As a young woman, Mavis Gaunt leaves post-war London to make a new life for herself in rural Devon, where she spent a few blissful months of her childhood as an evacuee. Living alone in the verdant hamlet of Shipleigh, she believes she's found a heaven on earth - until a violent tragedy brings trouble to paradise, and turns Mavis's idyllic solitude into a tormented, guarded isolation.
Decades later, the arrival of a newcomer to the village forces Mavis to make a final reckoning: should she take her horrible secret to the grave? Or, should she summon up her ghosts and, in doing so, lay them to rest? An Inventory of Heaven is a lyrical and intimate meditation on the rural life, falling in love and the long passing of time.
'Unflinchingly examines the tensions of intimate family life...will strike deep chords of recognition in the many readers she is sure to win.' Carol Anne Duffy
'This is a unique voice.' Philip Hensher
'Pitch perfect...Most memorable is Feaver's language - burnished and sturdily poetic with a saving comic streak.' Observer
'Extraordinary intelligence and charm ...also extremely funny.' Independent
'Jane Feaver has proved an expert at creating a sense of place ...tender, imaginative prose.' Sunday Herald
'she has a ...way of teasing out the comedy of people struggling to deal with ... the long littleness of life.' The Times
Author
About Jane Feaver
Jane Feaver was born in Durham in 1964. After reading English at university she worked at the Pitt Rivers Museum and then in the Poetry Department at Faber and Faber. In 2001 she moved to Devon with her daughter.