Bel sighed. "I adored the house the moment I saw it ... There was no need to look at it properly because I'd seen it before."
"Seen it before?"
"In dreams," said Bel vaguely. "I suppose it must have been in dreams that I saw it all before. I felt as if I had lived there-I knew it so well, you see. I even remembered the scent of violets in the drawing-room."
The moment Bel Lamington sees the neglected Cotswold cottage called Fletchers End; she recognises a home in its dilapidated façade and overgrown garden (not to mention a drawing-room that smells of violets). She and her new husband buy the house from Roy Lestrange, a Naval officer serving overseas and the nephew of Miss Lestrange, the house's previous owner. A joyful period of renovation and settling in begins, leavened by her dear friend (and now neighbour) Louise Armstrong's romantic troubles. But when Roy turns up in England and takes a liking to Louise, and Miss Lestrange's old bureau turns up a hidden will, the happiness and security of all will be threatened. Fletchers End, first published in 1962, is a sequel to D. E. Stevenson's Bel Lamington (1961), also published in paperback by Dean Street Press and Furrowed Middlebrow. This new edition includes an autobiographical sketch by the author.
