In November of last year, I took a bit of a chance when I signed up for a blog tour and agreed to review The Pieces of Us by Caroline Montague – she was a new-to-me author, and while the beautiful cover certainly caught my eye, there was something about the “blurb” that made me really want to read it. I never thought it might end up as one my 2023 Books of the Year, but it was a book I entirely loved. And, while it’s been available as both an ebook (and only £2.99 for kindle, if that’s your preferred format) and as an audiobook since they were published by Orion on 12th October last year, today (15th February) finally sees the publication of the paperback edition, available through all major retailers.
Let’s take a closer look…
Marina and Hugh were once madly in love. But after the loss of their beautiful little daughter, grief has created a distance between them that feels impossible to bridge. Marina knows leaving Italy is the only way they will be able to move on, but Thorncliffe Hall, Hugh’s family home in England, is so grey and unwelcoming.
Just when life feels like it may never regain colour, Marina and Hugh come across a striking china coffee pot in a London shop window, adorned with a fox flying through the night sky. The coffee pot comes attached with a mystery, one that is connected with Hugh’s own family many years ago.
By digging into the past, Marina is about to discover a story far beyond her wildest dreams. But will the past help her heal the present?
A heart-wrenching, utterly unforgettable story for fans of Lucinda Riley, Dinah Jeffries and Amanda Prowse.
Might that be one you’d enjoy too? Let me share my review just one more time… it might help you make your mind up…
The opening chapters of this book are heartbreaking – with the loss of their young daughter, Marina and Hugh’s exceptional and intense love affair is placed under unbearable pressure, and they only grow further apart when they return to England from their idyllic life in Italy. Hugh abandons his art and immerses himself in managing his family’s Thorncliffe Hall estate, behind the closed door of his office – while Marina struggles alone in a wholly alien environment.
Until, that is, she begins to uncover a story from the past – inspired first by the discovery of a unique and strikingly beautiful coffee pot, followed by finding a memoir that uncovers an emotionally compelling story linked to the family’s industrial history. A dual time story unfolds, quite beautifully told – as Marina slowly begins to heal, finding a new sense of purpose, and we follow the story of the coffee pot’s designer and maker against the vividly drawn backdrop of the struggle for equal pay and improved conditions in the Potteries in the post war 1920s.
The historical content in this book is quite wonderfully done, clearly meticulously researched but transformed into a story that entirely engaged me at an emotional level – with a feisty heroine whose own story was particularly moving. I learned an immense amount about the lives of women working in the production of pottery, licking the brushes they used to etch their designs and accepting the threat of lead poisoning amid unsanitary conditions ignored by the factory owners – their poverty, their hard lives, but also the strength of their support for each other. The characterisation throughout is superb – people you grow to feel deeply about, complex individuals with such well told personal stories. And we see both sides of the divide – the lives of privilege too, the social conventions that need to be challenged, all with a moral ambiguity that was entirely fascinating.
The story-telling is just superb – perfectly paced, with well handled links between the historical and present day stories, and a real smoothness about the transitions between them. Although sometimes difficult to read at an emotional level, this was a book that had me entirely immersed from beginning to end – beautifully constructed, both worlds entirely real, with moments of considerable drama, and even a touch of romance that only enhanced the story.
This might be the first book I’ve read from the author, but it most certainly won’t be the last – totally unforgettable, intensely moving, and very highly recommended.
And if you decide to add it to your reading list, I’ll be very surprised if you don’t enjoy it every bit as much as I did…
About the author
Caroline Montague lives with her husband at Burnt Norton House in the Cotswolds made famous by TS Eliot in the first of his four quartets. She is also a designer and mother to seven children and step-children. She divides her time between England and Italy.
