Reviewed on Richard and Judy on 6th July 2005 and voted most enjoyable book by viewers.
This was, in my mind, the surprise winner of the Whitbread First Novel award.  I had got my money on Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell,  but this is certainly a very worthy winner.  Written in two parts, the first an eight-year old grieving the loss of her mother as she is packed off to Wales and the second, reflecting.  As she awaits the birth of her first child, she relives that agony and the sad mystery that followed it.

Comparison: Alice Sebold, Kate Atkinson, Esther Freud.
Similar this month: Andrew Greig, Muriel Spark

Synopsis

Following the loss of her mother, eight-year-old Evie is sent to a new life in rural Wales – a dripping place, where flowers appear mysteriously on doorsteps and people look at her twice. With a sense of being lied to she sets out to discover her family’s dark secret – unaware that there is yet more darkness to come with the sinister disappearance of local girl Rosemary Hughes.

Now many years later Eve Green is waiting for the birth of her own child, and when she revisits her past something clicks in her mind and her own reckless role in the hunt for Rosie’s abductor is revealed...

A truly beautiful and hypnotic first novel, this is both an engaging puzzle and an enchanting work of literature.

Reviews

'This is my kind of heroine – that good mixture of romance and spirit, courage and self-doubt – steered through a gripping rite of passage towards a disturbing – but ultimately wholly satisfying – conclusion. I couldn't put it down. Susan Fletcher is a clever, assured writer who can write truthfully about love in its many guises' 
Mavis Cheek

'A most impressive debut. The writing is lyrical, the characters are vivid and alive and the story makes you want to really turn the pages. In red-haired, mother-less Eve Green, Susan Fletcher gives you a heroine you won't forget.'
Marika Cobbold

About the Author

Susan Fletcher was our Guest Editor in March 2010 - click here - to see the books that inspired her writing.   Susan Fletcher was born in 1979 in Birmingham. She studied Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and lives in Stratford-upon-Avon. Her first novel, Eve Green won the Whitbread First Novel Award, the Betty Trask Prize and Author's Club Best First Novel Award. Her second novel Oystercatchers was published in 2007 to great acclaim. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation