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The book moves along as Lila struggles with her feelings and Rae struggles with a pregnancy without the man she is devoted to. In a simple world, the two women would become best friends, Lila would spill her secret to Rae, and she would coach Rae to have a relationship with her daughter that Lila never had. But life doesn't work that way -- and that's as much as I'll say. Don't miss the brand-new six-part series from the No.1 Sunday Times bestselling author Dilly Court! Leila and Rachel meet, when Rachel gets her tea leaves read at a local shop. Two women who seemly are so different (one is younger, the other middle aged. One has a terrible boyfriend, the other a loving husband.), find that they have much in common in the way of searching for fulfillment.
The publisher's description of this book as "fierce and beautiful" is very accurate. It's intense and mystical and romantic and full of threatened violence. It's all real, but it also has a fantastical element because some of the women in the book believe they can see into the future or feel things so deeply from the past that the past is still alive to them. Originally published in 1985, this is the fifth novel Hoffman wrote. She is known for magical realism, and this book has far less of that than later novels. Instead, it's a light brush of magic—so light that you might even miss it if you're not looking for it. Piers says he wants to help pay off the family’s debts. But how can Rosalind be sure he isn’t out to take what is his and leave them all homeless? being seen as she sneaks through the kitchen, The buy is given food and a drink and a bed for the night but what is going on........... To me the characters were like something out of a Jane Eyre or Daphne Du Maurier novel, and I could often see myself imagining Judy Dench as Lady Pentelow, and Keira Knightly as Rosalind…the jury is still out in my mind as to who would play Piers!
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The characters were not my favorite. I don't think I felt connected to any of them, aside from Leila, as I personally connected with her story and her loss. Otherwise, if it weren't for that, I'd have to say all the characters are a little kooky 🤪
Magical realism is usually my jam, but I found these elements this time around to be forced and, well, kind of annoying. I was unable to suspend my disbelief enough for some of the more far-fetched devices, and instead of relating to the characters and pulling for them I found myself rolling my eyes and speed reading. Second, the characters all carry pain, even the "bad boy" with the "good girl." And no one is that one-dimensional. The "good" girl is not always good. The "bad" boy is not always bad. And the attempts to connect and reconnect, even when they don't want to, show their desire to overcome the pain of the past and move into a more functional future. The fortune teller who overcomes all her own impulses to the contrary to make herself available to a single girl facing childbirth alone is an excellent example of this. Also, I have a real issue when people in relationships ice out their partner, it's just a button with me, so as Lila tries to face her demons alone, I just wanted to shake her. Tell your super nice and understanding husband!!! Also, watching Rae wallow in a bad relationship made me very tired, another button with me. Don't miss the heartwarming, moving novel from the No.1 Sunday Times bestselling author Dilly Court!Abandoned by their parents and left to fight for themselves, the children comprising of headstrong Rosalind Carey, sister Patricia, brother Bertie who stands to inherit the castle, bookworm Walter and their grandfather Sir Lucien who is suffering with dementia after a long career in the Navy. Anyway, Rae is struggling and she goes to a tea leaf reader nearby named Lila. We then learn about Lila's life, which parallels Rae's. Lila also moved from the NYC area to Los Angeles with a man, and that man is pretty much all of her life. However, they have a loving relationship that's deeply supportive even after 20 years. He's built them stability through opened an auto repair shop. The problem is that Lila has a secret she never told her husband, and it's been eating her alive for decades: the secret is that she had a baby girl at age 17 or so, and was forced to give her up for adoption. Written by Alice Hoffman, this is the story of two women: Rae and Lila. Rae Perry is a defiant teenager from a well-off Newton, Massachusetts home with a mostly-absent, career-obsessed father and a mother who is trying her best but not succeeding. Rae is madly, hopelessly in love with Jessup, four years her senior and the quintessential bad boy. They run away before Rae finishes high school and after five states in seven years, they end up in Southern California. And it is here that Rae's life forever changes—with or without Jessup. Meanwhile, 40-something Lila Grey is happily married to Richard, but she harbors deep-seated secrets about her past, secrets she vows Richard will never know. Because if he ever found out what she had done when she was 18, he couldn't possibly love her. But when Lila, who dabbles in fortune-telling, meets Rae, those secrets erupt inside Lila's soul and their fire will not be tamed. Then things blow up, and he leaves her. Not necessarily for another woman, though that's a possibility. It's mostly because he got tired of how secondary she was to him. Of course, that's what he insisted on, but people aren't always fair about their motives. The story starts with Rae and Jessup in the Los Angeles area. He's doing odd jobs for a film studio and claiming he wants to become a producer, which Rae knows will never happen, but is afraid to confront him about. She's working as an assistant for a kind man who's a distributor of art-house films. On the surface, all is okay in the sense that they're making their rent, they go to the beach on Sundays, and they have a life.
Piers says he wants to help pay off the family’s debts. But how can Rosalind be sure he isn’t out to take what is his and leave them all homeless? Only a closely-guarded secret will convince Rosalind she can trust Piers to protect her family – and her fragile heart.
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This is an early Hoffman that I had never read before. (If it had been my first, I would not have read most everything she has written since.) The magic is there, even when it misfires.
A compelling story of broken people who find their lives intertwined in unexpected ways. It may not be her best book, but it's still an interesting story with characters who you sometimes want to hate, but over the course of the book, you really start to care about them. In particular if you have ever had to deal with anxiety, this book will really strike a chord. It's also refreshingly realistic and candid about the difficulties that go with pregnancy and birth. Writing-wise, the perspective meanders, but never too far off course. Hoffman's later work is much more honed in this respect, but this book has an emotional rawness that some of her later books are missing.
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As ever, Hoffman's prose is for the most part, a delight. Her devotion to location, description of climate and flora, as well as simple, everyday fancy does neatly embroider a mostly mediocre novel. The story primarily follows the life of Rae, a young woman who hooked up with a "bad boy" older guy while she was in high school, stole money from her mother, and fled home. She and the guy, Jessup, are on the road about 7 years later, still moving from town to town when he gets tired of doing a dead-end job in one place or another. He's mean to her but not violent. More like belittling and cruel, and with a threat of violence. She loves him, though it's not really clear why she would, except that it's a childhood infatuation that she never had a chance to outgrow because he is her entire life.
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