The Art of Hiding. Amanda Prowse

Published: Lake Union
Date: 22nd August 2017
Format: e-ARC
Pages: 290
Genre: Mainstream Fiction
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Rating:
            

Nina McCarrick has it all: a loving husband, two beautiful boys, a well-appointed home and more time than she knows what to do with. Life is perfect. Until her husband, Finn, is killed in a car accident and everything Nina thought she could rely on unravels.

Alone, bereft and faced with a mountain of debt, Nina quickly loses her life of luxury and she begins to question whether she ever really knew the man she married. Forced to move out of her family home, Nina returns to the rundown Southampton council estate—and the sister—she thought she had left far behind.

In The Art of Hiding, Amanda Prowse tells a story of a woman who seems to have lost almost everything. Nina has come from a poor background but has been caught up in the love and promise of nice things and a worry free life from her husband Finn.  When her husband dies in an accident she has two sons, a fifteen year old and ten year old, and she is about to find out all the things that Finn has been hiding from her. 

Nina and her boys have lived in a large house, the boys have gone to an elite school and Nina has never worked since marrying Finn. She has been safely ensconced in her large house taking care of all the needs of her boys and husband. Now according to her sister that is not really healthy and as the days unfold, Nina's sister Tiggy just might be right.  Where are those rich women when Nina's world falls down around her. Well like rats leaving a sinking ship - they are gone.

When Nina returns with her two boys to her home town, it is really, really tough. Declan the ten year old is in shock, Connor her fifteen year old is by turn sullen with flashes of caring at odd times. Nina needs a job, but... how many jobs is she qualified for? Well very few or none actually.

The neighbourhood is a far cry from what they have been used to, but step by step they all make their way. Nina has guts and aided by her sister Tiggy she slowly finds her way forward. She begins to examine her life and choices, who was she... who is she now? It is difficult, her boys are struggling as you would expect, they are all grieving.  But there are unexpected offers of support and the people they meet are quite different to those they once knew. 

This is a very realistic story of grief, shock and loss. Of being thrown in the deep end with the choice of sinking or swimming. It is about family and what it means to have true friends and the place of money in happiness. 

I really liked the book and found myself returning to it any moment I had. 

Finding Libbie. Deanna Lynn Sletten

Published: Lake Union
Date: September 6th 2016
Format: e-ARC
Pages: 331
Genre: Women's Fiction
Source: Publisher/Author via NetGalley
Rating:
          

Poring over a dusty hatbox of photographs in her grandmother’s closet, Emily Prentice is shocked to discover her father was married to his high school sweetheart before meeting her mother.

In the summer of 1968, Jack and Libbie fall in love under the spell of their small town, untouched by the chaos of the late sixties. Though Libbie’s well-to-do parents disapprove of Jack’s humble family and his aspiration to become a mechanic, she marries Jack a year after they graduate high school. But soon their happiness crumbles as Libbie’s mental state unravels and she is drawn to alcohol and drugs. Despite his efforts to help her, Jack loses the woman he loves and is forced to move on with his life.

Now that Emily’s mother has passed away, Jack is alone again, and Emily grows obsessed with the beautiful woman who had given her father such joy. Determined to find Libbie, Emily pieces together the couple’s fragmented past. But is it too late for happy endings?

While Finding Libbie starts in the present day, it soon moves make to the 1960's, to that time of the Vietnam war, when women mostly still stayed at home and didn't go to work. When some were bored and fell prey to drugs and alcohol. 

Libbie comes from one of the most wealthy families in the town. Her family or at least her mother places her value on wealth to measure worth. Her sister was someone I really disliked, she was a real stirrer of the pot. Libbie's dad was good, if somewhat indulgent and with the penchant to look for a life of turning a blind eye to what was going on in his home.

Jack was a hard working young man, in love with Libbie but as their life progressed he could see all was not right with Libbie. (They married so young - as  many did in those days.) So when Jack's daughter discovers that he was married before the marriage to her own mother she is very curious as to what happened to Libbie. As the reader I was too, what did she do in the intervening years? How did this fragile, anxious but sweet young woman fare?

It is Emily - Jack's daughter who when she learns of Libbie in her father's life spends time searching for her.  It is a time for her too to re-evaluate how her own life is panning out and whether  the man she is with, is right for her.

The story comes eventually to a heartwarming and moving conclusion. I was amused at how well all the threads of the story were detailed out in the epilogue. It is rare that that happens!

The story examines mental illness and the lack of understanding in the past that led to much suffering. It is a story of second chances and growing into a place of contentment and self fulfilment.