by Penelope Lively

I found this on my Mum’s kitchen table and started reading it just to pass the time while waiting for her, and then she had to wait for me while I finished the chapter, and then I had to take the book home with me, because I was hooked. The joy of this book is not that it’s a hugely intriguing mystery or anything, but precisely the opposite: it tells a tale of what happens to the humdrum lives of everyday folk when one small thing changes. Lively has put the ‘butterfly effect’ of one small event (a butterfly batting its wings) cascading into major upheaval (a hurricane) to perfect use here, with the mugging of a woman for her handbag causing all sorts of mayhem in the lives of many people. Light-hearted, well written and entertaining.

©Julia Welstead 2012