The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

I love Jojo Moyes. Like many people I was introduced to her writing with the novel Me Before You. I became immediately attached to Louisa Clark, mainly because I felt that Moyes had created her character by stepping inside my head! My husband was paralysed due to MS and when I fell in love with him he was in a similar wheelchair to Will, with the same interests and charismatic spirit. Sadly, I lost him in 2007 and I have read Moyes’ follow up novels and found her depiction of grief and moving forward intelligent, moving and real. 

The Giver of Stars is a different type of novel. It has the historical setting of the Depression in rural Kentucky. In a town where the Van Cleeve family own the mines where most people work and levels of rural poverty are high. African-Americans are still subject to segregation and while middle class women are expected to stay home and know their place, women in poorer families are working hard while trying their best to feed and look after ever-growing families. Into this setting comes Alice, the English bride of the heir to the mining fortune, Bennet Van Cleeve. Bennet is handsome and considerate, and their marriage seems to start well but once they reach the family home things change. Bennet lives with his father, after the death of his mother and the house is still being run to her exacting standards. Alice finds she has little to do. The house is full of her late mother-in-laws ornaments and china dolls, and Mr Van Cleeve doesn’t like anything to be out of it’s normal place. More worrying is the change in Bennet now they are home, despite showing some desire at the beginning, the proximity to his father is affecting their sex life. Several months down the line their marriage is still unconsummated and Mr Van Cleeve keeps hinting about grandchildren, adding to the pressure.

When a town meeting is called to discuss President Roosevelt’s initiative to get the rural poor reading, Alice senses an outlet for her energy. Margery O’Hare will head up the initiative. She is an outspoken and self-sufficient women who doesn’t listen to the opinion of anyone else, particularly men. She opens a door for Alice, out of the claustrophobic Van Cleeve household, into the wild forests of Kentucky. Alice learns to ride a mule, and along with Margery and two other local women she sets out as a librarian for the Packhorse Library. At first, rural locals are suspicious of an Englishwoman coming to the door offering them books, but soon Alice finds a way in and starts to be trusted. She also finds she likes the open air, the smells of the forest and singing of the birds. There is also the freedom to be in more casual dress and the camaraderie she is building up with her fellow librarians. She is close to Margery and when she confides about her marriage, Margery loans her a book she has been sneaking out with the novels and recipes. It is an instruction book on married love and Margery has been loaning it to poor women on her rounds who are inundated with children and need educating about sex. Alice takes the book home and a series of events are set in motion that change not only the Van Cleeve household, but the whole town.

Mr Van Cleeve is determined to deal with Margery O’Hare and vows to destroy the Packhorse
Library altogether. Margery is sure that a devastating flood has more behind it than high rainfall and suspects the mines. She has left herself vulnerable with what Van Cleeve sees as transgressive behaviour: she is exposed as having a relationship out of wedlock, she has hired an African-American woman who used to run the coloured library and she is encouraging townswomen to take control of their own lives. She seems impervious to other people’s disapproval so what lengths will he have to go to in order to stop her?

Meanwhile, Alice starts to fall into a friendship with Frank who helps out at the library by chopping wood, putting up shelves and being a general handyman. They bond over poetry and spend hours talking and working side by side in the library building. The other librarians have seen what’s happening, but Alice doesn’t seem to realise this man is falling in love with her.

I loved this book. I was on holiday when reading and I stayed in my holiday cottage for two days to read it. It is beautifully written and researched, with characters I fell in love with. Moyes manages to capture the tensions of the Depression, depicting rural poverty, domestic abuse, and the rise of feminine power. New attitudes towards race, feminism as well as marriage and sex come up against old money and old values in a tragic way. I found myself desperate for the progressive characters and attitudes to prevail and it was this that built the tension and kept me reading till 2am! Real, romantic and simply great storytelling. An absolute must read and perhaps her best novel to date.

