First Published: 2016
This is the story of a family.
The narrator is Charlotte, a twenty-nine-year-old woman who lives in the cottage that her stepfather left her mother when he died of cancer. Whitt, the stepfather, is often referred because he was a big influence on Charlotte and her sister Sally. Whit used to be married to Marissa, a marriage which he considered useful and something he was supposed to accept, and they had two children, Perry and Pip. Then he met Joan, and they fell in love.
Charlotte writes a blog about being a mum even though she is single and has no children. Her sister, Sally, is her best friend, and it seems that Sally has had some emotional trouble in the past. Charlotte has a relationship with Everett, their neighbour and caretaker, but Charlotte knows that for Everett there is nothing serious about what they have.
The novel starts with a reference to Whit and his family, and how one summer his mother told him after breakfast that she was going to her room to die, and she did. Whit died a few years ago of cancer, something which he hid from his family and came as a shock. In present time Charlotte tells her mother about writing a biography about Laurel. Then the narrator tells us about Laurel, who was the woman Pip was engaged to. The way the story is told seems to imply that Laurel and Pip are dead, but we don't know. Before meeting Laurel, Joan, Sally and Charlotte were surprised that Pip had got engaged just a few months after meeting Laurel, and they seemed to think that they wouldn't like Laurel. Then Laurel came to visit with Pip, and it seems that they all fall for her. Laurel is a writer and met Pip on a skiing holiday. Laurel was shortlisted for the Olympic Games as a skier, but then she had an accident in which her sister died.
I am enjoying the book. I love how Charlotte tells the stories of the family and gives us her impressions of everything.
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