Books like Spiderweb by Penelope Lively
At sixty‑five, retired anthropologist Stella Brentwood buys a cottage in Somerset, England, and begins to weave new social threads in a quiet village. Her past—studying communities along the Nile Valley, Malta, and the Orkney Islands—reappears as she balances an observer’s detachment with an unexpected longing for companionship. Within the village's web of relationships, a widowed neighbor's husband seeks more than friendship, a violent family endangers the community, and an old archaeologist friend promises companionship. Stella must decide whether to remain aloof or step fully into a world she has only studied from afar.
First publish date: 1998
Genre: General Fiction/General Fiction
Authors: Penelope Lively
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