Rule Britannia: Maurier Du

In this prescient novel, Daphne du Maurier explores the implications of leaving Europe for a political, economic and military alliance with the United States.

`It is rather awful, Emma thought as she walked across the fields down to the farm, how this business is leading us all into subterfuge and deception, and we can`t really tell who is friend and who is enemy . . . `

Emma wakes up one morning to an apocalyptic world. The cosy existence she shares with her grandmother, a famous retired actress, has been shattered: there`s no telephone, no radio - and an American warship sits in the harbour.

England has withdrawn from the European Common Market and, on the brink of bankruptcy, has decided that salvation lies in a union - political, military and economic - with the United States. Theoretically it is to be an equal partnership, but it soon begins to look like a takeover bid.

As the two women piece together clues about the `friendly` military occupation on their doorstep, family, friends and neighbours come together to resist the interlopers.