Earlier chapters alternate between the present and a timeline starting in 1984 that catches up with the present.
The present - Jetsetting London lawyer Vivienne Shager, 27 today, has a half-brother Mark, 19, and step-father Gil. Gil and her mother separated a decade ago - Vivienne doesn't know why. Her relationship with her mother Gina (a successful 46 y.o. salon-owner) is complicated. When Vivienne was 5 she thought a male figurine that her mother kept hidden in her bedroom depicted her absent father. Vivienne is successful - "She was, by anyone's standards, a strikingly lovely young woman. With almond-shaped eyes, blue as a summer sky, and a full, sloppy mouth (her description), she was so entrancing that her friends swore she could hypnotize at a hundred paces" (p.7). While celebrating her birthday she has had a near-fatal heart attack and needs a heart transplant within a year. She moves to a downstairs room in her mother's house in Kesterley. She wants to know who her father is.
1984 - Londoners Shelley (teacher) and Jack (vet) inherit a run-down farm 15 miles inland from Kesterley. They move there with their little kids, including Hannah. They find figurines of a couple in a chest. Josh is born. Some relatives move to the farm. By 1989 their saving have gone. Neighbour Sir Humphrey Bleasdale and his twin sons are nasty. His wife Jemmie is ok. Bella Slager, friend of Jemmie, runs a tourist office. Her daughter is Gina! Jack falls down the stairs and dies. An accident? The male figurine disappears. By 1995 the farm has diversified, survived. There's a rumour that Jack was having an affair. Hannah, 15, disappears for 2 weeks. When she returns she has the idea of making part of the farm into a halfway house for 16 y.o. kids coming out of care. One of the Bleasdale boys is murdered - he was involved with shady financial dealings. 2 others are imprisoned.
The present - Vivienne meets Josh, a 30-something vet who asks her out despite her health - she wears a device that restarts her heart, which stops if she gets excited. "His eyes were remarkable, almost unsettling in their intensity, for he wasn't just looking at her, she realized, he seemed to be seeing or reading her" (p.238). She learns about the farm which now has 30 youths in residence. When she visits it she sees the figurine. Was Jack her father?
Gina says that in 1989 Charles Beasdale made her pregnant. He made her drive him to the farm where he scared Jack and stole the figurine as a trophy, giving it to Gina to make her complicit. Jack wasn't meant to die. So Vivienne's father caused the death of Josh's father. Stella's informed. Her now friend Jemmie had said that Charles was in New York (!) that night. Josh drives Vivienne to meet Charles. Josh punches him. When they get back they have sex for the first time - "the most potent and transcending sensation she'd ever known ... moving with him as they journeyed slowly, blissfuly all the way to the stars". She moves in with him. Gil moves back in with Gina - she'd hated herself too much before.
Vivienne follows the vlog of Jim Lynskey, a student who's in a situation like hers. She FaceTimes him. They talk about faith. He wants to start a donor campaign - Save9Lives. Vivienne's friends fund it. Vivienne becomes pregnant (!) - she has to change drugs and is taken off the transplant queue. They marry. She meets Lord and Lady Bleasdale - her grandparents (though they don't know that). A year after her first heart attack, Jack is born. She's hospitalised for a month, her heart stopping several times. They move to the farm. A donor heart becomes available, then the donor's family change their mind. She dies while having a pump put in. In the epilogue a month later we learn that she'd written a letter for each of Jack's birthdays up to 18.
A multi-generational family saga and an individual's fight for life come together. A few "Romance" passages don't work for me. The interview with Sarah was moving. In some other sections I felt manipulated, though with the stakes high throughout the (430+ page) book I guess that's inevitable. The farm's evolution interested me. Jim Lynskey was real - he died at 23. Half-brother Mark doesn't feature much. Some of the plot details (the figurines for example) seem a little contrived, I never quite understood the Gina/Gl separation, and I'm surprised that Vivienne and Josh risked her getting pregnant.
Other reviews
- Sarah Collins (There were parts I was annoyed by. Shelley’s chapters at Deerwood farm felt a little bit too idyllic and cheesy in places and I was willing this novel to get to the point. This is a book that may feel slow in places, it may feel like there is a bit too much happening that feels forced together in the end, but it is worth a read)
- tuckerthereader (Both the cover and the title scream thriller and this book is anything but that ... because this book is more of a literary/contemporary fiction than a mystery/thriller. ... I don’t like to read sad books that often but when I do I want them to be the good kind of sad and this book was exactly that.)
- Susan Roberts
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