Ultraprolific Irish author MacDonald’s 27th book (Tomorrow’s Tide, 1997, etc.) kicks off a sentimental new series set in Cornwall and telling of the Carringtons of Helston (widower John and his early twentysomething children, Will and Leah) from 1914 forward, when they first leave their home in Connecticut and move to England, taking up residence in an untenanted and decomposing “gentleman’s house” called the Old Glebe, a 50-acre farm that has no electricity and no water from the mains--but does have an enchanted well. An amiable story full of iron-fibered characters and their agreeable wisechat as MacDonald unspools from his heart long passages of period description that seemingly celebrate his own powers of memory and the tug of the past. Appealing calendar art brought to life on a tide of romantic passion and much tartly genial irony.
