'A sweeping multi-generational tale that will catch your heart.' SUNDAY TIMES NO 1 BESTSELLER KATIE FFORDE
'Josa Young writes with warmth and wisdom about the complexities of motherhood in this captivating tale of four generations of women that sweeps eighty years of English history. Her eye for period detail is masterly and her characters so vivid they dance from the page and into our hearts.' RACHEL HORE
'Young's novel traces an English family over 80 years and four generations, focusing mainly on its women's tangled experiences of family life... it effectively emphasizes the bonds, traps and pleasures of motherhood (and) Young shows a finely calibrated understanding of English class and gender differences, and has a good sense of time and place. A well-written historical novel that will entertain readers with its sharp, insightful observations.' KIRKUS REVIEWS
What happens when two fractured families collide in the dynamic social landscape of the last eighty years?
An accidental inheritance changes everything for an insecure young man. The mysterious death of a new mother damages the precious continuity of family love. And a gap-year student's misguided romance ends in life-changing disaster. Or does it?
SARAH Is the courage she displays during WWII enough to carry her through a long life of love and loss?
MELISSA Living in her own fairytale, will she find the strength she needs to survive reality?
DAMSON Rejecting her background following an appalling ordeal, can this driven young woman ever find her way home?
MELLITA Who is she really, and will she deliver the one precious gift that will heal all their wounds?
'Although the cast of characters is large, and the author has written the book in such a way that the reader identifies with all of them, Damson Hayes is the star of the show. It is with Damson that the book starts – as she suffers a hideous ordeal – and it is with her that we finish, and it is Damson’s journey more than that of any other character that holds the novel together. I really don’t want to give too much away, but her story is full of drama, pain, suffering, steadfastness and ultimately redemption.' HELEN WALTERS