A captivating new novel from the master of domestic drama.
As the youngest of their three sons marries and Anthony and Rachel Brinkley welcome their third daughter-in-law to the family, no one quite realizes the profound shift about to take place. For their different reasons, the two previous daughters-in-law hadn't been able to resist Rachel's maternal clout and Anthony's gentle charms, and had settled into Brinkley family life without rocking the boat. But Charlotte — very young, very beautiful and semi-spoiled — has no intention of sharing power with her mother-in-law, and sets out to vanquish the matriarch. Soon Rachel's sons begin to treasonously think of their own houses as home, and of their mother's house as simply the place where their parents live — a necessary shift of loyalties that sets off fireworks in their mother's brain, breaks their father's heart and causes unexpected waves in their own marriages.
A lovely, candid and hugely perceptive exploration of what happens inside every family when one generation, with its ways and habits, has to make way for the next — and everyone needs to learn what family love means all over again.
As the youngest of their three sons marries and Anthony and Rachel Brinkley welcome their third daughter-in-law to the family, no one quite realizes the profound shift about to take place. For their different reasons, the two previous daughters-in-law hadn't been able to resist Rachel's maternal clout and Anthony's gentle charms, and had settled into Brinkley family life without rocking the boat. But Charlotte — very young, very beautiful and semi-spoiled — has no intention of sharing power with her mother-in-law, and sets out to vanquish the matriarch. Soon Rachel's sons begin to treasonously think of their own houses as home, and of their mother's house as simply the place where their parents live — a necessary shift of loyalties that sets off fireworks in their mother's brain, breaks their father's heart and causes unexpected waves in their own marriages.
A lovely, candid and hugely perceptive exploration of what happens inside every family when one generation, with its ways and habits, has to make way for the next — and everyone needs to learn what family love means all over again.