Abby comes from a close and loving traditional Jewish home but married into a family that celebrates Christmas. When the marriage ends, she moves to the country with her son Jacob to heal in a place where she can begin to rebuild her self-belief and her belief in other things and other people – and where she can protect Jacob from making the same mistakes.
When a local girl goes missing, Abby’s refuge fails to protect her against an unravelling both of Jacob’s childhood and her own. Against a backdrop of conflict in the Middle East and America, Abby goes on a journey across the generations, which will lead her to lost friends and family and new beliefs and traditions. She will learn about personal and community tradition and whether it is really possible to love across the divide.
In turns lyrical and poignant, with a core of self-deprecating humour, Jane Diamond has created a story for us in our children’s generation. Multi-layered and spanning time and place, personal and public tragedy, this rites of passage story is simultaneously quintessentially English and multi-ethnic and is centred on the most complex and ubiquitous human problem of all time; relationships.
Honest, funny, moving and direct – a good read.
Jane Diamond lives in London and multi-tasks. This is her first novel published by Mardibooks.