Something might happen by Julie Myerson-warning plot reveal!!

[jimmychoos]

Ok, we said we'd come back to this once a few people had had a chance to read it.

I found it the most affecting book I have read in a long time and keep thinking about it. I read it at a tricky time - the anniversary of my Dad's death, which made it even more resonant for me. I think it's fantastic on the ways we deal with grief - the no-man's land between a death and a funeral when you can be so overwhelmed that you can slip out of your normal life and relationships and behave in ways that are quite unlike your normal self. It's a book all about loss, of a friend, a child, I think also of the narrator's self as person, as a mother and partner. It's beautifully written - the way she conjures up Livvy almost made me long for a small baby to cart around with me! I'd be intereste dto hear what others made of it.

Agree batters, I read on horrified as I realised not only was Rosa not going to turn up at the funeral (which would've been a bit cliched but what I thought might be the outcome...) but that she was dead. It just seemed so brutal and then the bit where they bring Rosa home was so moving and sad beyond belief

I think I read it a bit fast - but then it was very gripping. I did think it odd that there didn't seem to be much focus on Tess's relationship with Lennie, and how she would miss this now that Lennie was dead. Also I didn't think Tess seemed too scared really - especially since someone had brutally murdered her best friend.

Do you think Tess did it? The back of the book says something about hints being dropped throughout and there is a big one about Tess having had a medical training and about how the heart had been removed surgically.

Also, since there wasn't much focus on Tess's relationship with Lennie (apart from moments she'll miss) - would Tess have gone off with Lacey anyway?

As I say - I may have read it a bit quickly. The stuff about Rosa was genuinely tragic and made me cry.

I finished this book this morning, having found it difficult to put down. Having never cried at a book before, I was surprised at how upset I was at the disappearance of Rosa. It just seemed too much on top of the other stuff. Tess's involvement in the murder? That's an interesting view, and although I picked up on some "clues" I felt there were other suspects too. I wondered if the boy had any involvement in Rosa's drowning?

Finished this last night. Oh, Rosa'a death was so sad, agree that the way they dealt with the body was beautiful. I was shocked though.

Kept thinking Tess was just Julie Myerson though, couldn't get her image out of my mind, she's quite dippy and sweet as well. The family must have been based on hers.

I, too, just assumed Tess had done it but she probably didn't. It wasn't the point of the book to find out though I suppose.

PS what are the 'groynes' (sp?)? Is that what the girl (Rosa I assume) on the cover is standing on?

I stayed awake til 4am this morning reading this! (sorry, JimmyChoos and Batters, i did say I'd read it weeks ago!). Completely compelling, and then I couldn't sleep for feeling haunted, what brilliant writing.
If Tess did do it, I don't think she did it in her own mind, IYSWIM. There is the reference to her 'premonition', but then the children see Lennie, and she also has premonitions about other patients. I don't think she did it! If she did, maybe she killed Rosa too - after Rosa had told her that Lennie had been telling her things...but that's far too Machiavellian for the style of novel.

But fear didn't stop her going alone to the beach hut at night? And didn't the detective say that murder was never completely random....

I loved the way she gave it such a strong sense of place, too - and what an effect on the characters the season and weather have - but without any cheesy pathetic fallacy.

Groynes are breakwaters - yes, what she's standing on.

Need to resurect this as i've been thinking of this book loads recently.

What gets me is the way that it's the first time I've every read a book where the central character is breast-feeding. (I am currently breastfeeding hence the interest). It's the reason WHY she has to take Livvy everywhere obviously (was this the author's reasoning?) but it also gives away loads to Tess's state of mind.

Yes she has that affair - but her daughter witnesses it. And then she feeds the baby afterwards and the bloke watches. I know loads of women breastfeed in public all the time and clearly it's far from intimate. But for a man to watch a women breastfeeding is very intimate (in a non-sexual way) and for that man to NOT be the father is quite odd IMO. When DP watches me feed it's very bonding as a family but another bloke would be soooo strange.

Is anyone else struck by this?