The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley

I'm a huge fan of Downton Abbey & Upstairs, Downstairs, and I am a huge fan of The Go Between written @ the turn of the 20th C in England depicting social classes as told (in retrospect) by an older man looking back at his younger self, during the summer he turned 13.  This is not merely a tale of British aristocracy or a coming of age story.  It deals with morality & manipulation.  It is also a bold and beautiful tale of sensual awakenings.  As a man in his 60's, Leo takes us back to his seminal year upon discovering souvenirs from his youth.  Leo as an only child, is sent by his widowed mother to boarding school at a very young age. There he is tormented by 2 older boys whom Leo plots revenge by casting a spell.  Voila, the bullies fall from a roof and Leo's notoriety soars.  Marcus, a duly impressed classmate, invites Leo to spend a few weeks with his family that July. With the Marcus' family Leo "for the first time, was acutely aware of (his) social inferiority.  I felt utterly out of place among these smart rich people, and a misfit everywhere."  Leo soon succumbs to the charms of Marcus' older, beautiful sister, Marian, & becomes a willing/unwilling messenger for Marian & her lover, Ted, a virile farmhand.  Leo grapples with the morality of serving as a conduit to this illicit affair upon learning Marian is engaged to the wealthy Lord Trimmingham, whose facial disfigurement was wrought in battle.  The Go-Between "is a  struggle between order & lawlessness, between obedience to tradition and defiance, between social stability & revolutions, between one attitude to life & another."  Nothing half-way here, I recommend this novel whole heartedly.