When four year old Paul, already somewhat pampered and spoilt, is chosen for a part in a film his unexpected good fortune triggers major family ructions. It takes all matriarch Emma Tring’s subtle diplomacy not just to avoid discord but to bring her unsettled family closer together. A theatrical theme spiced with family in-fighting, difficult children, a wiser older woman: this is what this author does best. 
Noel Streatfeild spent some time in Hollywood researching the film background for her children’s novel The Painted Garden, research which also ensures an utterly believable background for the Rose of England film studios in Love in a Mist.