The Garnett Girls by Georgina Moore

As a teenager, Margo ran away from home to live with her older boyfriend, Richard. Their love affair continued, they married and had three daughters - Rachel, Imogen, and Sasha. Then one day Richard left, leaving Margo plunged into despair, and the girls having to fend for themselves. When she picked herself up, Margo vowed that her girls would never suffer as she had. So she brings them up to be well-educated, strong career women, to marry safe, dependable men, to create for themselves the life that she would have wanted, but somewhere long the way the girls, trying so hard to live up to Margo's expectations, lose sight of themselves and their own desires. Now young women, each successful in her field, they have to confront the impact of their father's sudden disappearance from their lives before they can find true happiness.

 There's been a lot of hype about The Garnett Girls  - the author is, after all, a publicist - but it's a stunning, captivating debut that definitely lives up to everything I've read about it. A warm, intimate story of the Garnett family - Margo the matriarch, and her girls, Rachel, Imogen, and Sasha - their loves and losses, the secrets they keep, and the younger generation's struggles for independence from their mother's overwhelming influence and expectations. In many ways, living up to Margo's standards has stunted her daughters' emotional development, and I felt it was telling that Rachel, Imogen and Sasha are more often seen as a trio - the Garnett girls - rather than as individuals and as women.

The story is not wholly set on the Isle of Wight but Sandcove, the family home, plays such an important part in the Garnett's lives that it's like a character in itself. It's the place they come to to settle family disagreements, to heal, to find themselves, to party on the beach till dawn. 

I loved every page - and I now want to live by the beach and drink cocktails every night.

Look At Me by Sarah Duguid

review by Maryom


Searching her father's desk for a telephone number, Lizzy stumbles across a letter; with its pink envelope and hint of scent, it immediately attracts her attention. Inside is something waiting to overturn Lizzy's comfortable world - the news that she has a younger half-sister, Eunice. Her father Julian thinks the matter should be dropped; his wife Margaret (who died two years ago) was fully aware of his other daughter, and 'cool' about the situation. Her brother, Ig, agrees; nothing can be gained by further contact. But Lizzy feels something more is needed, and gets in touch with Eunice. At first they meet for lunch but gradually Eunice works her way into their lives .... and then how do they get rid of her?

For Lizzy and Ig life so far has been pleasant and sheltered; living in studio-flats built in the garden, and sharing their parents' arty, hippy life-style, they seem to float through life unconcerned with practicalities, and despite being in their late twenties feel no need to grow up and move on. The death of their mother has added another barrier between them and the real world with their house becoming almost a shrine to their mother's memory - a place where time has stopped and everything is preserved as it was before Margaret died; all her clothes are kept, her jewellery and ornaments are just as she left them, nothing must be moved.
Into this atmosphere Eunice brings the  'everyday' world of dead end jobs and mortgages, and a huge dose of practicality. Cuckoo-like, she reorganizes, orders and moves things around to make space for herself, unwittingly trampling over memories and emotions as she does.

I really loved this debut novel; so much that it's hard to enumerate everything that delighted me. Certainly I loved the over-all feel of the laid-back bohemian lifestyle of Lizzy and family - where money seems to present no hindrance to following one's artistic life; wouldn't we all like to live like that? Then there's Lizzy's impulsive good nature which rapidly changes as she realises the trouble she's let into their lives. Or the way the author lets us in on the intimate details that make up a family, the way their lives slot together, and the way the dynamic changes with Eunice there, forcing her way in, altering things to suit her, while everyone seems paralysed to stop her.

To say 'psychological drama' too easily infers a thriller with death and destruction by the end, but this isn't that nature of drama. Instead it's a look at the under-currents of family life, the history and secrets they share, and the disruption one outsider can cause to a stable family group - with its light touch and occasional comic moments, particularly in regard to Lizzy's relationship with her director/lover, it reminded me of an Ayckbourn drama.
It's a wonderful first novel from Sarah Duguid and I hope there'll be many more.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher -  Tinder Press
Genre - Adult fiction, literary, family drama