I absolutely loved this. A story of two women whose lives become connected after the younger one, Helen, decides that Liz is her half sister, abandoned by Helens mother some thirty years before and sets out to reunite the family. What Barr manages so well is to create a constant ominous undertone throughout the novel while still telling a tale with humour and warmth. This is funny and bittersweet and thoroughly absorbing. Highly recommended.
Elizabeth Greene is devastated when her boyfriend of ten years leaves her for someone else.
After a night of drowning her sorrows leads to an unexpected one-night stand, Elizabeth finds herself pregnant, alone and vulnerable.
Helen has just discovered she has a sister she didn't know she had. Bored with her privileged life in France and driven by a need to gain her parents' approval, Helen sets out to find her sister and reunite her with her long-lost mother. When her search leads her to Elizabeth the two women become closely linked. But their connection to one another is founded on a dark deception, with the truth having extreme consequences...
Emily Barr worked as a journalist in London but always hankered after a quiet room and a book to write. She went travelling for a year, which gave her an idea for a novel set in the world of backpackers in Asia. This became Backpack, an adult thriller which won the WH Smith New Talent Award, and she has since written eleven more adult novels published in the UK and around the world.
The One Memory of Flora Banks is her first novel for young adults. She lives in Cornwall with her partner and their children.