NEW RELEASE
After I Left You - Alison Mercer (2014)
When Anna Jones arrives at Oxford in the early 90s to begin her degree, she is soon taken in by the enigmatic Clarissa Hayes and her circle of friends - Keith, Barnaby, Victor and Meg. And it is Victor who grabs Anna's eye. But as Anna prepares for her final day, what should have been a night of celebration turns into a night that will haunt her. A chance encounter with Victor some twenty years later forces Anna to face up to her time at Oxford, that fateful night and the demise of her group of friends. Split between the 90s and the present day and told in five parts, I really enjoyed the structuring of the novel which gave the story momentum and gravitas. Although elements of the plot were fairly predictable, others were hugely unexpected and the events of that final night at Oxford were absorbing. After such an explosive event, I did feel as if the novel drifted in the final part and the conclusion was less climactic than I would have liked. But still this is a novel rich in pathos, drama and nostalgia. (JC)
After I Left You, by Alison Mercer, is about a woman facing up to the secrets in her past. The summary says: "Anna has not been back to Oxford since her last summer at university, seventeen years ago. She tries not to think about her time there, or the tightly knit group of friends she once thought would be hers forever. She has almost forgotten the fierce sting of betrayal, the heartache, the secret she carries around with her, the last night she spent with them all. Then a chance meeting on a rainy day in London brings her past tumbling back into her present, and Anna is faced with remembering the events of that summer and the people she left behind..." After I Left You is out in January 2014.