From the TBR Pile: Blog Tour: The Past by Tessa Hadley

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Blog Tour: The Past by Tessa Hadley

Author:Tessa Hadley
Publisher: Harper
Date of publication: January 2016

Three sisters and a brother, complete with children, a new wife, and an ex-boyfriend’s son, descend on their grandparents’ dilapidated old home in the Somerset countryside for a final summer holiday, where simmering tensions and secrets rise to the surface over three long, hot weeks.The house is full of memories of their childhood and their past—their mother took them there to live when she left their father—but now, they may have to sell it. And beneath the idyllic pastoral surface lie tensions.

Sophisticated and sleek, Roland’s new wife (his third) arouses his sisters’ jealousies and insecurities. Kasim, the twenty-year-old son of Alice’s ex-boyfriend, becomes enchanted with Molly, Roland’s sixteen-year-old daughter. Fran’s young children make an unsettling discovery in an abandoned cottage in the woods that shatters their innocence. Passion erupts where it’s least expected, leveling the quiet self-possession of Harriet, the eldest sister. As the family’s stories and silences intertwine, small disturbances build into familial crises, and a way of life—bourgeois, literate, ritualized, Anglican—winds down to its inevitable end.

I looked back and realized that I didn't like Clever Girl which was also written by this author. But, I'm always up for giving an author a second look. I never know when I will find my next favorite read. I wish The Past was one of them. Again, I just had a hard time getting into the story. The plot just didn't really go anywhere for me and it was slow. Also, I know this is a little nit picky, but I one of the things that ruined the flow for me was the format of the book. There were no quotations marks to indicate when someone was speaking. That was just odd to me and started to drive me crazy. This was the same problem I had with Clever Girl.

The one thing that The Past has going for it is the cover. It's one of the nicest ones I have seen in a long time. Unfortunately, that is about all I liked about this book.

About the author:

Tessa Hadley is the author of five highly praised novels: Accidents in the Home, which was longlisted for The Guardian First Book Award; Everything Will Be All Right; The Master Bedroom; The London Train, which was a New York TimesNotable Book; and Clever Girl. She is also the author of two short story collections,Sunstroke and Married Love, which wereNew York Times Notable Books as well. Her stories appear regularly in The New Yorker. She lives in London.

Purchase Links

Amazon | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble

Tessa’s Tour Stops

Tuesday, January 5th: Sara’s Organized Chaos