A Midwinter Promise
Registered by 
Apechild
of York, North Yorkshire United Kingdom on 10/12/2020
This book is in a Controlled Release!
Apechild of York, North Yorkshire United Kingdom on 10/12/2020 This book is in a Controlled Release!
1 journaler for this copy...
Bought this in Thirsk today in a charity shop. I think it might have been cancer research. A couple of friends have recommended this writer's books.
A family saga of three generations and a lot of sad life stories. Really, it's quite a depressing tale, although I wouldn't call it devastating. If you want to be devastated read Maggie O'Farrell. For depressing in a popular fiction way, this does the trick. It's a sort of Christmas book, vaguely, as there's a marriage and a birth of a child during midwinter, along with a family tradition of drying flowers to then create decorations for the house at Christmas (I was imagining pastel shades of dried out vagueness that looked horrendous, but I don't know much about dried flowers).
Anyhoo, I had picked up this book after a couple of friends had mentioned enjoying her books (although I don't think this particular one). At first I had the very silly thought: Lulu - what a ridiculous name! Her books will be rubbish. But I got over that and gave it a go. This is light, it's not going to throw your world upside down, but for a bit of quick escapism it does the job.
But it doesn't have a lot of happy lives or relationships. In fact some of the tradgedy here is how many lives are ruined by their own hands because people are so wrapped up in what they don't have, that they won't allow themselves to move on and enjoy what they have. Particularly the women who are repressed by what society expects of them. Julia's mother, who in the 70s goes through countless pregnancies, suffering with really bad morning sickness (I mean crippling) every time, and mostly traumatic miscarriages, and yet she keeps on doing it because she thinks she is unworthy if she doesn't produce a boy. And she misses out on her daughter's childhood completely. Her legacy is committing suicide after another miscarriage, her daughter finding her, and thus developing a very serious mental condition - a terror of pregnancy and childbirth that pushes her into intense depression and pyscosis. Which in turn means she struggles to enjoy her own marriage and children and ends up committing suicide whilst her children are very young.
The book flicks between Julia's childhood and brief adult life, and "today" (possibily 2018) when her own children, Johnnie and Alex, and their own broods of children are struggling with their father's stroke and impending death. Given that Johnnie and Alex (as in Alexandra) were born in the late eighties, early nineties, they must have both been pumping the kids out from their early twenties. Anyway, Alex is recently divorced and running a dried flower business. Johnnie is sucessful London whatever.
Their father's stroke brings them together and back to Cornwall where the family home is - although they're not living in it, it's been sold apparently. Their father never regains consciousness and all of this dredges up the past. They had a crappy childhood. They grew up with the stepmother, Sally, who is portrayed as this manipulative, posessive, insecure and All About Eve vileness, who made sure her own son had all the best and David (the father) ignored and neglected his own children. Yeah, she's evil but I didn't rate the father - he really turned his back on them his entire life. And whilst the reason is that he's riddled with grief and guilt - to carry that neglect on for years shows a major lack of spine, and again someone so wrapped up in what is lost that he misses out on his living children. And he let them down. They did suffer between the evil step mother and her perverted nasty son, Mundo. But I kept thinking, maybe we're just seeing one side of her, because Sally did have it rough, essentially being a keeper for Julia whilst she suffered for years of depression. (A sad sign of the times, possibly even now, that it was dismissed as silly women's things and not taken seriously. She didn't get the help she needed.). But Sally is snide and posessive over the father throughout the book. She doesn't help herself. Which made me dislike the ending, because after the funeral she suddenly has a personality change as if to say, yes, I am really a human, let's be friends. And the whole past didn't matter. Just felt a bit rushed and a bit... meh. And they let creepy-pervert son get away with child abuse and what was hinted at as rape, as though those things weren't that serious. But to do anything else would have dragged the book out and I think she was just going for a quick, neatly tied up and hopeful ending. Cynical me didn't like that bit so much, ha ha!
It's all about the lives of rich southern folk, family dramas and the like. Good light escapism. I wouldn't be averse to reading her other books when I'm in need of such reading.
Anyhoo, I had picked up this book after a couple of friends had mentioned enjoying her books (although I don't think this particular one). At first I had the very silly thought: Lulu - what a ridiculous name! Her books will be rubbish. But I got over that and gave it a go. This is light, it's not going to throw your world upside down, but for a bit of quick escapism it does the job.
But it doesn't have a lot of happy lives or relationships. In fact some of the tradgedy here is how many lives are ruined by their own hands because people are so wrapped up in what they don't have, that they won't allow themselves to move on and enjoy what they have. Particularly the women who are repressed by what society expects of them. Julia's mother, who in the 70s goes through countless pregnancies, suffering with really bad morning sickness (I mean crippling) every time, and mostly traumatic miscarriages, and yet she keeps on doing it because she thinks she is unworthy if she doesn't produce a boy. And she misses out on her daughter's childhood completely. Her legacy is committing suicide after another miscarriage, her daughter finding her, and thus developing a very serious mental condition - a terror of pregnancy and childbirth that pushes her into intense depression and pyscosis. Which in turn means she struggles to enjoy her own marriage and children and ends up committing suicide whilst her children are very young.
The book flicks between Julia's childhood and brief adult life, and "today" (possibily 2018) when her own children, Johnnie and Alex, and their own broods of children are struggling with their father's stroke and impending death. Given that Johnnie and Alex (as in Alexandra) were born in the late eighties, early nineties, they must have both been pumping the kids out from their early twenties. Anyway, Alex is recently divorced and running a dried flower business. Johnnie is sucessful London whatever.
Their father's stroke brings them together and back to Cornwall where the family home is - although they're not living in it, it's been sold apparently. Their father never regains consciousness and all of this dredges up the past. They had a crappy childhood. They grew up with the stepmother, Sally, who is portrayed as this manipulative, posessive, insecure and All About Eve vileness, who made sure her own son had all the best and David (the father) ignored and neglected his own children. Yeah, she's evil but I didn't rate the father - he really turned his back on them his entire life. And whilst the reason is that he's riddled with grief and guilt - to carry that neglect on for years shows a major lack of spine, and again someone so wrapped up in what is lost that he misses out on his living children. And he let them down. They did suffer between the evil step mother and her perverted nasty son, Mundo. But I kept thinking, maybe we're just seeing one side of her, because Sally did have it rough, essentially being a keeper for Julia whilst she suffered for years of depression. (A sad sign of the times, possibly even now, that it was dismissed as silly women's things and not taken seriously. She didn't get the help she needed.). But Sally is snide and posessive over the father throughout the book. She doesn't help herself. Which made me dislike the ending, because after the funeral she suddenly has a personality change as if to say, yes, I am really a human, let's be friends. And the whole past didn't matter. Just felt a bit rushed and a bit... meh. And they let creepy-pervert son get away with child abuse and what was hinted at as rape, as though those things weren't that serious. But to do anything else would have dragged the book out and I think she was just going for a quick, neatly tied up and hopeful ending. Cynical me didn't like that bit so much, ha ha!
It's all about the lives of rich southern folk, family dramas and the like. Good light escapism. I wouldn't be averse to reading her other books when I'm in need of such reading.
Offered as a bundle for free on facebook marketplace. Someone coming to pick up the lot on Sunday!
