This took me by surprise—very pleasantly so.

When I read the ‘blurb’, I was expecting a gentle, ambling story about a wife struggling to decide whether or not to continue being a trophy wife to her wealthy husband and stay-at-home mum to her two young boys or to feed her artistic talent and need to express her creativity by going back to work for her former employer.

But it had an awful lot more meat on the bones. The anguish she experienced went further than just her: it was shared by her husband who feared her proximity to her former boss (was he her ex-lover?) would rock the increasingly unstable marriage. His paranoia wasn’t helped by his own work problems. It was also shared by her sons, who found it hard to cope with a mum who just didn't seem to be around very much. It was even shared by her former boss, who, while determined to win her back to his growing company, doubted his confidence in being able to keep her with him.

The repercussions of her decision echo loudly, resonantly, and dramatically.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It was classy, sophisticated, well written, reasonably well edited, and it was easy to put yourself into each of the main characters’ shoes to see their points of view and feel their passion, whatever its focus. You didn’t necessarily have to like the character: there are one or two undesirables and one or two (deliberately) irksome ones. It was easy to feel an emotion (good or bad) for all the characters; there were none who could be ignored.

This book was about decisions and what-ifs. I found it hard to put down and that’s always a good sign, I think!
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