Longlisted for the 2007 Romantic Novel of the Year Award. The winner will be announced at the end of April 2007. A truly wonderful tale of friendship and love unexpectedly found. Within it is the story of a past unravelled through diaries, of hardship, tragedy and illegitimacy and throughout all of it are sub-plots, great characters, much incident, all in all a magnificent, full-blooded novel to curl up and lose yourself in. You’ve got to read it.
Kate Hutchinson and her husband Simon are Londoners, performing the balancing act of raising two young children in a cramped terraced house whilst holding down stressful full-time jobs. When everything starts to come apart at the seams they decide to uproot and move to the Suffolk coast. Sacrificing her career, her friends and her independence, Kate battles to make a new life for the family under her mother-in-law’s roof – while they search in vain for the perfect home.
Months later, with Simon still working all hours and the strains of living with his mother beginning to tell, Kate is questioning the wisdom of their move. Then one evening, out walking, she stumbles upon the house of her dreams, a beautiful place, full of memories – but tantalizingly out of reach. It belongs to a frail old lady, Agnes, and the two women become close friends. As Kate unravels the dying woman’s story, she is amazed to discover how much it echoes her own. And as past and present intertwine, Kate is given the strength and inspiration to reforge her own life.
‘A beautifully written and magical novel about life, love and family…tender and funny, warm and wise. I loved it!’ Cathy Kelly
‘What a treat! I devoured it. It’s so very real and utterly unputdownable’ Chris Manby
‘Warm, very true to life and totally engrossing’ Jenny Colgan
Author
About Rachel Hore
Rachel Hore worked in London publishing for many years before moving with her family to Norwich. She is married to writer D. J. Taylor and they have three sons.