Little Siberia by Antti Tuomainen

This book was a totally unexpected little gem. It surprised me, confused me and occasionally made me laugh out loud. The trouble in the village starts as a man takes a (very drunk) scary drive along the back roads. As the car hits a bump he takes off into the air. He takes a quick glance over at the seat next to him, as if he expects someone to be sitting there. Suddenly, a bright light seems to fill the car, and as the rally driver lurches to a stop he sees a fireball in the passenger seat. The fireball turns out to be a meteorite. 

A little while on and we meet our narrator Joel, the village pastor who also volunteers as security in the small museum where the meteorite now resides. Hurmevaara is a small Finnish village in the north, snow bound and isolated from the outside world. The meteorite only has a week left on display here before moving on. Rumours suggest it is worth millions. This is a bad day for Joel for two reasons. Firstly he hears sounds at the museum and finds himself attacked by two intruders. One cuffs him on the head with a hard object. The other makes a grab for an exhibit. He assumes they are stealing the meteorite and follows them as they make their getaway. He follows them to a remote cottage and watches as they turn on each other. One grabs their loot and runs inside the house, soon followed by a huge explosion. They have stolen a grenade, not the meteorite. Secondly, his wife, who he loves very much has just informed him she is pregnant. This should be good news; they have always wanted children. But our narrator is carrying a huge secret. On his last tour in the military he has been injured and although largely recovered he was told one thing he kept from his wife. He is unable to have children. 

The rest of the novel we follow Joel as he tries to find out who wants the meteorite and who is the father? Are they even the same person? The novel veers between serious meditations on faith and belief, thrilling action sequences as Joel’s various adversaries cross his path and the blackest comedy. I love the sequence with the grocer’s suspicious early morning visit and laughed out loud as Joel has to improvise with a scarf to convince someone a Russian gangster isn’t as dead as he seems. The author weaves these threads together to create a unique novel that all Nordic noir lovers will enjoy. It’s a great thriller and because I have a dark sense of humour, hilarious in places. It is quite unlike anything else I’ve ever read. 

The Glittering Hour by Iona Grey

It was a privilege to have the chance to read this beautiful historical romance. Iona Grey has set her novel in the decade post WW1, where a new generation are coping with both a legacy of loss and parents that are still stuck in the hierarchical society of the Edwardian period. Selina Lennox is one of the ‘Bright Young People’, followed by the press from party to party, and determined to the live the full life that their parents, and especially older siblings, have missed out on. Her family are part of an ailing aristocracy that still has its property but is running short on money. Her elder sister is making an advantageous marriage and since the death of their brother in the war they have the pressure of producing a male heir. Selina is being steered towards the heir of a ruby mining business situated in Burma. Rupert is a war veteran, and it is possibly active service that has made him so stiff and taciturn. Selina finds him too serious and prefers the company of her friends and the social whirl of extravagant parties thrown during the season.  One night, while careering through London on a treasure hunt, the car she is travelling in hits a cat. Selina can’t leave the poor creature and is horrified to see her friends disappearing into the night, leaving her in a garden square somewhere in Bloomsbury.

Young, struggling artist Lawrence Weston chances upon Selina and offers his help. They climb into the garden and give the cat a proper burial. Selina is drawn by this dark haired young man but also knows she is taking a huge risk disappearing at night with a stranger who isn’t from within her social circle. Lawrence is transfixed by Selina’s golden beauty and feels an instant connection. He knows she is far above him and her family would be horrified. He lives in a shared house and rents a studio where he paints portraits of the aristocracy’s lost sons of war in all their military splendour. This pays the bills, but he would love to be a photographer and as yet no one sees this as art. Realistically, he has no chance with Selina but can’t seem to stay away despite receiving warnings from most of his friends.

Interspersed with this is the story of Selina’s daughter Alice in the years before WW2. Alice lives back on the family estate and is being looked after by Polly who was Selina’s maid. Alice’s grandparents are still in residence, living the values of a bygone age. Miranda has now given birth to Archie, the all important heir for the estate. Selina is in Burma with her husband and we see their journey in a series of letters she writes to Alice. They clearly have a very loving relationship, so it seems strange that Alice is hidden away in the cold nursery corridor? I kept wondering why, if she loves her daughter as much as she seems to, would Selina leave her with a family who show her no affection? Alice has been sent a treasure hunt from her mother and Polly gives her the clues to follow. Solving the clues takes her to different parts of the estate and, in her mother’s words, should tell her how she came to be. This is how Alice comes to know and love the gardens, especially the deserted Chinese House with its old gramophone. What link could they hold to Selina’s past and Alice’s future?

