Diana Appleyard

Sara is approaching fifty as the book begins. The story starts with her husband Matt’s 50th birthday party; they have what appears to be the ideal marriage, which makes an unexpected announcement from Matt’s drunken friend all the more shocking.

However the book opens with Sara at her cottage in Cornwall. We quickly learn that Matt had admitted to infidelity and that Sara is, very slowly and painfully, making a new life for herself.

The book continues using different time frames, zipping between past and present. It could have been quite confusing: but somehow it works. We see snippets of the apparently happy home life that Matt and Sara shared, but there are also hints of problems.

As a tale of growing independence for Sara, of discovery of herself as a valid and beautiful person, it works extremely well. The writing is evocative, the people believable. But there are some odd plot threads which jarred with the main, more gentle story. One of their daughters becomes worried about her father; the tension is built well as Sara waits to find out what the problem might be; but when it’s finally revealed, it is so bizarre as to be unbelievable. Then it’s never really resolved. The book ends quite abruptly, with no hint as to what the future might hold.

I’d like to give it three and a half stars; the ending let it down badly, I felt, as did the strange nature of Matt’s problem, but the writing is good and the story as a whole thought-provoking and enjoyable.… (lisätietoja)