title: The Summer House
author: McLeay, Alison
description: Chrissie Ascham's coming of age coincides with the onset of World War I. Her loss of innocence is precipitated by the arrival of the nouveau riche Dunstan family to the Lake District, where her scholarly family lives. The megalomania of the industrialist father, Alfred Dunstan, helps to drive a series of tragic events that ultimately destroys the Dunstans and strips Chrissie of her naivete. A trip to Venice sets off a spiraling sequence of passion, tragedy and betrayal made more intense by the last sultry, unheeding summer before the outbreak of the Great War. The aftermath will shatter Chrissie's innocence and teach her to gamble with her life.