Her story alone would have been interesting but by putting it in this wider context I had a much greater appreciation of her as a character, and also just how restricted her options were. And it’s this parallel between Clarissa’s story and that of the society she lives in that makes the book work so well for me. So the book opens with not only Clarissa, but society as a whole, enjoying one last summer of innocence before the First World War breaks out. It was the beginning of summer and, unbeknownst to any of us then, the end of a belle époque.“ But the world she inhabits is also about to undergo a profound transformation: “the vibration of change was upon us, and I sensed a shift: a realignment of my trajectory. Clarissa, the heroine, is on the cusp of adulthood and about to embark upon her first real love affair: “I was almost seventeen when the spell of my childhood was broken”. What I particularly enjoyed about The Last Summer is how much depth there is to the story. But if, like me, you were one of the few people who didn’t enjoy the show and switched off at the beginning of its second series, please don’t let that be the reason you miss out on what is a wonderfully rewarding read in itself. I can understand why, given that it opens in the country estate of Deyning Park in 1914, the year in which the first series of Downton Abbey ends, and involves a love affair between two people from different social classes. The Last Summer has been marketed as a book that viewers of Downton Abbey would enjoy.

Which might help to explain why, on the eve of her second novel coming out, I’m only now getting around to trying to do it justice in a review. Judith Kinghorn’s beautifully-written and evocative debut novel The Last Summer was one of my favourite reads of 2012.

The Last Summer by Judith Kinghorn