Got in the post today from a UK bookmoocher.

I can't remember why I put this on my reading wish list, but I did. And when I read the blurb I thought: hmmmm. But I enjoyed it and found it more addictive than I thought I would. There is a hot, heavy atmosphere about this story, really like the height of summer on the Med where it is set, as though you're waiting for a storm to break and clear the air. You think you've hit that point towards the end when Jenn settles things with her step daughter, but then at the very end she realises she's about to be caught out in a lie about a sandwich that could destroy the family. I know that sounds like a crazy notion, but it is literally, and seriously that.

It feels like there's a lot about youth v. middle age, and about biological and step parents, and if it means the same if the child isn't of your blood. Even more about the battle between women who have had kids and women who haven't. It felt as though once a woman had a child she was definately in the middle aged bracket, and her body is ravaged. In this book they are described as these massive, grotesque sagging things playing in the sea with their kids and not caring what they look like anymore. Jenn on the other hand is in limbo as she is the same age range (I'm guessing 40s) but as she's never had a child she's still clinging to her youth somehow. I don't know how helpful these stereotypes are, as if there are only two types of women, but children is a very emotive subject whether you have or want them and as women get to a certain age, it is used as a stick to bash them down with.

So, Jenn is married to Greg and their daughter is 14 or 15 (I forget which), Emma, who is this spoilt little madam. Also a teenage girl, so I was never going to love her as a character. Jenn has been with Greg since Emma was a baby (her biological mother died shortly after giving birth) and when she was wee they didn't tell her, so Jenn was simply mum. Then as she got older she was told the truth, which has given her ammunition to treat Jenn crappily, just as the teenage years approach. There's also a sense that Jenn has always just been treated as an appendage to the family, as Emma goes to a private school and Jenn doesn't agree with paying the massive fees, but never was allowed a say in the matter. Same as her being called mum to begin with before the truth was revealed.

On this holiday Emma brings her new boyfriend, Nathan, with her. This lad is a know-it-all cool kid, and a randy little beggar. And for seventeen very sexually sophisticated. He is the active initiator in the sex affair that he starts up with Jenn during the holiday, who in turn is completely seduced by the youth factor. Personally I don't get why anyone would want to have an affair with a teenager - teenagers are annoying! - but it is all believably written, watching Jenn being repressed and crumpled under her family, the heat and some kind of middle life crisis.

I hope to take this into town on Wednesday with some other books to donate to charity.