@internrachel @julia1 Yesterday I finished ‘The Very Thought of You’ by Rosie Alison (350 pages). I chose it from a charity shop because it was sold as a ‘haunting coming-of-age novel with a love story at its heart’. It was set during World War II and seemed to have been nominated for lots of awards (albeit love story awards).

It is about a young girl (Anna) who is evacuated to a large country estate which, during the war, has been turned into a house. It is also about the Ashtons, the couple who own the house, who are not in love with each other. It’s about all their relationships – in love, in family, in friendship. But it is not an uplifting book by any means, in fact it makes love seem to be so elusive and rare that it is almost impossible to find and even harder to hold on to.

The whole story is actually rather tedious – it spans from Anna’s evacuation to her death, and you get a lot of back story on the Ashtons, but you never seem to be that drawn in by any of them. And so much happens without anything really happening, if that makes sense. I can’t imagine wanting to read this one again.