The Bluebell Pool

In her most assured novel yet, Sully (The Shingle Beach) perceptively explores the effects of suppressed sexuality, the class system and the changing position of women on British society in the early 20th century. On the eve of WWI, strong-minded Nancy Gallimore, 18, marries above her station and age group, but her Pygmalion-like romance with world-famous explorer and writer Aubrey Farringdon, 44, begins to fracture when he takes her to his ancestral home of Midwinter. There, as Nancy tries to cope with a combative mother-in-law and snobbish stepchildren, she sees her marriage begin to founder on the mysterious death and life of Aubrey's first wife, the gorgeous and adulterous Augusta. The mystery of Augusta, preserved by Aubrey's daunting mother and an attractive gamekeeper, and centered on a local quarry pool of profound yet sinister beauty, remains unsolved even after Nancy finds and reads Augusta's disturbing diaries. Will the terrible secret of the Farringdons destroy Nancy's chances for happiness? (There are certainly echoes of DuMaurier's Rebecca here.) While some readers may be intimidated by Sully's formal prose, and though Nancy doesn't show quite enough character growth, the novel is, overall, suspenseful and engaging. (Oct.)