So tomorrow is Thanksgiving but instead of getting a head-start on making pumpkin pie or peeling potatoes I opted to finish Jojo Moyes’ debut novel. In my defense, badkittyuno asked to borrow my copy before I returned it to the library and my mother’s house is the best place for a dead drop.
Sheltering Rain, like Silver Bay, was a bit slow moving but once the plot was established the pace picked up and became another enjoyable read from Moyes. Hence the current lack of pies in my house.
Our book opens at the brink of the Korean War; Joy meets a serviceman named Edward at a party for Queen Elizabeth’s coronation and they get engaged the next day. Flash-forward fifty years and Joy’s teenage grand-daughter, Sabine, is spending a few months at their Irish estate. Sabine’s mother, Kate, fled her childhood home and moved to London when she got pregnant at eighteen. Since then, Kate has become a serial monogamous who recently ended a long-term relationship for a new boyfriend. While her life is in flux it becomes easier to have Sabine spend time with the grandparents she hardly knows. When Edward gets ill, Kate rushes back to Ireland where the past gets brought to the forefront.
There is a lot of misunderstanding between all three women; based mostly on misunderstanding of eachother’s feelings due to a lack of communication. Joy’s marriage wasn’t the romantic fairy tale Kate grew up believing it was and Kate’s relationship wasn’t the only casualty caused by Sabine’s birth.
While I prefer Moyes’ more recent publications I am continuously satisfied by anything I read by her. As always there are fleshed out female characters and, for once, the past’s mysteries remained a mystery until Joy revealed them.
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