Christmas is disrupted by the death of a distant relative in the vicarage . . . but with death comes a substantial inheritance for David, Catherine and their nine children.
Catherine resolves to send her eldest children, Edras and Tobit, to a preparatory school and she hires a governess for her younger children. Miss Crosby is a passionate woman striving for women's emancipation - including emancipation for young and clever Judith from the constraints of marriage . . .
But as the First World War erupts the family approaches catastrophe, can all nine children emerge from it unscathed? Carnegie Medal winning Noel Streatfeild showcases courage and endurance in her family wartime novel, Parson's Nine.