Barbara Ewing — A Dangerous Vine

Virago 2000 Paperback, 434pp. Margaret-Rose Bennett, like her elder sister, Elizabeth, was named after an English princess. But Elizabeth is dead, and Margaret-Rose is aware that there is something unspoken in her family. For against the odd, strained English household she inhabits in 1950s New Zealand the truth is elusive. So Margaret-Rose maps out a course of her own: she studies at university and makes friends with the wayward Emily and the enigmatic Prudence. By day, they work in a government office and study hard for their degrees; by night they sing, drink and laugh with a group of people very different from themselves. The love and the music of those nights is etched into their hearts forever, and the girls discover a new, enchanting world, one with an underbelly of struggle, colour, passion and hidden violence. A world, perhaps, not so far removed from Margaret-Rose's own secret history. (ISBN: 9781860498305). Good.