Heat wave - penelope lively

It is a long, hot summer at Worlds End, a two-family grey stone cottage in the English countryside.

Pauline is editing a romance novel in the smaller dwelling, and the larger part is occupied by her daughter, Teresa; Teresas baby; and her husband, Maurice, a writer, whose infatuation with his editors girlfriend is growing.

Pauline fears for Teresa, who is passionately in love with her husband, for she senses Maurices imminent betrayal.

She remembers a time when her possessive passion for Teresas father eroded her own youth.

A stunning and unexpected denouncement irrevocably changes the order of things for this family, whose intimacy the reader abandons reluctantly at novels end.