Gential Hill by Elizabeth Goudge, for the 1949 Club

My final book for the 1949 Club is a beautifully written, whimsical historical novel by Elizabeth Goudge (1900-84), a bestselling writer in her day, now best remembered for a children’s book, The Little White Horse, which won the Carnegie Medal for British children's books in 1946.Gentian Hill is set during the Napoleonic Wars in the coastal town of Torquay in Devon in the southwest region of England (its most famous celebrity, born many years after this book takes place, is Agatha Christie, who considered it her true home). Goudge was inspired by a local legend of St. Michael’s Chapel. Read more »