Growing up in Edwardian south London, Alice Rowlands longs for romance and excit
ement, for a release from a life that is dreary, restrictive and lonely. Her fat
her, a vet, is harsh and domineering; his new girlfriend brash and lascivious. A
lice seeks refuge in memories and fantasies, in her rapturous longing for Nichol
as, a handsome young sailor, and in the blossoming of what she perceives as her
occult powers.
A series of strange events unfolds that leads her, dressed in
bridal white, to a scene of ecstatic triumph and disaster among the crowds on Cl
apham Common. The Vet's Daughter is a uniquely vivid, witty and touching story o
f love and mystery.
