This book gripped me from the first. This is a tale set in the Cevennes, a still isolated area of Southern France. Here are farms - 'Mas', still worked by the families who have lived here for generations, or else bought by foreigners from England, the Low Countries, who want to 'live the dream'.

We meet alcoholic Aramon, his lonely sister Audrun, who are Cevennes through and through. We meet long term English residents Veronica and her lover Kitty. And then we meet Anthony, Veronica's brother, who thinks he'd like to move to France.

All have secrets. All have lives that are in some ways unsatisfactory. And from the moment that Anthony arrives in France, a series of events, with unlooked for and utterly unwanted consequences is set in motion.

I was involved, even as I found each character in some way unlikeable - there are no dashing heroes and heroines here.

I believed in the lives of each of these characters, and wanted to know how the story would unfold. I relished the description of this part of the Cevennes. I read on willingly, enjoying the story, and how it was told. ( )

Just no

Book without a purpose. Just sad to have spent time reading it.
I have no more words to explain it. ( )

Doesn’t every love need to create for itself its own protected space? And if so, why don’t lovers understand better the damage trespass can do?

A brooding, slow-moving, intoxicating novel about two sets of aging brothers and sisters—the close-knit British pair Veronica and Anthony, and the at-daggers French pair Audrun and Aramon—whose paths slowly intertwine, entangle, and irrevocably change the course of everyone’s lives. Tremain is not afraid to explore the darkest corners of love and hate, in families and in romantic relationships both, as well as all the emotions and grey areas in between; there are some tough topics unraveled in these pages, almost in slow motion and in very cinematic language—in nearly pitch-perfect counterpoint, giving the reader insight into very different minds facing the same pasts and presents in wholly dissonant ways, in almost poetic tune with the ebbing and flowing of the siblings’ shared season spent in the French countryside, and with the ebbing and flowing of life itself. The way Tremain is able to straddle various genres and themes—psychological fiction, mystery, crime, family drama, inheritance laws, art—and never pigeonhole herself also shows her immense skill, especially with the weight of all she juggles here and yet is able to render very quiet, very still, and almost claustrophobic, like a chamber play or a Bergman film. ( )

Made me want to read more. ( )

3.5/5 ( )