The Birds of the Air

It's the first book I've read by her and it was suggested by an online book blog. It's a book whose impact is reinforced by its brevity. So very funny in parts (neighbour, Evelyn, who began painting with painting by numbers, has graduated to a cape and easel and now paints on the 'flasher-haunted downs' and has presented Mrs Marsh with a picture of the local asylum painted through laburnum trees) it is run through with the grief of Mary, whose son, Robin, has died earlier in the year, but nobody seems to truly empathise with the heartbreak within her.
Set in the run up to Christmas and over the course of Christmas Day, it proved a memorable read with me intending to read the other novels she wrote.