This Family: Your perfect summer read

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This is an old style family saga, with all the foibles, quirks and oddities that large families have. It is a very slow start, and really nothing much happens in the first 70% of the book, but the reader is kept guessing what has caused the major rift between Emma and Phoebe, though it’s pretty obvious Michael is involved. The characters themselves were interesting, and felt like real people, even though they are fictionalised. Lyrical, literary and luminous ... buy it and treat yourself to writing at its finest." - Bethany Clift Mary is getting married for the second time. She’s hosting a celebratory meal for the whole family and her ex-husband is on hand to cook a hog roast. Everyone has promised to behave; they all agree that Mary deserves her hard won happiness. Poor Mary – that she still has to worry that her adult daughters may cause havoc. We wonder why.

The scattered members of Mary's close family are coming together to celebrate her marriage. Her one wish is that they can lay aside their differences for one day, to make one happy memory in the house that has meant so much to them all over the years. Set over the course of an English summer's day and punctuated with memories from the past forty years of love and betrayal, hope and joy, heartbreak and grief, this is the story of a family. Told by a chorus of characters, it is an exploration of the intimacies and transgressions that bring us to where we are, the changes that are brought about by time, and what, despite everything, stays the same. Will they be able to put aside their differences, the past betrayals and hurts? And put their love for Mary and her desire for peace above their personal feelings? This family is deeply flawed but there’s the potential for what unites them to be stronger than what divides. The vibrant, complex members of This Family are still alive and well in my imagination, weeks after I finished reading it. The rich, precise prose drew me into their world and held me there from beginning to end.' JO BROWNING WROE She herself has been through some trauma though, and as the eldest sister she was put in some positions of responsibility that should never have been hers to bear.This family has been broken for some time, but today they will all be together for the first in time in years. Marys daughters, Phoebe, Rosie and Emma together in their childhood home despite the emotional and physical distance that has been pushing them further apart. The story is told over the course of this one day but the author cleverly winds in past reflections of several characters to show us just how the family dynamics evolved, where each choice was made that resulted in friendship or hurt, offense or love, betrayal or exile.

She wasn't always happy about this sense of obligation, but has always done what she believed was her duty to her family, and I was glad that with the wedding and resolution of the novel Mary was finally putting herself and her own happiness first.With that said, I think this is an engaging story, ideal for lazy summer reading. If you enjoy books about family dynamics and the havoc they can cause, then I think you’ll enjoy this one too. Subtle, intelligent, and so deeply moving…people who just feel so achingly real. Extraordinary’ – A.J. West Absorbing and unexpected. It took some turns that I really didn't see coming, but which nonetheless felt plausible and satisfying." - Rebecca Wait I don't know if Sawyer has any direct experience with the impact on children when a parent has taken their own life, but there was so much of myself that I saw in Rosie. The emotional impact of trying to support the surviving parent while squashing down your own needs and experiences, the odd misplaced pressure and guilt that you carry around inside trying to prove yourself to the world, and trying to prove that you're a good person. It really does leave it's scars.