When I first picked up this book and looked at the listing of characters I thought I would never remember them all and would have to keep flicking back to see who they were but how wrong I was - I became engaged with each and every one of them.
This is such a totally wonderful novel and now I can't wait to read the other two and see what happens with the lives of these people I have gotten to know.
This author has written such an absorbing novel that is like every soap opera rolled into one - the lives, loves, hates, joy, grief - every single emotion is catered to and I followed every relationship with bated breath. I loved the fact that the book was written in the 60s era - boy, it took me straight back to when I was 14 onwards with the music, fashion and way of life.
The book is so well written that you get to know each character up close and personal and you feel all of their pain and joy as the story unfolds. Some of the characters I wanted to shake and tell them to 'wake up' and see what they were doing. Others I felt all the emotion of what was going on in their lives at that time. Mel, Ella's mother, I wanted to strangle - what a nasty vindictive woman and I think I can see where her life is going. The men in Ella's life.....well, what can I say? I can remember going through the same sort of relationships when I was Ella's age but you just hope and pray that she ends up with the right person.
I thank the author for writing such a wonderful book and giving her readers many hours of total enjoyment and am so looking forward to the next two books.
I can highly recommend this read if you like saga-type novels that run the full range of every emotion, with a story that keeps you gripped and leaves you wanting to grab the next in the series.

Back Cover Blurb:
1967: When eighteen-year-old Ella Kendrick moves to the Somerset town of Abbotsbridge to live with her mother Melissa and stepfather Liam she is looking forward to getting to know someone who has been absent from her life for eleven years. Ella is intrigued by this glamorous, fashionable woman and hopes she holds the key to many unanswered questions about her childhood. Scheming and living in the Carpenter household does not turn out to be the idyllic experience Mel has promised her daughter. Scheming and manipulative she has specific plans for Ella. Plans which do not include boyfriend Niall O'Farrell left behind in the village where she grew up with her grandparents, or the university place she hopes for. After Ella loses Niall to her best friend and her career aspirations have been trimmed to a college course, ambitious Mel puts her main plan into action - finding her daughter a wealthy boyfriend. In doing this, she is looking for a marriage which will give her the right connections and help her own social advancement in the town.
But Mel's plan stalls when on a cold January evening, local nightclub owner's son Matt Benedict unexpectedly walks into Ella's life.
Ella knows she has a fight on her hands, but it is not just Mel she is up against. Matt's mother Faye has her own reasons for parting them as does Andy Macayne, the rich, self-indulgent young man Mel hopes her daughter will eventually marry. But the biggest obstacle to Ella's happiness is Matt himself: hopelessly in love with her but too afraid to reveal his true feelings.