This novel focuses on family dynamics and the power struggles within; which can threaten even the strongest bonds. At the centre is a secret - kept by the parents from their four children throughout their apparently happy marriage. It is only after their father’s death that the secret unravels, with devastating consequences. Bringing people and places vividly to life, the author reveals the truths her characters are keeping from each other, and themselves.
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Family is all-important to Isabel. Her parents have an idyllic marriage, and she has tried hard to create one for herself. However, all pretense is shattered when her husband leaves her. On top of this her father dies, leaving Isabel devastated.
Then her mother confides in her: behind her parents’ apparently happy marriage was a secret kept for more than three decades. Isabel is staggered by the revelation. She is desperate to tell her sister, Grace, and her brothers, Rick and George. But her mother makes her promise to stay silent and the siblings have their own fractured lives to contend with. Against a back-drop of events that will devastate all their lives and amongst a maelstrom of emotion, breakdown, loss and competing claims, Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn weaves a careful and detailed story of how fragile people negotiate or fail to negotiate challenges and crises; keep secrets, fall apart or try to recover a sense of integrity in the midst of human mess. With meticulous attention to detail, portraits of people who are deeply flawed, but eminently understandable and superb use of objects as subtle metaphors for shared story, culture and expectation, this is an accomplished and compelling story.
‘The Broken Road' is Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn's third novel. 'Unravelling' was published on 2010, and came second in The Rubery Book Award in 2011 and won the Wishing Shelf Independent Book Award. 'The Piano Player's Son' was published by Cinnamon Press in 2013, after winning their novel writing award. Lindsay also writes short stories and flash fiction, which have been published in various anthologies, including Fish, Cinnamon and Rubery. She has an MA in creative writing from Bath Spa University, and combines writing with her work as a creative writing tutor.
