Changing Status by Hazel Hucker

Brambourne Manor in Hampshire has some new inhabitants. There’s Judge Hugh Thorne and his wife Celia who have moved to the area because he’s taken up a new job. Unhappy couple Alex and Fenella Lindridge have come to Brambourne with their two teenage children, Donna and Duncan, because he’s been made redundant. Longtime military man Martin Upcott with his wife Betty are also newly arrived and have to do some belt tightening because like Alex, he’s unemployed. The story is about these characters and how they cope with the changes in their lives. Because they are all living in the manor, which has been divided into individual residences, criss-crossing of lives is inevitable. Hucker writes a story that is like Maeve Binchy’s or Rosamunde Pilcher’s. Changing Status (which was OK) has not been published in the U.S., but two of her earlier books, A Dangerous Happiness and The Trials of Friendship were. I loved both of them.