Aunt Patty's Paying Guests

Nan Darracott has worked toward a teaching career her whole life, only to have a doctor's decree shatter those dreams: she must stop studying and rest, or risk complete breakdown. Sent to recuperate at her Aunt Patty's country house, "Gay Bowers," she finds both refuge and a new challenge. Her aunt, recently widowed, has decided to take in paying guests to make ends meet, and Nan becomes helper and hostess to an intriguing cast: a professor recovering from illness, an American family, and others whose lives intersect in unexpected ways. Thorne writes with dry wit and genuine tenderness about what it means to have your carefully laid plans derail, to find purpose in unexpected places, and to build community from the materials of necessity. The novel captures a particular moment in early 20th-century life when women especially navigated between duty and desire, rest and purpose, solitude and connection. It's a gentle comedy with real teeth beneath its polite surface.