished biographer (of Jane Austen, Lady Caroline Lamb and Elizabeth I), historian, and novelist. She was awarded the OBE in 1981. The Tortoise and the Hare, her sixth novel, was first published in 1953, and is generally considered her greatest work of fiction. Hilary Mantel is the author of Beyond Black, A Place of Greater Safety, and the Man Booker Prize–winning, New York Times bestseller Wolf Hall.