This engaging novel follows three generations of sisters in one English family, centring on a series of significant moments in their lives, and opportunities lost or found. It opens arrestingly, with a family dinner punctuated by Jennifer’s discovery of her sister Charlotte hanging from their bedroom ceiling by two knotted-together school ties.

Among Jennifer’s first thoughts, after she cuts Charlotte free (just in time), is: ‘The loss of two school ties was going to take some explaining’. And it’s that kind of book – packed with incident, bristling with acid observations and wry asides, yet steeped in the emotional life of the family (particularly relationships between sisters), in all its degrees of light and shade. It’s not only about key incidents, but differing perceptions of those incidents – in fact, the reader is constantly discovering different sides or aspects to stories we think we know, right to the surprising end. Sibling rivalry, too, is integral to the book, particularly in the story of Bertha (Jennifer and Charlotte’s wearily despised grandmother) and Jemima, set during the 1920s. A lively, unputdownable read.