Choral Society

Three single women in their fifties meet when they join a choir. Lucy, recently widowed, is a cook and food journalist; Joanna, a successful business woman, never married; Rebecca is a divorced interior decorator. Each of the women is at a crossroads and they quickly form a bond. The trio decide to combine their talents to restore a crumbling pile in Cornwall and turn it into a cookery school and spa. The project brings its own conflicts, both professional and personal. The novel’s themes touch on the sustaining power of female friendship and how a woman copes with mid life and onwards. Prue’s narrative voice is warm, witty, wise, very accessible. Her characters are sympathetic and engaging: very different women but each with demons to face as she gets older and confronts a future without - perhaps - a man in it. Her knowledge of food and business adds detail and zest, enriching an already compelling tale.

PRUE LEITH came to London from South Africa when she was twenty. As a cook, restaurateur, food writer and business woman, she has played a key role in the revolution of Britain’s eating habits since the sixties and is a role model for women of the baby boomer generation. But she has always wanted to write fiction, and this is her fourth novel. She lives in Notting Hill, London.