A good book will haunt you, the characters lingering long after you turn the final page. Do you ever feel that? Sometimes it is hard to move on, the story still too fresh and alive. I have read a lot. I am a reader through to my very soul and I adore it. What a way to experience so much on top of what we already do in our own one life. What a way to step into another story for a short while, to experience something new and different before we are placed firmly back onto our own soil. When I discover a story that I love then I am a slower reader these days. I want to savour those moments. To stay with the story for as long as I can. As soon as I begun reading One True Thing by Linda Newbery, I knew. I knew that this was story that I wanted to take my time over. Frustrating, I know, when it has been sent to me for review and there are people waiting to hear my thoughts. I apologise Hannah and Linda for the delay but it is only because I loved it so much and just didn’t want to rush it.
When the ground shifts, where is one true thing to be found?
Jane, in her twenties, is left parentless when her father dies suddenly; a second shock follows when his Will reveals the existence of a son no-one knew of. Now Wildings, the family home, must be sold. Spanning two generations, the novel tells the story of Bridget, Jane’s mothers, trapped in an unhappy marriage on which her career depends, and of stone-carver Meg, who wants only independence but is enmeshed in conflicting loyalties and desires when Adam, a young artist, enters their lives, to devastating effect.
Now far from Wildings, Meg is bound by a promise to support Jane in her loss. Having thought of herself as an observer who saw everything, she’d forced to realise how much she failed to see – and the cost to those she loves.
The One True Thing is a heartrending story of betrayal and family loyalties, told through complex, authentically drawn characters and gorgeously evocative writing.
I was utterly enthralled by this novel. Linda writes beautifully, delicately. There is a lightness of touch with her construction of the story. The characters come alive on the page and I was lost amongst their story. Sometimes the most powerful and beautiful stories are the gentle every day tales of what it means to be human. To love and to loss. To live and to die. The seasons are honoured here with the beautiful garden at Wildings, perhaps the true love of Bridget’s life. Yet there is heartache and sacrifice. Life is complicated and messy and this story helps to remind that we are visitors here for such a short time, that nature finds a way to carry on without us. The novel touches on environmental concerns and the search for spiritual meaning in a dark and often complex world. It is also about the complexities of relationships and family But, at the heart of the story, as I see it, is love. Love, along with the pain and joy that comes with it. The pain of loss and grief and also of change when the world you thought you understood comes crashing down around you. And how it can be built back up again. There is hope within the pages.
This is a gentle but incredibly moving story. One that lingers in my thoughts long after reading and one that I thoroughly recommend.
Time would run out: was running out, as she stood puzzling. Time was a trickster, persuading her that there’d always be plenty to use or waste, spend or spare. Now it was slithering away. The time left to her, the only time that had meaning, would be gone before she decide what to do with it.”
The One True Thing by Linda Newbery
About the author
Linda Newbery is the award-winning author of Set in Stone (category winner, Costa Book Awards), Quarter Past Two on a Wednesday Afternoon, The Shell House, Sisterland, Lob, The Brockenspectre, The Key to Flambards, This Book is Cruelty Free – Animals and Us and many others. She has mostly written for young readers, but Quarter Past Two on a Wednesday Afternoon was her first adult novel, published in paperback as Missing Rose. She has twice been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and was a judge for the Whitbread Book Awards in 2005 (the year before they became the Costa Book Awards). With Adèle Geras and Celia Rees, she edits the blog Writers Review. She is an active campaigner on animal and environmental issues.
The One True Thing is a launch title in an author collaborative, Writers Review Publishing, linked to the well-established literary blog, http://www.reviewsbywriters.blogspot.com, which Linda hosts with author friends Adèle Geras and Celia Rees. They have published guest posts by Tracy Chevalier, Patrick Gale, Jane Rogers, Diane Setterfield, Anthony Horowitz and many others. The other launch titles are David: The Unauthorised Autobiography by Mary Hoffman and The Poet’s Wife by Judith Allnatt. Writers Review Publishing will publish both new fiction and reissues of well-reviewed novels that deserve to reach new readers.
For more information visit: www.writersreviewpublishing.co.uk
I hope you have enjoyed your visit today. Thank you for dropping by. If you have read this or any of Linda’s novels then please drop a comment below.
Happy reading!
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