I was thrilled when I spotted a new Lissa Evans on social media, knowing that not only would I be in for a treat but that it would be a cheery one. I wondered if Small Bomb at Dimperley might follow the characters I’d become so fond of in V for Victory and Old Baggage but Evans presents us with a completely new cast, equally endearing and amusing. Set in 1945, her new novel’s backdrop is Dimperley Manor, an eclectic mishmash of a house, home to the Vere-Thissett family, ennobled in the fifteenth century after one of them shifted a fallen tree out of the monarch’s way.

‘Atlee and his cohort will squeeze people like us as if we’re oranges,’ he’d said, ‘and then hand round the juice to anyone who pays their union dues’.  

Valentine returns to the family’s Buckinghamshire seat after he’s demobbed but not before losing the tips of his fingers in an unfortunate accident. The third son, he’s not sure what to expect but finds himself swiftly elevated to the baronetcy when his eldest brother is declared dead. Dimperley is in a sad state after its requisition as a maternity home during the war. Zena Baxter is still in residence with her three-year-old, typing up the seemingly never-ending, soporific history of Dimperley which is Valentine’s uncle’s life’s work. There’s no money for the patching-up the house desperately needs. Dowager Lady Iris, still not reconciled to losing her title to her daughter-in-law, has set her sights on a wealthy match for Valentine but Zena hits on another plan. Over the course of this wonderfully entertaining novel, revelations are made, friendships renewed, a thriving business is established, and Lady Iris learns to look the other way.

There was a familiar pause. His mother never argued; more opined and then let the subsequent silence batter away at the same theme.

Evans’ novel is an absolute delight which had me chortling out loud. She takes some entertaining swipes at the aristocracy, struggling with the ‘servant problem’ and unable to do things for themselves. The rest of the country happily throws deference to the winds, voting in a Labour government, much to Lady Iris’s horror. She’s convinced the National Trust is a hotbed of Bolsheviks in league with the trade unions. Evans niftily subverts aristocratic assumptions of superiority with enjoyable plot developments and characterisation leading us to a particularly pleasing ending. I loved this one: an uncomplicated, very British delight, ripe for a Christmas TV special in the right hands.

Doubleday London 9780857528292 320 pages Hardback (read via NetGalley)