Iona Grey has created a beautiful novel here, filled with moments of joy and sadness. For me, the meaning of the title encompasses both the historical period and the love story at the heart of the novel. The 1920s do stand as a ‘glittering hour’ - a moment of extravagance, partying and glamour, between two world wars. The generation who were young in that period defied the death that had stalked the previous generation in the trenches and were determined to enjoy life while they could. For Lawrence, Selina is his glittering hour, a moment of pure love and beauty that burns bright but can’t burn forever. Grey shows what happens when we dare to break away from the boundaries and societal rules of our class and how the reverberations from this can last for several generations. The love may not last, but the memories can sustain us for a lifetime.

Thanks to Simon and Schuster UK and Random Things Book Tours for the chance to read this novel and join the blog tour. See below for the next stops.

The Lost Ones by Anita Frank

I am a real sucker for a historical, gothic novel with strong female characters and this is up there with the best. The Lost Ones centres on Miss Stella Marcham and her new lady’s maid Annie Burrows. Stella is still in mourning for her fiancé Gerald who she lost in the World War One. She keeps the locket he gave her close to her chest still. When she is invited to stay with her pregnant sister Madeline at her in-laws family home, Greyswick, she looks forward to a change of scenery. She sets out with Annie, who is a new addition to the household. Stella is unsure of Annie, but her family’s loyalty to the Burrows is long held and she resolves to get to know the unusual young woman. 

Greyswick is a country estate, with formal gardens and ostentatious decor. Madeline is married to the heir of Greyswick, Hector Brightwood, who is away on business in London. At home are his mother Lady Brightwood and her companion Miss Scott, plus their staff, housekeeper Mrs Henge and ‘Cook’ whose name no one uses. However, Stella soon learns that they are not the only residents of her sister’s new home. Madeline confides that she can hear crying in the night and soon Stella finds a toy soldier in her bed. It’s not long before Stella is woken by the crying and follows the sound up the nursery stairs. On the stairs is a vivid portrait of a little boy with a hoop and in the background Stella sees a pile of toy soldiers. The portrait is of Lucien Brightwell, the original heir from Lord Brightwood’s first marriage, who died in a fall down the nursery stairs. This is only one of many secrets being kept by the Brightwood family and Stella senses a mystery to be solved. The creaks, bumps and cries in the night are her only clues. 

This book sits in a long tradition and I had thought of Marian from Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White even before Anita Frank mentions the book which is a reading recommendation from one character to another. When Hector returns home, bringing with him Mr Shears I could sense that tension between men of reason and women of instinct and intuition even more strongly. Franks brings together other historical threads I love. Frank’s book is set post WW1 and the tensions of this time are apparent. Women’s roles have changed and Stella represents this. She expected to be a married woman by now, but has instead chalked up experience nursing wounded soldiers and like most of the country is mourning a terrible loss. She is intelligent, and restless after moving back into her ‘normal’ middle class role. She has also undergone psychiatric treatment following her bereavement, complicated by the fact that her severely wounded fiancé was brought to her hospital and care, and fears being thought of as mad or hysterical. She feels a constant pressure to be measured and rational. 

Other women in the novel are equally complex and class is another tension. Stella’s family are indebted to the Burrows family after Annie’s father died trying to save their younger sister Lydia from a house fire. Annie has been trusted with a job beyond her experience and is trying to remain under the radar due to her own incredible gift that could mark her out as crazy. Since the family lost their main bread winner Annie needs the job and doesn’t want to draw attention to herself, but Stella has her concerns since she has seen her talking to empty rooms and knows she saw something on the nursery stairs. Lady Brightwood’s companion Miss Scott lives in a very precarious position, living with the family but being of a lower class than them. She was once a servant in the house, so how did she become so close to her mistress and does her devotion go beyond that of a companion? Also, what is her relationship with Mrs Henge and why is their contact so secretive? 

