Three friends all in the same age group of forties. Three husbands all twenty years their senior. Now after a decade or more of marriage, we find their lives disintegrating with husbands either looking elsewhere, drunk and disorderly or just disinterested in their wives and families. Trying to at least keep their children within the family unit is hard. Most of the children are grown up and finding it difficult/impossible to cope with such fathers. They prefer to stay away from the family home rather than seeing their fathers. How the three wives come up with a scheme to try to bring some sense to their wayward husbands as well as keep their families close to them is a heart breaking and funny story here.
Lorna is the only one who is actually divorced. Gloria seems not able to let go of her permanently drunk husband however much of a no gooder he is and Rosalind seems to always make some kind of excuse for her philandering husband. Despite Lorna's husband being out of the scene and shacked up with a much younger woman, Lorna still yearns for the marriage that was and does not seem to be able to let go.
A surprise inheritance in the form of a country house and the arrival of Nathan on the scene seems to be the catalyst that sets inadvertently all three women free. The outcome of the inheritance and the role it plays is strange but it does seek some closure for all.
The setting of Ravenscourt in winter and the time being Christmas was good for me as well. My first sort of Christmassy read as well. I have read many books where a house becomes almost as big a character as the characters themselves and this was one of those books. Nice!
The book was sent to me by Netgalley via Bookouture. Thank you.
Looks like a fun Christmas read!
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