Marlford by Jacqueline Yallop

I was lucky to hear Jacqueline Yallop read extracts of this book at an author reading at the library in Parisot, Tarn-et-Garonne.   The book is set in 1969.  The main character, Ellie Barton is a young woman who has grown up in a crumbling manor house.   She has led a sheltered life, her only companions being her ancient father, Ernest, Oscar Quersley who works on the estate and runs the memorial library with Ellie, and three old men who live on the estate.  Ellie’s grandfather was a philanthropist who built Marlford the village, but the family money has long since dried up and everything is in a state of decay.  Then one day two radical young men, Dan and Gadiel, show up at the manor.  Their arrival is the impetus for the change that has been building within Ellie.  Dan and Gadiel decide to set up a squat in a disused wing of the manor.   Ellie has been protected from the outside world, cocooned and controlled by the men on the estate.   It is Ellie’s unworldliness that attracts both Dan and Gadiel and it is they who open Ellie’s eyes to the wider world.  I found the setting well drawn, the descriptions dark and some of the characters unsettling.