Unexpectedly good read about family and the secrets we keep. Here is my book review Instructions for a Heat Wave by Maggie O’Farrell.

I just recently read O’Farrell’s spectacular novel Hamnet and I loved every word. So tackling another Maggie O’Farrell seemed like a good idea. This story, though very different from Hamnet, was also well developed and interesting.

It’s 1976 in London and we find the Riordan family in the middle of a heat wave. Then unexpectedly Gretta Riordan’s recently retired husband goes out for the morning paper and never returns. This event is the catalyst that not only brings three siblings back to the family home, but opens a Pandora’s box of long held family secrets.

Michael Francis the oldest son who gave up big dreams for his family is now a high school teacher with a crumbling marriage. Monica’s hidden insecurities and skeletons in the closet have created a wide rift between herself and her baby sister Aoife. And Aiofe living in Manhattan is holding her own very big and sad secret.

This family, full of hidden tragedies, will be rocked to it’s core when they learn the truth about their parents as they search for their missing father. Can it possibly end happily ever after?

****Four stars for Instructions for a Heat Wave by Maggie O’Farrell

Read last week’s review of Five Quarters of the Orange

My current read In Pursuit of Memory

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