NEW RELEASE
The House We Grew Up In - Lisa Jewell (2013)
Meg has returned to her family home after the death of her mother, Lorelei. The place is a mess, and with her siblings and father scattered around the globe, this may be the first time they have seen each other for quite a while. The story then backtracks to the early 1980s when the free-spirited Lorelei was giving her four children a wholesome and creative upbringing. This is the sort of book that works best when you don't know much about the characters going in. As the story unfolds, it is revealed how the family slowly fell apart after a tragedy one Easter Sunday. Each and every revelation builds to make a very powerful novel with compelling, complicated characters. It's a superb read.
The House We Grew Up In, by Lisa Jewell, is centred around a family tragedy. The summary says: "Meet the Bird Family: So far, all four children have had an idyllic childhood: a cottage in a country village with a warm cosy kitchen filled with love and laughter, and sun-drenched afternoons in its rambling garden. But a tragedy lies in store for the Birds: a tragedy that strikes one Easter weekend, and which is so devastating that, almost imperceptibly, it begins to tear the family apart. The years pass, the children become adults, make new relationships, and begin to develop their own quite separate lives. Soon it's almost as though they've never been a family at all. Almost. But not quite. Because something has happened that will call them home, back to the house they grew up in - and to what really happened that Easter weekend all those years ago." The House We Grew Up In is out in July.