Finally, the paranormal elements of the book are genuinely scary. The tension ratchets up from small events like the crying or the marble rolling across the room that could possibly be explained away. Mr Shears tries to find a rational explanation for all of it and I did find myself thinking Annie’s presence was a potential cause. Then slowly, as people start to identify the poltergeist as Lucien Brightwell, the ante is upped as more characters experience what seems impossible. The atmosphere is creepy and unsettling, reminiscent of Susan Hill or Laura Purcell. It is also a female led detective story and builds to a denouement that doesn’t disappoint. Anyone who loves historical or gothic fiction will enjoy this novel. It’s a great Halloween read that sits in the Victorian genre of sensation fiction. Perfectly pitched, beautifully written and full of interesting and complex female characters.  

The Girl at the Window by Rowan Coleman

Wuthering Heights is one of my all time favourite books so I started this novel later than most people, because I wasn’t sure whether I would enjoy it. I can honestly say I did. The story of Cathy and Heathcliff is so much part of our popular culture that most people have heard a version of it. If nothing else people tend to know it’s set somewhere in Yorkshire and there are a pair of doomed lovers. When I read it as a teenager I thought it was the most romantic story I’d ever heard. I even argued for Cathy as a character over Jane Eyre in my A levels; I felt Cathy was more courageous than Jane who I thought ran away from her love for Rochester. When I reread the novels at university ten years later my thinking had changed radically. I could see that the love between Cathy and Heathcliff was more of an obsession, an unhealthy and toxic relationship that ultimately destroys them and almost the next generation. Heathcliff ceased to be a romantic hero and became instead, an abusive lover guilty of domestic violence, hanging dogs and possibly a murderer. Yet, I still love the novel especially the wild setting, the psychological development of the characters from childhood and the ghostly, gothic elements. This novel had all of those elements and a mystery at its heart too. 

Rowan Coleman weaves a multi-stranded story about Ponden Hall, a real place based near the Parsonage at Harworth. The hall is thought to be some of the inspiration behind Wuthering Heights, especially the box bed famous from one of the novels opening scenes where a child’s hand appears at the window to a terrified Mr Lockwood. Our heroine Trudy is an archivist and a huge fan of the Brontes and Emily in particular. Trudy and her son Will return to her childhood home of Ponden Hall after her husband Abe is tragically lost, presumed dead, in a plane crash in South America. Already struggling with grief, Trudy now has to live alongside her estranged mother who she hasn’t spoken to since she decided to marry Abe. Once there, she starts to see things she’d long forgotten. Ponden is full of apparitions and ghosts, such as the Gytrash ‘Greybeard’ who appears when a member of the Heaton family is going to die or the Ponden Child who appears tapping at the window just like Cathy, with tiny hands at the glass. Before long though, a new apparition starts to haunt Trudy, a young girl who can move furniture, change temperature in a room and is terribly angry. 

What follows is a tale across three timelines, full of love and loss, and not unlike Wuthering Heights in its cruelty and scope. Trudy finds a few pages written in Emily Bronte’s hand, hidden at Ponden back in the 19th Century, by her dear friend Robert Heaton. Inside is part of a new novel and diary entries from over 200 years earlier, when troublesome women were quickly branded as witches. A girl called Agnes tells of her love for another Heaton and their ‘marriage’ to each other at a stone called the marriage hole. But Agnes is not free, she is bought by local landowner Henry Cassons and no better than a servant. Could Agnes be the spirit Trudy sees and if she haunts Ponden how come Trudy feels her presence in the library where she working as an archivist for a local businessman? 

