Happy launch day, Misha Herwin 🙂

My review…..

Shadows On The Grass is a fascinating read.

Set in the 1960’s, in Bristol, it centres around cousins Marianna and Mimi as well as Hannah, Mimi’s daughter. Born in to the same Polish family, but with very different upbringings, Marianna and Mimi have a love/hate relationship. Marianna had everything Mimi craved; wealth, status and especially the love of her mother. They are close throughout their lives, but there’s an underlying resentment between the two of them and I was keen to find out why.

Mimi is quite distant with Hannah. I really warmed to Hannah and felt quite sorry for her. She craves the love of her mother, never really ever feeling good enough, and it seems a shame that Mimi didn’t learn from her own mothers mistakes and try to be different with her daughters. As the story progresses though we start to learn of Mimi’s difficult past which goes some way towards explaining why she is how she is. At first she kind of comes across as a cantankerous old madam, but I guess it goes to show that we never know what people might be going through or have gone through which has shaped them into who they are.

The story regularly flashes back to the ladies childhoods where family secrets are revealed along the way. Some I expected, others not at all!

Most of the characters fascinated me throughout this story. Hannah’s daughter, Kate, especially. She is studying for her A Levels and is torn between her catholic upbringing and the desire to rebel. Not quite sure if she believes or not, but almost frightened not to. Pretending not to care much about her family, when she obviously does, more than she probably realises herself.

This is a story of family, love, loss and secrets. I love how it ended. It highlights how we all see things differently. Also how our ambitions and expectations of each other can be worlds apart.

Full of emotion, it is brilliantly written with some beautifully descriptive language. A captivating tale and one I am more than happy to recommend.

Many thanks to Misha Herwin for my ARC.

Description…..

Every family has its secrets. In the nineteen-sixties Bristol, seventeen-year-old Kate is torn between the new sexual freedom and her rigid Catholic upbringing. Her parents have high expectations of her. She, however, is determined to lead her own life.

Mimi, her grandmother, is dying. In her final hours, Mimi’s cousin, the Princess, keeps watch at her bedside. Born in the same month, in the same year, the two women are bound by their past and a terrible betrayal.

Meanwhile, caught between the generations, Mimi’s daughter Hannah struggles to come to come to terms with her relationship with her mother, and struggles to keep the peace between her daughter and her husband. She too must find her own way in a land foreign to her, in a new post-war world, where the old certainties have gone and everything she knows has been swept away.