Marcia Willetts has written many books; this is her 19th and the 4th in the Chadwick family chronicles. I don't normally read family chronicle sagas nowadays, having had a surfeit in my youth with the "Jalna" series by Mazo De La Roche and "The Forsyte Saga" by John Galsworthy. Had I realised, when I picked up this one, that it was the 4th in a series, I'd have put it back, preferring to read sequels in the correct order. However, having started to read, I continued.
The Chadwick family have lived at The Keep for several generations. Members of the family leave at various times in their lives but most come back to live as the place is big enough for all who want to live in a family commune. However, when the ex-wife of one of the Chadwicks want to return after bereavement, the son, Jolyon, whom she left behind isn't at all sure that he can accept her change of heart. He has recently begun a relationship of his own, just as his family believed that his mother's abandonment in his childhood had scarred him irreparably. When the girl's mother begins to believe she is being stalked, and suspects it is her ex-husband, life becomes rather complicated.
Ms Willetts weaves the important references from her previous novels about the Chadwicks into this latest story with skill. However, if I'd read the others first, as I should have done and many of her readers will have done, I might find these references to previous stories a bit tedious. This book appears to be set in the 1970s, although there's no direct mention of dates except for some historical detail about the Mau Mau conflict in Kenya, which was in the 1950s. As a 1970s setting, it feels a little out of touch with life at that time apart from a certain sexual freedom, which I found a bit odd.
Still, for lovers of family sagas it's OK.
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