This was one of my Christmas presents. Each year we give each other books that we’ve picked out ourselves, except we pick out loads and only a few get bought so the presents are still a surprise! It’s a fun before-Christmas ritual to go to a big bookshop, pick our own choices and then completely forget what we picked until they appear wrapped up, or in fact unwrapped. I couldn’t tell you what else was left behind in the shop but I’m glad this one got picked out as I really enjoyed it.

You already know at the beginning of this book, when you meet Ann, that the romance is going to go awry. She’s a librarian, she meets Tim who’s a vicar; it’s hardly Mills and Boon to start with but they get married and a decade or so later they’ve got a son, Tim’s got time for his parishioners but none for his family and Ann’s wondering what on earth happened to her life and where it should go next. Romance gone awry is far more up my literary street than romance that leads straight to a happily-ever-after.

The story of whether the vicar’s wife is going to have an affair or not (and will the jumble stay in the dining room forever?) could probably sound quite tedious and perhaps predictable. But it’s very much not because the main characters are so well written. One of the blurbs on the book says something comparing Rentzenbrink to Anne Tyler and I think that’s pretty much on the nose. We have ordinary people doing ordinary things, but there’s a captivating story in that, and it’s about how no one’s life is that ordinary. There’s a cast of background characters who seem a little clichéd but each gets a moment to show you there’s more to them than you saw at first and I like that kind of depth.

Absolutely an author I’ll be reading again.