The novel is the fifth by Josephine Hart, an Irish author living in London, explores the relationship of Jack and his sister Kate and their parents. Jack is a divorced psychiatrist living in London. We know he is still connected to his first wife because the story starts with his agreement to babysit his wife’s children. We know that Jack’s marriage never resulted in children and the reader knows that another reason the marriage failed is his sister, Kate. What and why Kate is to Jack is really unclear but the reader is afraid that they know the reason. Jack returns to Ireland for the sale of the family home where the past is finally faced and terrible truths emerge. The story is about the damage done in families and how lives our rebuilt from memory, half truths and what we what the truth to be. It is a quick psychological read. I liked it well enough. I bought this one in 2007 because it was on Nancy Pearl’s list THE PEARL 100, as a book about brother and sisters.

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I read a review of this when it first came out that instantly made me want to read it, to find out what happened, but somehow I didn't find it till recently. It's a psychological thriller: what happened that day when Jack and Kate were kids and their father told them to sit in their chairs in the hall, and then they went to London to live with an uncle and their father left their lives? It's revealed gradually, along with how they're doing in the present. Jack seems okay, a psychiatrist, but Kate is more fragile. They're unusually close... maybe some incest in the mix? Both of them have constructed their lives to avoid passion and emotions. Several other characters in the book comment on the destructiveness of passion. Several of Jack's patients show up for appointments and provide windows into other emotional lives. Then a chain of events begins that takes Jack back to his childhood, and reveals what happened. ( )

This is a chilling psychological drama and a great read. Jack Harrington is a middle aged psychiatrist in London. He and his younger sister live in the shadow of a terrible childhood tragedy, but what really happened that day when they lost their parents and home? ( )

Jack Harrington, a successful psychiatrist based in London, is divorced. He dedicates his life to helping other people get over their past. The irony is that Jack and his beautiful writer sister Kate share one hell of a past themselves.

The orderliness of Jack’s life was disrupted by three separate incidents: his ex-wife suffers a heart attack; his childhood home in Ireland is put up for sale; and newly-engaged but mentally off-kilter Kate takes a turn for the eerie.

The first incident leads into a look at Jack’s relationship with the women who entered his life (and his bed), something which I initially considered irrelevant. It was, in fact, a subtly woven way of informing the reader how the relationship between and with our parents shape our own relationships in adulthood.

The second incident opens the door to his shared past with the fragile Kate, whom he's been "looking after" ever since the tragedy of their childhood that took their parents away from them.

Eventually, we learn that their mother is dead and their father is living his own separate life in America. Eventually, Jack returns to the house and is forced to confront the truth of what happened the day their father left the house and never came back.

This novel is too short for me to say any more without giving too much away. However, it's one of those stories where you have to pay attention to details because they all point in the direction of the big picture.

Author Josephine Hart teases with the little details at first, but when Jack returns to the house, the trickle becomes a torrent.

"About time." you think. The length of the book is just right for the mood it invokes. If it's as long as the other book on this page, I'd probably be more disturbed than I need to be by the end of it.

(2006)