The Bolter by Frances Osborne seemed an unlikely recommendation from my bookseller, but I am a trusting customer!

I  needed to remind myself chapter by chapter that I was not reading a novel. The Bolter, the true story of  British socialite Idina Sackville, who trashed  all the trappings of incredible wealth , her husband and two young children to lead her followers to nothing less than a scandalous and wild life as ” The Happy Valley Set”  in Kenya.

Osborne’s recounting the saga of Idina Sackville is representative of a group of women in the 1920s and 1930s who “bolted” from their marriages and ordered lives to live free from the yoke of society’s rules. The book leaves no doubt that Idina was the most famous and sensational of all ” The Bolters!”

A free spirit, enlightening, shocking, with an underlying sadness, emptiness and loneliness that came with abandoning all tradition. Friends come and go as passions rise and fall.

Enjoy The Bolter.  There is a lesson.