I’ve got a soft spot for the author of Carrie’s War and still find it a bit odd (no idea why) that Nina Bawden writes adult fiction too. This story is all about Fanny getting older and meeting with disasters and how her two children, grown up with families of their own, see her and cope with her.

The book rather rambles from one storyline to another and some things never feel quite concluded but I don’t think that that’s a bad thing. It concentrates less on inheritance matters than the title and the beginning of the book would have you believe though I was amused by the bits about house prices as the book was written during the boom part of the UK’s last boom-and-bust housing cycle and people were saying the exact things you hear today.

On the whole I found the story enjoyable and quite touching. Must reread Carrie’s War sometime and see if it’s as good as it was when I was a kid.