Book description
Rachel Doe is a shy accountant at a low ebb in life when she meets
charismatic Ivy Schneider, nee Wiseman, at her evening class and her
life changes for the better. Ivy is her polar opposite: strong, six
years her senior and the romantic survivor of drug addiction,
homelessness and the death of her child. Ivy does menial shift work,
beholden to no one, and she inspires life; as do her farming parents,
with their ramshackle house and its swan-filled lake, the lake where
Ivy's daughter drowned. As Rachel grows closer to them all she learns
how Ivy came to be married to Carl, the son of a WWII prisoner, as well
as the true nature of that marriage to a bullying and ambitious lawyer
who has become a judge and who denies her access to her surviving child.
Rachel wants justice for Ivy, but Ivy has another agenda and Rachel's
naïve sense of fair play is no match for the manipulative qualities of
the Wisemen women. Frances Fyfield has spent much of her professional
life practising as a criminal lawyer, work which has informed her highly
acclaimed crime novels. She has been the recipient of both the Gold and
Silver Crime Writers' Association Daggers. She is also a regular
broadcaster on Radio 4, most recently as the presenter of the series
'Tales from the Stave'. She lives in London and in Deal, overlooking the
sea which is her passion.
