She was a chess piece to move around while he focused on what he wanted the story to be about, Patricia. years earlier, a young woman stumbles from a remote stone house, the night quiet but for the tireless wind that circles her as she hurries further into the darkness away from the cliffs and the sea.

Instead we don't really find out about it, we hear bits and pieces via other inconsequential secondary characters. The sense of Patricia’s isolation as a single parent in 1970s rural Ireland is sensitively handled, while in both the present and past sections, the politics of small-town communities are captured with insight and precision.It is not tense or a thriller by any means, but it does hold a great deal of dark mystery and sadness. I've not yet read Norton's first novel but it got good reviews, so when I was given the chance to read this as an ARC, I went for it. Most of the book is Elizabeth remembering how her mother raised her and either finding fault with it and or missing her at the same time.

There wasn’t a single character here I didn’t like, or at least sympathize with (including Edward’s deranged mother Catherine) and I loved the setting. I never watch talk shows, however I know who Mr Norton is, and I admit I was intrigued by the fact that he has accomplished two novels, both receiving many positive reviews.Overall however I was just a little bemused by the abrupt conclusion and the takeaway felt a little too simplistic. This compelling new novel confirms Graham Norton's status as a fresh, literary voice, bringing his clear-eyed understanding of human nature and its darkest flaws. He presents The Graham Norton Show on BBC1, a show on Virgin Radio every weekend, and is a judge on RuPaul's Drag Race UK. From there we have Elizabeth traveling back to where her father lived and finding out about what led her mother to him all of those years ago.

The book goes back and forward in time telling the story from both Elizabeth in present day and her mother Patricia in the past. While I certainly understood Elizabeth's quest for information, I felt she was a fairly impulsive character.Born in Clondalkin, a suburb of Dublin, Norton's first big TV appearance was as Father Noel Furlong on Channel 4's Father Ted in the early 1990s.

Finding that she has time on her own she decides to delve into her mother's past and the book switches between Elizabeth and Patrica's stories respectively. I wasn't bored for one minute, I thought the story unfolded very well , with new snippets of information added all the time. Alternating between "Now" and "Then" storylines, the backstory is revealed, and we see the connection between "now" and "then".Norton cleverly mirrors the process of grieving in Patricia and Elizabeth’s stories, as the two women each mourn the passing of their mother.