FROM THE GLOBALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING 'Bittersweet ... dazzling' Guardian 'Deeply pleasurable ... the ending made me cry' The Times 'Told with a wealth of detail and narrative intensity' Penelope Lively Violet is 38. The First World War took everything from her. Her brother, her fiance - and her future. She is now considered a 'surplus woman'.