Gloomsbury

Plagued by writer's block, novelist Ginny Fox visits Vera, hoping for peace and quiet. But their tranquil idyll is shattered by the explosive arrival of Venus Traduces.

The novelist Ginny Fox is visiting her friends Vera Sackcloth-Vest and Henry Mickleton, who live in a modest unassuming little castle in Kent.

Ginny has writer's block, so Vera tries desperately to provide peace and quiet, gagging the blackbirds and cloaking the gravel paths in velvet. But their tranquil idyll is shattered by the explosive arrival of Venus Traduces, hell-bent on recapturing Vera's heart with a series of appalling musical serenades.

Ginny's tiresome husband Lionel has followed her incognito with a portfolio of herbal remedies, but Henry manages to detain him in the pantry whilst Ginny and Vera dive under the covers to devour a steamy new book, Lady Hattersley's Plover by the intriguing proletarian writer D.H. Lollipop.

The chums emerge flushed and enthralled, convinced that they must meet D.H. Lollipop and experience his dangerous animal magnetism at first hand.