From May To October tells the story of a couple who basically have a good family life. The husband is running a failing bookstore, and his wife longs to paint but is concerned about conflict with domestic obligations (including caring for their several children). She is able to borrow a friend's house in France to go and paint, but the bottom falls out financially at home and making a new life in Bristol. Several critics remarked on the excessive wordiness of the novel, which reviewer S. M. Mowbray of the British Book News attributed to Lash's inability to resist the opportunity to philosophize. Patricia Craig in The Literary Times Supplement found the dialogue unrealistic and over-emotional and wondered if the characters would talk that way if could hear themselves. However, Mowbray commented that Lash "achieves a very difficult thing" by deftly pulling off a plot which takes a happy couple through six months of disaster to triumph. He concluded, " Let us be thankful for a novel in which, for all its generalizations and irrelevancies, a convincing picture of happy family life shines out." A Kirkus Reviews critic, who also faulted elements of the novel, despite giving it a generally positive review, wrote that the "direct, effectively spare narration is all too frequently interrupted by overwritten speeches, drippy platitudes, and saccharine speeches." However, as with Mowbray's review, the critic praised "the tenderly vivid evocations of decent, plain family life."