It’s a pleasure today to be joining the blog tour for Alice Alone by Amanda Brookfield, and sharing my review: published on 17th February by Boldwood Books, it’s now available for kindle (free via Kindle Unlimited), in paperback, and as an audiobook. My thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for the invitation and support, and to the publishers for my advance reading copy (provided via netgalley).
I’ve very much enjoyed rediscovering Amanda Brookfield’s writing since she joined Boldwood Books – The Other Woman, published in October 2020, was one of the best relationship-based dramas I’d read in quite a while (you can read my full review again here), and The Split, published in August 2022, certainly kept me embroiled in the lives of its characters as Esther began to blossom and Lucas’ life steadily imploded (review here). But this one isn’t a new book – in fact, it was her first, written when the author was twenty-five and originally published in 1989, and she tells us more about that in the new foreword: I was tremendously intrigued, and very much looking forward to this one…
On the day that her youngest child leaves home, Alice Hatton discovers two disturbing truths in a matter of hours.
The Empty Nest cliche is true.
And she does not love her husband Peter at all.
Now in her fifties, Alice is appalled to realise that she is no longer considered her own person, but is instead defined by her relationships – mother to her adult children, wife to her husband. Horrified by the thought of spending another thirty years with Peter in their North London suburb, Alice decides to take matters into her own hands.
What follows is a triumphant and liberating breaking of all the rules. But when Alice must cope with loss for the second time in as many years, she discovers what even the most apparently ‘respectable ‘woman is capable of.
Join Amanda Brookfield as she revisits her first novel, Alice Alone, and rediscover how she got her well-deserved reputation for writing about women’s lives with humour and honesty.
It’s only when her youngest daughter Robin leaves home that Alice realises that – after life had become no more than being a wife and mother, and until then it had been enough – she is no longer in love with her husband, and that there might just be more to life. At fifty-one, and after having her steely-grey bob transformed into something a little more adventurous, a chance encounter helps her discover a whole new side to herself – and it only makes her hungry for more. Her husband Peter, however, is forcibly reminded that his neglected wife really is the woman he loves – just at the time when Alice’s new life is going a little off the rails. Then there’s a shift – the family (a touch uncomfortably) reunited for Christmas, followed by daughter Robin showing few signs of leaving thereafter – and the drama that ensues sees Alice with a rather different focus, and a new way to regain her sense of purpose.
Part of the considerable fascination of this book is its eighties setting – a world that’s strangely unfamiliar now, with its different constraints and expectations, but I’m sure this really is what life could be like for women of Alice’s background. Are the characters likeable? I must say that I found Alice relatively easy to identify with – her choices might not have been mine, but I never felt she was unsympathetic, and particularly real for a woman of her time. Peter, with his paunch and comb-over, who briefly thinks his young protege might find him attractive, was very real too – women are a mystery to him in so many ways, and there’s little possibility of him ever understanding Alice’s restlessness. Despite the third person narrative, the author gets right inside both characters, their deeper feelings and motivations – and does so with particular insight and sensitivity, laying them bare for the reader, but also with a lovely touch of gentle humour.
Although character driven, I really loved some of the set pieces – especially both the significant restaurant scenes, the first changing the direction of Alice’s life, the second making Peter understand what’s important. The uncomfortable tête-à-tête between father and daughter was wonderful too – reported rather than seen, but excruciatingly funny and awkward. I will admit that I found the book’s later developments a touch less engaging than Alice’s initial adventures – but I was so deliciously caught up in the characters’ lives (the author does that SO well) that the pages did turn rather faster as I wondered quite where the story was going.
This was a book I thoroughly enjoyed – gently paced, exploring the dynamics of relationships, with well-developed characters who engaged me at every level. And yes, it’s a book of its time – but that only increased my enjoyment. I’d be more than happy to see the re-release of more of her back catalogue – but I’m also eager to see what the author does next.
About the author
Amanda Brookfield is the bestselling author of 19 novels including Good Girls, her first book for Boldwood, Relative Love and Before I Knew You, as well as a memoir, For the Love of a Dog starring her Golden Doodle Mabel. She lives in London and has recently finished a year as Visiting Creative Fellow at University College Oxford.
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I really enjoyed The Other Woman, I shall look forward to this x