by Maggie O’Farrell

Like all great stories, this novel has you intrigued within the first page, and keeps you held in suspense until the last. Set in the lush heat of India and the cold light of Edinburgh, three generations of family deception are methodically peeled back like layers of a rotten onion, each new exposure bringing a harsher sting to the eyes. Maggie O’Farrell tells the sorry tale with her exquisitely lyrical flow of words, which makes it hard to put the book down at any point. I read this so quickly that I felt bereft. Of course I now have her Costa 2010 award winning novel, “The hand that first held mine” by my bedside.

©Julia Welstead 2011