This is a story of loss and heartbreak, exacerbated by the in-fighting and petty jealousies of village life. Dorothy arrives in the village as an outsider and the natural suspicion of the locals, combined with her own sense of how she should behave, means she never quite makes the fresh start she is looking for. The possibility of it is always tantalisingly close and yet something always snatches it away at the last minute.
It would be easy to condemn Dorothy. Seen through the villagers' eyes, she is everything they believe her to be: prim, aloof, better than them. But as readers, we see what has formed her - the cold, manipulative mother - and how desperate she is to break free of her past.
The narrative flicks between 'then' and 'now', 'then' telling the story of Dorothy's life, her eventual marriage and the deep love she feels for her son, Moses. The 'now' begins with fisherman, Joseph, bringing a half-drowned boy into the community and tells of their endeavours to nurse him back to health and find where he has come from. But for Dorothy, it is not so simple. She is convinced the boy is Moses, the beloved son who drowned many years before.
Throughout the course of the narrative, secrets are revealed and one of the things I liked about this book is that there is no true villain. There are antagonists, yes, but by the end of the narrative, they have been so well-rounded as characters, that their motivations are utterly plausible and actually inspire sympathy rather than condemnation. Life was hard in 1900 and the book does not shy away from the reality of this.
Nevertheless, it is a beautiful story, gently and exquisitely told and the information we learn about the other residents of the town build a picture of a close-knit turn of the century village, where every person has their own story to tell and each has value and a place in the community.
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