The Weather in the Streets

A chance encounter on a train plunges a woman into an illicit love affair in this sequel to Rosamond Lehmann's classic novel, Invitation to the Waltz Ten years after attending her first dance-one of the defining moments of her life-Olivia Curtis is divorced and living with her cousin in London. When she gets a call notifying her that her father is gravely ill, she makes preparations to return home to Tulverton, in the English countryside. On the train, she meets Rollo Spencer, her girlhood crush. The older brother of a debutante friend, he and Olivia once shared a fleeting, magical moment on a moonlit terrace that she has never forgotten. Now fate has thrown them together again. They fall in love, and in spite of the fact that Rollo is married, embark on a clandestine affair. Shockingly ahead of its time, The Weather in the Streets charts the tempestuous course of Olivia and Rollo's forbidden relationship, from the first throes of passion through the toll of their deception on Olivia as she confronts the harsh reality of being the other woman. Lehmann's fearless exploration of friendship, family, aging, and mortality-and the then-taboo subjects of homosexuality, abortion, and drugs-assures her novel's place in the pantheon of twentieth-century classics. "Lehmann is unbeatable on social nuance, both among the London bohemian set and Rollo's more conventional upper-clash milieu. No one could be more attractive or caddish than Lehmann's Rollo, the married man who entrances our heroine. The ultimate tragic love story." -Alexandra Shulman, editor of Vogue (UK) "The Weather in the Streets was our Bridget Jones's Diary." -Carmen Callil Rosamond Lehmann (1901-1990) was born on the day of Queen Victoria's funeral, in Buckinghamshire, England, the second of four children. In 1927, a few years after graduating from the University of Cambridge, she published her first novel, Dusty Answer, to critical acclaim and instantaneous celebrity. Lehmann continued to write and publish between 1930 and 1976, penning works including The Weather in the Streets, The Ballad and the Source, and the short memoir The Swan in the Evening. Lehmann was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1982 and remains one of the most distinguished novelists of the twentieth century.