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A really interesting premise that comes out of nowhere, messes with a readers brain, and leaves one more than a little awed at the creative mind that inspired it.
With a writing style that reminds this reader of Joanne Trollope, this story is a blend of family and relationship dynamics, hidden secrets, and many levels of emotional crises of what feels like contemporary (and privileged) upper-middle class suburbia in the UK.
Honor Wharton is thirty-three years old, a mother, a wife, a lover of obscure literature, as well as a successful children’s picture book author. Her husband Tom is a mildly disengaged financier, whose long hours at work have left him somewhat removed from what Honor considers to be the core of their life – their family, currently consisting of their beautiful four year old daughter Chloe. And a desire, deep in Honor’s uncooperative biological core, to bear another child.
Honor and Tom, unbeknownst to the reader, are about to face a major upheaval (no spoilers here) that will change their lives and pivot this tale in an entirely new direction. Well worth a read, this quickly develops into an interesting, twisty, and often sweet story, with plenty of surprises and a lingering wistfulness that this reader found both thoughtful and heartrending.
With characters that are not always likable — who make mistakes (sometimes huge ones) and are not above telling a falsehood or two — a reader would be hard-pressed not to empathize, as we witness first-hand crushing fallibility and weakness, laced with aching vulnerabilities, clawing into the darkest tender corners any human heart (when faced with similar challenges) would likely harbor.
And as the reader will soon discover, this fresh take on the savage unpredictability of time, spawning a desperate pursuit of both love, and life itself, perhaps seeks nothing but, at the end of it all, a “world less hideous, the minutes less leaden”.
A great big thank you to the publisher, the author for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.
