The Blessing

Introduced by Alex Kapranos 'We've had nothing to eat since you saw us, nothing whatsoever. Course upon course of nasty greasy stuff smelling of garlic - a month's ration of meat, yes, but quite raw you know - shame, really - I wasn't going to touch it, let alone give it to Sigi, poor little mite.' 'Nanny says the cheese was matured in manure,' Sigi chipped in, eyes like saucers. It isn't just Nanny who finds it difficult in France when Grace, along with her young son Sigi, is finally able to join her dashing aristocratic husband Charles-Edouard after the war. For Grace is out of her depth among the fashionably dressed and immaculately coiffured French women, and shocked by their relentless gossiping and bedhopping. When she discovers her husband's tendency to lust after every pretty girl he sees, it looks like trouble. And things get even more complicated when little Sigi steps in . . . The Blessing is a hilarious tale of love, fidelity, and the English abroad, tailored as brilliantly as one of Dior's 'New Look' suits. 'Deliciously funny.' Evelyn Waugh