Helpful Score: 3
This book kept me turning the pages right through to the end. One character, Lorna, was so easy to hate it was unbelievable! She was such a conniving, underhanded bitch! Isobel, her sister, was as easy to like as Lorna was to hate. The contrast between the two provided some tension to the story that kept building through to the end. The way it ended I could easily see a sequel being written to it. i hope there will be as I am left wondering what havoc will come from the events depicted in the final chapter.
Helpful Score: 3
Mary Sheepshanks is tops at combining British chick lit with the family saga. This book rocked beyond my expectations. The sequel, written under her pen name Mary Nickson, is Secrets and Shadows. This story so intriguing that I searched out a rare copy of the sequel through Amazon's used book service. My neighbor, who is of an older generation, also loved this book and wanted to read the sequel.
The story moves from a family in the English countryside who are working on a theater project in an old building on their property to their desperate plight to remain a family as affairs develop. It's got arts, family, romance, deception, quirky characters and just plain heart.
Put this one on your wish list and hope that the next person to get it doesn't put it on their keeper list.
The story moves from a family in the English countryside who are working on a theater project in an old building on their property to their desperate plight to remain a family as affairs develop. It's got arts, family, romance, deception, quirky characters and just plain heart.
Put this one on your wish list and hope that the next person to get it doesn't put it on their keeper list.
Helpful Score: 2
Mary Sheepshanks has written the follow-up to this book under her maiden name, Mary Nickson. "Secrets and Shadows" follows Izzy and Giles 6 years after the events in "Off Balance", and it's wonderful to finally find out what happened to those characters.
