The shell seekers

Originally published: Sevenoaks : New English Library, 1988. Two of Penelope Keeling's three grown-up children often give her cause for dislike. And when they put her under pressure to sell her most treasured possession - one of her father's paintings - they provoke a family crisis. Artist's daughter Penelope Keeling can look back on a full and varied life: a Bohemian childhood in London and Cornwall, an unhappy wartime marriage, and the one man she truly loved. She has brought up three children - and learned to accept them as they are. Yet she is far too energetic and independent to settle sweetly into pensioned-off old-age. And when she discovers that her most treasured possession, her father's painting, The Shell Seekers, is now worth a small fortune, it is Penelope who must make the decisions that will determine whether her family can continue to survive as a family, or be split apart.

671 pages ; 20 cm Painters--Family relationships--Fiction. World War, 1939-1945--England--Fiction. Inheritance and succession--Fiction. Conflict of generations--Fiction. Parent and adult child--Fiction. Women--England--Fiction. Painting--Fiction. England--Fiction.