Tuesday 21 May 2013
Its
1964 and Maggie wakes up in a mental hospital with no recollection of why she
is there. Her memories are fuzzy and she is desperate to put all the pieces of
the puzzle together and get some answers to this mystery. In the present day
however, Jonathan and his wife are expecting their first baby. All is not well and
Jonathan feels panicked and unsure of the type of father he will become. He has
difficulties also in his job as a teacher. His relationship with his own father
is fractured and awkward and Jonathan feels he can never be good enough in his
father’s eyes. When Jonathan’s father dies, a detective starts asking questions
about crimes that happened before Jonathan was born and Maggie and Jonathan’s stories
become interweaved as the two mysteries collide and provide answers that turn both their lives
around in a way neither could imagine.
I love
the way this story was told, with flashbacks to Maggie’s life both before her
time in the psychiatric ward and to her struggle with her memory loss. Some
things for Maggie are too painful to remember. Jonathan’s story is one of a man
who is still trying to find his place in the world and within his family, striving
for acceptance. This is a beautifully told story that sees the characters deal
with grief, pain and fear. It looks at the stigma around mental illness and the expectation that one should be able to move on from grief without help or support. However, it is essentially a story about love and
the bonds that cannot be broken, no matter what life holds. A beautifully written book with wonderful and complex characters who are thrown together by a chain of events that neither has any control over. With a beautiful book cover too, this book is one I'd highly recommend.
I received an ARC of this book to provide an honest and impartial review. My review also appeared on the Lovereading site.
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