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From the acclaimed author of Corelli�s Mandolin, here is a sumptuous, sweeping, powerfully moving new novel about a British family whose lives and loves are indelibly shaped by the horrors of World War I and the hopes for its aftermath. In the brief golden years of the Edwardian era the McCosh sisters�Christabel, Ottilie, Rosie and Sophie�grow up in an idyllic household in the countryside south of London. On one side, their neighbors are the proper Pendennis family, recently arrived from Baltimore, whose close-in-age boys�Sidney, Albert and Ashbridge�shake their father�s hand at breakfast and address him as �sir.� On the other side is the Pitt family: a �resolutely French� mother, a former navy captain father, and two brothers, Archie and Daniel, who are clearly �going to grow up into a pair of daredevils and adventurers.� In childhood this band is inseparable, but the days of careless camaraderie are brought to an abrupt halt by the outbreak of The Great War, in which everyone will play a part. All three Pendennis brothers fight in the hellish trenches at the front; Daniel Pitt becomes an ace fighter pilot with his daredevil tendencies intact; Rosie and Ottilie McCosh volunteer in the hospitals, where women serve with as much passion and nearly as much hardship as the men at the front; Christabel McCosh becomes one of the squad of photographers sending �snaps� of their loved ones at home to the soldiers; and Sophie McCosh drives for the RAF in France. In the aftermath of the war, as �the universal joy and relief were beginning to be tempered by . . . an atmosphere of uncertainty,� everyone must contend with the modern world that is slowly emerging from the ashes of the old. A wholly immersive novel about a particular time and place, The Dust That Falls from Dreams also illuminates the timeless ways in which men and women carry profound loss alongside indelible hope. From the Hardcover edition.