Family Orchestra

Mary Howard

Mary Howard has written a warm and charming novel in the story of the four James daughters, left penniless by the death of their father, a distinguished painter. To twenty-three-year-old Francetta, copperhaired and irresistibly lovely, lifting some of the financial burden her mother carried loomed as the most important thing in life.
Already achieving success in musical comedy, Francetta postponed her marriage to Charles Kennedy, a talented young composer serving in the R.A.F., in the hope of greater success. It was a blow to Charles, madly in love with Francetta, and something of a reprieve for Francetta’s beautiful younger sister. Mary, who adored Charles secretly and hopelessly.
To delicately lovely Linden, too frail for the war work she had been doing, Francetta’s world was one of complete glamour. And it was in this world that Linden met David Greyson, a handsome, reckless and enormously wealthy young flier, whom Francetta had hoped to add to her conquests. With Linden it was love at first sight, complete, undemanding and without reservation.
Francetta’s precipitous marriage, Charles’ injury in the war and Linden’s serious illness complicated all their lives before the promise of happiness came to each, even to amusing, precocious twelve-year-old Jane.