After more than twenty years in London, Kate Flynn has returned to her family home in Wales to care for her ageing mother. Having cast off her academic career, she is unmoored, and when she runs into a childhood friend, David Roberts, at a concert, she finds herself falling for him, although she knows she's grasping at anything to fill the sudden emptiness of her life.

Wedi ugain mlynedd a rhagor yn Llundain, mae Kate Flynn yn dychwelyd adref i Gymru i ofalu am ei mam oedrannus. Mae hi wedi rhoi ei gyrfa academaidd o'r neilltu, a phan mae'n gweld hen ffrind ysgol iddi, David Roberts, mewn cyngerdd, caiff ei hudo ganddo, er ei bod hi'n ymwybodol taw llenwi'r gwacter yn ei bywyd a wna'r serch rhyngddynt.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave . . . At the age of 43, Kate Flynn gives up her job as a university lecturer in London to return to Cardiff to look after her elderly mother in the rambling and dilapidated family home. Kate’s life has clearly never been simple, especially when it comes to affairs of the heart, and she rapidly creates more complications for herself by becoming emotionally involved, first with the solid and dependable David and then with his intense and troubled teenage son, Jamie. Meanwhile, David’s wife, Suzie, is being enticed out of her role as dutiful wife and mother by some new hippy friends who remember how to have fun.

Recipe for disaster or opportunity for change, here is mid-life in all its tedious gore and glory. The acerbic Kate, her vulnerability concealed beneath her wit and irony and layered clothing, is torn between craving and contempt for a life more normal. She is as frail as a bird – is this a metaphor for her thin and insubstantial self or is she going to be brave enough to get down to the bones of things? Will rational, uptight David finally connect with his feelings and take a walk on the wild side? Can Suzie genuinely cast off the self-imposed straightjacket of conventionality? In thirty years time, we can imagine Jamie navigating the same territory: different story, different map, different route maybe, but ultimately the same rather desolate landscape of regrets and confusion.

Tessa Hadley is not one to deliver rosy pictures, neat resolutions or happy endings just to make us feel good, and this rather downbeat novel is shot through with a sense of shattered hope and tired resignation that lingers long after you have turned the last page.

Suzy Ceulan Hughes

It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgment should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council.

Gellir defnyddio'r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatâd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru.