On an unseasonably warm spring day in 1924, twenty-two-year-old Jane Fairchild, a maid at an English country house, meets with her secret lover, the young heir of a neighboring estate. He is about to be married to a woman more befitting his social status, and the time has come to end the affair--but events unfold in ways Jane could never have predicted.

As the narrative moves back and forth across the twentieth century, what we know and understand about Jane--about the way she loves, thinks, feels, sees, and remembers--expands with every page. In Mothering Sunday, Booker Prize-winning novelist Graham Swift has crafted an emotionally soaring and profoundly moving work of fiction.