Coleman weaves the three timelines together very successfully and I truly enjoyed each woman’s story although it is Agnes and Trudy’s that are fleshed out, Emily is more of a conduit between the two. The novel plays on the age old question for fans and researchers alike; how did the Brontes write their books when they had so little experience of life outside a quiet country parsonage? The content of Emily’s book was criticised heavily by her contemporaries as having ‘unnatural passions’. In this novel, her awareness of Agnes’s terrible story is the explanation with Henry Cassons being a possible inspiration for the cruelty and obsession of Heathcliff. The book is researched well with the historical and autobiographical elements fitting well with the  central character of Trudy. Her relationship with her mother is an interesting element to the present day story. Just as Emily Bronte writes with great awareness of the psychology of characters and how abusive behaviour can be be passed through the generations, Coleman handles the mother-daughter relationship with care. Their relationship is the culmination of these other stories, almost as a lesson that the generational cycle can be broken. The only criticism I have of the ending is that it’s almost too tidy. It could have been a better novel if one or two of the current storylines were ended with a sad note or even left unresolved. However, it’s a minor point in a novel full of historical detail, great storytelling and mysterious paranormal events. Far from disappointing the Bronte lover, this book adds to the tradition and history of the sister’s beautifully. 

I Wanted You To Know by Laura Pearson

Dear Edie, I wanted you to know so many things. I wanted to tell you them in person, as you grew. But it wasn’t to be.

This wonderful book left me uplifted and sad all at the same time, The bittersweet story of Jessica, a young single mum who finds out she has cancer, is engaging and moving. The author delivers weighty subject matter with a real lightness of touch. At times I was reading with a lump in my throat, but I always looked forward to picking up Jess’s story and spending time in her world. As the novel opens, Jess and her baby daughter Edie, have recently moved back home with her Mum. We learn that Jess had left home for university, but circumstances have forced her back to her home town.  This main narrative, set in Jess’s present, is interspersed with letters written by Jess to her baby. Each letter starts with ‘ I wanted you to know’ and through them we learn about the life she had at university, her relationship with Jake, and the unexpected pregnancy that changes everything.

Just as Jess discovers she’s pregnant, Jake is offered a tour with his band. Determined that Jake will follow his dream, the couple separate, but Jess’s own father left when she was young and she doesn’t want the same for her daughter. Jake’s contact with Jess peters out and she comes to the conclusion he is not interested in the pregnancy or having a relationship with Edie. By the time Edie is born, the couple are no longer in regular contact and Jess has to face up to the fact she will be a single mother. Jess approaches her post-natal check up feeling daunted and then receives the news that changes everything. Jess has breast cancer. Now, a new beginning that should be joyous and filled with hope for the future, is overshadowed by weighty decisions, difficult conversations and the horrible fear that she may have to leave Edie facing life without her.

I had a real sense of the time Jess has left ebbing away like the sands of an hourglass. As treatment options fail, Jess has so much left undone. I had a real sense of Jess’s devastation that she won’t be able to be go through all the milestones that mothers and daughter enjoy together. In order to be sure she’s there for these moments Jess begins the letters that will let her daughter know where she comes from and how much her Mother loved her. This is vital because we soon realise Jess’s relationship with her own Mum is far from perfect. They go through some rough patches, but we never doubt that her Mum loves her and wants to help, even if she does make some terrible mistakes in the way she handles things. She does one of the worst things you can do to someone with a terminal or life-limiting illness; she takes her power away. I was worried whether Jess would be strong enough to take it back.

The way she copes with Jake also made me root for Laura to find her voice. She is so worried about ruining Jake’s tour that she doesn’t keep him informed. His contact with her simply dries up and although she is hurt and shouldering her fears about becoming a mum by herself, she doesn’t contact him. Then as the shock of the cancer diagnosis hits she is even more paralysed. If she does let him know, and he cuts his dream short,  will he always resent her and his daughter. She doesn’t even know how he feels any more, but knows she wouldn’t want him to return to her because of the cancer. Realistically though, she needs to let him meet his daughter. She wants them to have a relationship and this is especially important if she does not respond to treatment.

