The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life
A Novel
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3.3 • 9 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Secrets abound in a quiet English village, in this novel filled with “piercing insights into married life and smalltown living” (Publishers Weekly).
Laura is a content married mother of two—but when her first love resurfaces after twenty years, she begins to question her choices. She can’t help but compare the passion of that relationship with the domesticity of her suburban life. What if she’d stayed with him? Would she be happier? And what is happiness, really?
Right now, Laura feels a little alone. But in fact, many others in her gentrified corner of the English countryside—including a rector who’s lost his faith, a frustrated school teacher, and a successful single mother who can’t get over her ex—are struggling with their own personal crises as well . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Piercing insights into married life and smalltown living distinguish Nicholson's thoughtful if quiet latest. Laura Broad, a married mother of two, has her domestic agenda seriously disrupted when she receives a surprise letter from Nick, her first love who broke her heart when they were young. His proposed visit to Laura's small Sussex town has her pondering a series of "what-ifs" and replaying the course of their passionate but short-lived love affair in largely unnecessary flashbacks. But Laura is not the only one with a secret life of the mind; her neighbors and acquaintances including her son's teacher, the mother of one of his classmates, a little old lady and her beloved dog, and Laura's own husband also carry their own hidden agendas and desires. A YA novelist and Academy Award nominated screenwriter, Nicholson (The Wind Seeker) has a knack for crystallizing his themes in pivotal moments and deserves credit for not clouting the reader over the head with his affirmative message about the viability of two rapidly fading institutions: long-term marriage and English country life.
