This novel has been mooted several times as a choice by my reading group so when I saw it included in a 3-for-2 offer it seemed a good idea to add it to the in-pile, especially as it sounds interesting anyway.

Whether or not my reading group ever got round to tackling this novel I have no idea as I dropped out a month or so after buying it.

For the first 50 pages or so I couldn't really work out where this novel was going. It was the lyrical descriptions of the West Wales landscape which kept my interest going until at some unidentifiable point I got sucked into the story.

The disappearance of the precocious and bratty Rosie, who only appears a couple of times and briefly at that, is tackled obliquely rather than head on. It's the subtle effects on the community of a disappearance which seems curiously peripheral which Fletcher examines rather than making the disappearance itself the obvious focus of the novel. It is the focus, of course, but the author makes her characters circle round it while the life of a community continues because it has to while not speaking too openly about what has happened and the bleakness of the likely outcome, while the narrator tries to understand what is going on around her. But that, I suppose, is why this is a coming of age novel rather than a straight forward mystery story.

I could imagine this novel engendering considerable discussion at a reading group so I'd recommend it at least for consideration.

picked up at the unCon and started reading it at breakfast this morning. It took a lot less than 50 pages to get me hooked!

finished today - a lovely story, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Will release it somewhere soon.

RELEASE NOTES:

on the bench seat under the window. I can recommend the spicy bean burger.