However, the most compelling relationship for me was the friendship between Jess and Gemma. This novel is a love letter to female friendship and I liked that this relationship felt the most ‘fleshed out’ in the whole novel. Right from the start Gemma was backing Jess up while juggling a job and babysitting Edie when she’s not working. Where the other relationships gave complications, Gemma seems to know what Jess needs before anyone else. She counteracts Jess’s mum’s tendency to judge and make decisions that don’t include her. Instead she is quietly there all the time, and has an ability to sink into the background when Jess needs time alone or with Edie. Most importantly she encourages Jess but doesn’t take her choices away. She makes it clear that Jess needs to speak to Jake, but stays out of their relationship. When Jess’s mum oversteps the mark, Gemma gives her friend encouragement to speak and permission to be angry. Their relationship shows that our friends are often more supportive than family. It teaches us that our female friendships are often the long term relationships in our lives and that the best friends sustain each other, even in the most difficult situations.

I like that the last words In the book are Jess’s own in the form of her final letter to her daughter. I did have a lump in my throat reading some parts of this and at different points I thought how authentic the voice was, especially in Jess’s letter. Often, when reading or watching fictional accounts of illness I become frustrated by inaccuracies or events that are totally impossible. This comes from the life experiences I bring when reading a book. When reading this I felt it was well researched or that someone had used their own experiences to tell Jess’s story. I wasn’t surprised to read that Laura Pearson had a similar diagnosis of breast cancer because her experience shone through. The bewilderment and fear of those closest to Jess felt true to my experience; I lost my husband to the complications of multiple sclerosis when he was only 42 and I was 35. 

I remember two strong and very contrary feelings. On one hand I was constantly busy and overwhelmed with the paraphernalia of caring for someone who’s dying. I was panicked that time was slipping away from us and I resented it being spent dealing with feeding tubes, chest physiotherapy and the constant fear of infection. While other days I would feel paralysed in a bubble, living a weird parallel life where the same routine was replayed over and over, watching everyone else getting on with the real business of life. We became a small, committed unit with only one focus and as I read the novel I could see Jess’s loved ones doing the same. They drop out of normal, every day, life to focus on their loved one and as I was reading I was aware of the devastation they would feel if they lost Jess anyway. When the person you love becomes terminally ill, and you become their carer, the sense of loss after their death seems compounded by suddenly having no purpose. I went from caring for my husband 70+ hours a week to waking up with nothing to do all day. It complicates the grief. The loss becomes multiple; the person you love, role as spouse, job and purpose, structure and status. The final chapters of the novel brought this back to me. 

I was also heavily invested in Jess’s emotions, coping with the emotions of becoming a young, single Mum and then finding out that this new life may be cut brutally short. Jess barely has time to enjoy Edie, before she has to worry about leaving her. She has come to terms with her choice to postpone university and encourage Jake to follow his dream because she assumes, like we all do, that she has all the time in the world. She might not have time to pick up these parts of her life and she may not have time to settle into being a Mum. Questions constantly flash through her mind. If Jake returns, does he love her or is he only there because she’s so ill? How will he cope becoming a single Dad and who might he form relationships with in the future? Most heartbreaking of all; what if Edie doesn’t remember her? This is what prompts her to start writing. She wants to write down everything she thought or felt about her new baby and also pass on those bits of motherly wisdom that would be otherwise lost. Even if Edie does lose her Mum, she will have a constant sense of her through those letters and the pieces of advice she gives. Most importantly, she will know that at this crucial moment of her Mum’s life, she was so glad of her decision to have Edie and that Edie’s loss is uppermost in her mind. 

I read this book with a lump in my throat and a lot of memories in my heart. The reader always brings something to the book and in this case, my reading experience was more poignant because of my own loss and possibly because of the limitations due to my own long term health problems. I think the author has been so clever to write about a life-changing experience, but never let it become too heavy to read. Despite the heartbreak, there are moments of every day humour and I felt genuinely uplifted by the depiction of female friendship. In difficult times I have found that even where I’ve had a committed partner, it is my female friends who are always constant and hold me up when I can’t do it for myself. Jess and Gemma embody this and I found myself hoping that the author had a Gemma during her own illness. Mostly, I am very grateful that Laura Pearson had the bravery to write about something so close to her own experience, and to write about it with humour, honesty and raw emotion. 

