This is an American novel with a slow plod through a sleepy town in the South and a cantering ride through New York and the sleaze-pit media, and very skilfully the writer drives these mismatched horses to pull along one narrative about someone who really doesn’t know who she is, but, through illness mainly, she stops running away and finds out very painfully who she is before it’s too late. So there’s a mystery at the heart of this story and it works very well – you feel for the characters and you want to find out what happened.

there are also themes – one comes as a surprise so I won’t say – and the continuing loss of integrity in the news media is another. I recommend this author, perhaps not for heavy-duty reading but certainly for a good story, well-told.