Just turned the last page on a British soap opera entitled, Windfall, by Penny Vincenzi. This novel set in pre WWII England tells a compelling story of a woman handed an unexpected windfall of money and how the gift impacts her life and those lives around hers. British writers are more internal than external and there’s a lot of worrisome narrative in these 500+ pages, but Ms. Vincenzi certainly knows how to capitalize on family angst/saga. I can’t say that I loved this story because for me, the characters were completely without hope and had little to redeem them. But the critics raved about it. I thought it was sad.