The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn

Condition: great. Name inside 

Cristabel Seagrave has always wanted her life to be a story, but there are no girls in the books in her dusty family library. For an unwanted orphan who grows into an unmarriageable young woman, there seems to be no place at all* for her in Chilcombe, her family's crumbling English estate.

But from the day that a whale washes up on the beach, and twelve-year-old Cristabel plants her flag, claiming it as her own, she is determined to do things differently.

With her step-parents blithely distracted by their endless party guests, Cristabel, and her siblings, Flossie and Digby, scratch together an education from the plays they read in their freezing attic bedroom, drunken conversations eavesdropped through oak-panelled doors, and the esoteric lessons of Maudie, their maid.

But as the children grow to adulthood and war approaches, it becomes clear that the roles they are expected to play are no longer those they would choose for themselves. And as they are drawn into the conflict, they must each find a way to write their own story

'Utterly captivating . . the kind of book you want to escape normal life to read at every available opportunity'

Elizabeth Day, author of Magpie

Magnificent ... as deftly managed and heartbreaking as a Dickens novel'

Rebecca Stott, author of In the Days of Rain

Quinn has a sublime touch: Cristabel and her troupe are unforgettable, as riotous in comedy as they are heartbreaking in tragedy'

•Frances Liardet, author of We Must Be Brave

Joanna Quinn has worked in journalism and the charity sector and is a short-story writer. She teaches creative writing and lives in Dorset, in the south-west of England. The Whalebone Theatre is her debut novel.