All My Sisters. Judith Lennox

Set just prior to and during WW1, All My Sisters is the story of a large Edwardian family, prosperous and upper middle class. Papa owns and runs a steel mill and expects most, if not all, of his three sons to follow him into the business. Beautiful Iris is the eldest of the four girls and fully expects to make a brilliant marriage to one of her many admirers. Marianne meets and marries, but is widowed in the space of two years. Eva, who is known as the artistic daughter, persuades her reluctant Papa to allow her to attend the Slade school of art, where she becomes the mistress of a completely amoral artist, while Clemency, the plainest of the four girls, is forced to leave school to dance attendance on her mother, who thoroughly enjoys poor health. After the death of her husband, Marianne makes a marriage of convenience to a tea planter from Ceylon with whom she has a baby son, but this man proves to be a twisted, evil monster who causes her to fear for her life. This was SUCH a good read, one of those books scathingly called chick-lit, which is really a word for a comfy, cosy read about the lives of women...I loved every word of it.