Packing up her mother's life, George instead unpacks her own...
A deeply insightful and wryly funny story perfect for readers of Meredith Jaffe and The Weekend by Charlotte Wood.
Things you might be surprised to find when cleaning out your deceased mother's house: a secret diary a family mystery a new lease on life.
Grief-stricken middle-aged sisters George, Kat and Annie give themselves a week to pack up their childhood home and divide their mother's belongings.
Beloved items are contested: an Eames chair, a collection of war medals, a learn-to-read book.
The sisters - bossy Kat, mediator George and petulant Annie - are hampered by sibling rivalry, the prickly demands of their own offspring, the needs of their disabled younger brother and, in George's case, the after-effects of a spot of adultery.
The discovery of a decades' old diary divides the women further: not only do they learn what their mother really thought of them, they learn that she had a life entirely of her own. They are not the family they thought they were - and their mother was so much more than she seemed. This revelation might be the key to George's freedom ...
Copy received via Better Reading for an honest review
They say that a death in the family will bring out all the old resentments and drama over money.
And OMG this family, I tried to like them and understand them, I really did, but their mum knocked the nail on the head with her descriptions of her daughters, because I really didn't like any of them. Their brother though, he was my favourite character of the lot.
I expected drama, and I got drama to the extreme with all of these selfish women. I am still sitting here a couple of weeks after finishing it trying to find something redeeming, and.... nope.
Sorry Ilsa Evans - unless you wanted to write characters that were so unlikeable to me, then.. Congratulations!
But this could all just be me. I liked the feel and the flow of the story, and Isla Evans writes a tale that feels real, it was just the character actions that didn't do it for me.
Ilsa Evans has published fourteen books across a range of genres, from
light fiction and short stories to memoir, murder mystery and YA
fantasy. Two of her books have been shortlisted for the prestigious
Davitt (Sisters in Crime) Awards, while her novel about domestic
violence, Broken, was an Australian best-seller and selected as Women's Weekly Book
of the Month. Ilsa also teaches creative writing students, writes
social commentary, and has been published in several newspapers and
online journals. In 2011, she received the Eliminating Violence Against
Women (EVA) Award for online journalism.
Photo Credit: Studio3 Photography
Photo sources from Harpercollins.com.au