Oh this is a tough one.  Joanna certainly knows how to put her thumb on a bruise and continually push till it hurts.  Why Richie never divorced his first wife to marry the mother of his three girls, his partner for twenty-three years, is beyond me.  Now he’s dead and there is a Will to sort out … oh dear.  This is Joanna writing at the top of her game, as astute and sensitive as ever.

Comparison: Libby Purves, Lionel Shriver, Elizabeth Buchan.

To view a Q & A  with Joanna, click the link below:

Q&A with Joanna about The Other Family.

Synopsis

Chrissie, in the twenty-three years she'd been together with Richie, had always believed that he loved her. He loved their three daughters and their house in Highgate and their happy, lively existence. But if she really was the love of his life, why had he never given her the one thing that would have made her life perfect? Then suddenly Richie is no longer there, and without him Chrissie's carefully constructed life is in jeopardy. The one big fact she had always tried to keep from her daughters threatens to overwhelm them all. For Richie had still been married to his first wife, the one with a son that he had abandoned in Newcastle. And now, with Richie gone and the practicalities of wills and money to be sorted out, it is finally time for the two families to face each other...

About the Author

Joanna Trollope was our Guest Editor in February 2012 - click here - to see the books that inspired her writing.   Joanna Trollope OBE has written numerous highly-acclaimed contemporary novels including: The Choir, A Village Affair, A Passionate Man, The Rector’s Wife, The Men and the Girls, A Spanish Lover, The Best of Friends, Next of Kin, Other People’s Children, Marrying the Mistress, Girl from the South, Brother and Sister, Second Honeymoon, Friday Night, The Other Family, Daughters-in-Law and The Soldier's Wife. Under the name of Caroline Harvey she writes romantic historical novels. She has also written a study of women in the British Empire, Britannia’s Daughters.   Joanna Trollope was appointed OBE in the 1996 Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to literature.   Author Photo © Barker Evans   Click the screen below to view a Q&A with Joanna.     Click here to view part 2 of this Q&A. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation