This was just a fabulous read. The story of a man whose wife has died unexpectedly recalling and recounting the years of their marriage doesn’t sound particularly enthralling but really it was. And it left me feeling uplifted as well. I’m not sure I can explain why I thought most of the book worked so well. David and Mary Rose had one of those relationships that looks impossibly perfect to a lot of people, and that, of course, has it’s cracks on the inside, but it’s not a book that exposes the rot within, it just shows something that seemed very realistic.

I liked the way that the narrative of the marriage unfolded in more or less chronological order but was told from David’s viewpoint as he tried to come to terms with it. In particular I loved all the supporting characters. The families and the friends, both how they were when Mary Rose was alive and how they responded to her death. There was a part at the end of the book that seemed, maybe a bit too neat, but it certainly wasn’t unrealistic, perhaps it could have been foreshadowed a little. But it worked with the story and overall I enjoyed the book a lot.

Definitely an author I’ll look out for again, I really liked her storytelling style.