Elizabeth Noble's The Family Holiday was published by Penguin on June 25th and I was delighted to be invited to be part of the celebrations for its publication.
Set in a country house in the Cotswolds, the Chamberlain
family unite for 10 days together in a large house to celebrate Charlie’s 80th
birthday. But since the loss of Charlie’s wife, the family have been left
disconnected and fragmented. Charlie’s daughter, Laura is divorced and dealing
with a teenage son accused of a crime by his girlfriend’s parents, his son
Scott has recently married and has two new stepdaughters and his youngest Nick
is still in a state of shock from losing his wife in a tragic accident and
coping with their three young children alone.
The Family Holiday is a multi-generational story of loss,
love and hope and is both heart-warming and witty in equal measure. Elizabeth
Noble is the author of bestselling The Reading Group and Things I Want My
Daughter to Know and Richard & Judy book club choice Love, Iris and she has
sold over 1 million books to date.
My Thoughts
There are certain books which I read and a little voice at the back of my head keeps whispering, 'I wish I'd written it!' This is just one of those. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting all the members of Charlie's family and finding out what their lives had been like and what they were hoping to do next. You are spoilt for choice with the characters. It is an intergenerational story which shows you the power of family links. Some have been broken by circumstances but they come together for the holiday and reconnect.
Two of the most interesting people in the book, who you never actually meet, are Daphne, Charlie's wife and Carrie, Nick's wife, who have both died. Through their husbands, you get to hear their thoughts and reactions and you get a real sense of their personalities. There is also the outsider, Heather, an American divorcee who has married into the family. You come to realise that with her, what you see is certainly not what you get and she has hidden depths and demons which she has had to come to terms with. Like the siblings, you also realise that you may have misjudged her.
All the different threads of the story are woven together with skill. This is not a book to skim through. You have to take it slowly to see all the details in this glorious family tapestry.
In short: Family links are reforged
.
About the Author
Elizabeth Noble is the author of several previous Sunday
Times bestsellers: The Reading Group, which reached Number One, The Friendship
Test (formerly published as The Tenko Club), Alphabet Weekends, Things I Want
My Daughters to Know, The Girl Next Door, The Way We Were, Between a Mother and
her Child and Love, Iris. Her last two books were also Richard & Judy Book
Club selections. The Family Holiday is her ninth novel. She lives in Surrey.
Thanks to Elizabeth Noble and Michael Joseph Books for a copy of the book and a place on the tour!
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