The Benefit of Hindsight by Susan Hill

I love this series and always pop straight out to buy the new instalment. In this novel the crime being investigated is a burglary. A couple enjoying a quiet evening in their remote cottage are disturbed by a couple who are stranded after their car has broken down. While one of the couple shows the man to the phone, his husband strikes up a conversation with the girl. They have a cup of tea and talk about the artwork hanging around the house. The next week they receive a letter of thanks plus two tickets to see the ENO perform. Unfortunately, on their return they find their cottage burgled and their precious art collection gone. 

The detective solving this crime is Simon Serrailler and he makes a big decision early on by ordering a news blackout. His reasoning is that if all goes quiet the perpetrators will think they’ve got away with it and plan another burgla

ry. His plan backfires when local businessman and donor to the police, Declan McDermid and his wife return early from a charity reception to find their house being broken into. The target is their art collection, including priceless Warhol prints, but come the morning local doctor Cat Deerborn pops in for a coffee to find the couple tied up, beaten and bleeding. When his wife dies of her injuries will Serrailler’s decision be called into question? 

Simon Serrailler is intriguing as a central character. He doesn’t give anything away. I’m never sure what his thinking or motivation is. In the past I have shared his love interest’s frustrations as he doesn’t seem to need them at all. Even after this many novels I don’t fully know what to make of him. I suppose he fulfils the ‘flawed detective’ - wedded to work, unable to maintain a relationship, handsome and thoroughly inaccessible. Here Serrailler is given more emotional depth. He is now a wounded hero, struggling to accept a life-changing injury he received in the line of duty. The calm, cool surface he has always tried to maintain has always covered glimpses of anger and in this novel we finally see that surface crack. It seems he is only able to find peace of mind when drawing and as he starts to suffer chest pains, breathlessness and feelings of doom it becomes clear that a lifetime of bottling up his emotions will have consequences. I welcomed this aspect to his character, because it made him more accessible and human. 

 In the past I have always been drawn to his sister Cat and her family. They are the warm centre of these novels and her struggle to be the woman of the family, serve her patients and be Mum to her own kids. I was especially touched by her struggle nursing her terminally ill husband until his death earlier in the series. Here we find Cat struggling to reconcile various different parts of her life. She is one of the ‘middle’ people in society; coping with parents in declining health while still having children at home. Cat and Simon’s father is as judgemental as always, and continues to treat women as objects. Cat is torn between daughterly duty and the responsibility she feels for his wrongdoing. At work she is torn between principle and having a life outside her patients. Now working for a private GP company she is called upon by NHS colleagues and her own conscience to justify working in the private sector. Finally she is worried about Simon, but torn by loyalty to her new husband who happens to be the Chief Constable and Simon’s boss. 

It is one of Cat’s patients that caught my imagination and is one of the most intriguing parts of the novel. Carrie Pegwell is pregnant when Cat is first called out to see her part way into the novel, but Cat can’t detect any joy or expectancy. In fact she finds Carrie listless and depressed, while her husband is largely detached from the pregnancy and his wife. Carrie has become obsessed with the idea something is wrong with her baby yet hasn’t been for any of the recommended tests or scan. Cat is the first doctor she has seen, but even with reassurances Carrie will not accept her baby is healthy and her pregnancy normal. Cat suspects a fixation borne of anxiety, but can’t discount the fact that mums often have a sixth sense when it comes to their children. I found myself reading ‘just one more chapter’ to see what happened when the baby was born and where this strange couple fit into the larger story. 

I found the novel gripping enough to keep turning the pages and read it in a day (and one very late night). I enjoyed the progression of the characters lives, especially changes within the family dynamic as Cat’s children grow into adults. Towards the ending I did have that experience, peculiar to kindle books, where I raced on and on then hit the ending suddenly as if I’d come round a corner and hit a tree. It felt very abrupt and as if things were unfinished; Some characters were in limbo and the crimes went unpunished. I had to go back and read the last few chapters again to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. This could be a cliffhanger for the next novel, but could also be a comment on a life where not every ending is neatly tied up in a bow.