I’d read something good about this book somewhere (good memory I have there…) and grabbed a copy of it on BookMooch. I picked it up on several occassions and read the first few pages without getting interested in it at all. I decided to give it one last try before putting the book back onto BookMooch.

For the first thirty odd pages the book is an odd mix of a contemporary story set in Edinburgh and an older story set in colonial India. I was bored by this and it was only once the stories connected up that the book really began to grab me. And when it did it really grabbed me and I could hardly put it down. Iris, from the contemporary story, discovers that her great aunt, Esme Lennox of the colonial India story, is being thrown out of a mental institution after 60 years. A great story of family secrets and history and a very moving story.