An Easter Egg Hunt

by Gillian Freeman

In 1915, when the girls of Madame Pennington's finishing school, near London, return from their annual Easter egg hunt, they discover that their beautiful, seventeen-year-old prefect, Madeleine, has disappeared.

Genres: Fiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Born in London, daughter of Dr. Jack Freeman and his wife, she graduated in English Language and Literature from the University of Reading in 1951. She married Edward Thorpe, novelist and ballet critic of the Evening Standard, in 1955. They have two daughters. One of her best known books was the 1961 novel The Leather Boys (published under the pseudonym Eliot George, a reference to the writer George Eliot), a story of a gay relationship between two young working-class men, later turned into a film for which she wrote the screenplay, this time under her own name. The novel was commissioned by the publisher Anthony Blond, who wanted a story about a "Romeo and Romeo in the South London suburbs". Her non-fiction book The Undergrowth of Literature (1967), was a pioneering study of pornography. In 1979, on another commission from Blond, she wrote a fictional diary, Nazi Lady: The Diaries of Elisabeth von Stahlenberg, 1938–48; Freeman's authorship was not at first revealed and many readers took it to be genuine. Her most recent book is But Nobody Lives in Bloomsbury (2006), a fictional study of the Bloomsbury Group.

Reviews

[Shahrun · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found part one frustrating and had to keep going back over parts trying to find out what I missed. Nothing as it turns out, author was just building up the mystery. Happy I stuck with it as part two is more detailed, and fills in most of the blanks. Then part 3 gives the surprising conclusion.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book many many years ago,when it came free with a woman's magazine,it was a short story,but very sad from what I can remember,I don't think it would have been a book that I would have chosen to read or purchased to read but as it was a freebie I thought "why not give it a go" I don't know much about the author or about anymore of her books. It passed a bit of time reading it...not much more to add!

[Melanie Rippon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The back-cover "blurb" makes this sound like a British-set "Picnic at Hanging Rock" wannabe. It's not, quite, more of an atmospheric slice of English village & boarding-school life during WW1, & the solution to Madeleine's disappearance isn't revealed all at once. Not an amazing story by any means but enjoyable enough.

[Linda Mcgurrin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written, unusual story line , great characters

[Rachel]

A well written little book. It was sad but I can't say I got very attached to the main character. There wasn't much information about her really.