I picked this up at a hostel, wanting something different to read (I had just started Vanity Fair).

The blurb on the back pretty much gives you the whole plot, Alicia loses her mother and husband in a short space of time. With her husband's death, she also has to come to terms with the fact that her former life is over. Craig's death has left her with debts, forcing her to sell up and move her family out of London into her childhood home.

Moving back to the her home town results in a mixed bag of feelings for her, while she will be able to grieve in a familiar place, she also will come face-to-face with her sister-in-law, with whom her husband had an affair. Indeed the two women can't be left together, as a previous violent encounter proved, leaving her brother, Robert, caught between them.

Alicia decides to turn her mother's charity shop into a space to sell her art, as a means of supporting her family. The arrival of Alicia's son, Nat, is a relief for her, though the feud between Alicia and Sabrina rears its ugly head again.

Sabrina's daughter from her first marriage, Annabelle, is no longer the sweet 12-year-old girl who had a mutual crush on Nat. She is a 15-year-old girl, off the rails, and shows no bones about how much she wants her step-cousin. Things come to ahead when, after a rave, she accuses term of rape, blowing the two families apart again.

Rather in the style of Jodi Picault, this is not a black and white story. The victim is a promiscuous, drug-taking 15-year-old. The accused, a 17-year-old boy waiting for an Oxbridge interview and a career in law like his father. Their mothers can't separate the past with the present, not helped by the fact that Craig is dead, and has left feelings unresolved.

Well, to be honest, this is not a book I would have bought, too much realistic drama for me. The author does try to present all sides of an extremely difficult situation. For fans of Jodi Picault's family dilemmas and dramas. ( )