Maureen Fry And The Angel Of The North is the third book in the Harold Fry trilogy by British actress, radio playwright and author, Rachel Joyce. Some ten years after her husband, Harold returns from his pilgrimage to save Queenie Hennessy, he still hears from some of those he encountered on the journey.

Five months earlier, Kate sent a postcard about Queenie’s Sea Garden: there’s a monument to David, the son they lost thirty years earlier. Maureen tries to convince herself that she doesn’t need to see it, but Harold can see that she does. Harold and their neighbour Rex surely won’t be able to fend for themselves, she reasons but, leaving a freezer full of prepared meals and instructions on sticky notes papering the kitchen, she sets off on a four-hundred-and-fifty-mile journey to Embleton Bay.

But Maureen isn’t Harold. Maureen can’t connect with strangers, relate to people she doesn’t know. She can’t even get on with the women in her book club. Her encounters with the waitress at the motorway services café, the security guard who gives her route directions, the young man who helps when she has a minor traffic accident, the volunteer at Queenie’s Sea Garden, these are not fulfilling, uplifting, heartening experiences. Quite the opposite, in some cases.

Not far from Embleton, Kate offers her a bed for the night, but Maureen is uncomfortable with Kate’s hospitality, sees only the dirt and clutter, and can’t wait to leave: “Inside the truck, there was not one single place for the eye to rest that hadn’t already been claimed by something else. It was like looking directly into a migraine. Tiny Buddha ornaments, chakra stones, hanging quartzes, crystals, candles, exhortations to find your inner goddess and your angels, shelves draped with purple curtains. Everything carried a thin layer of filth and was either broken or about to be. And the smell. Dear God. She’d thought she’d smelt bad. Incense sticks were puffing away in every corner.”

When Maureen sees what Queenie has made, her Garden of Relics, she’s enraged: how dare Queenie put up figures of Harold, of David! Her anger leads to an impulsive act that backfires on her.

Reduced by physical injury, Maureen has to accept the kindness and care Kate unstintingly gives. Captive in her disability, she connects with sweet little Maple, Kate’s granddaughter, and eventually, finally, Maureen comes to terms with her grief over David.

Joyce treats the reader to a wealth of beautiful descriptive prose: “Maureen drove below snatches of sky where sunlight glinted on the road, steel blue, spun gold, as rich as the glances off a crow’s wing” and “Ahead, the skin of the sea heaved and waves rolled out of the dark” and “the kitchen was covered with Post-it notes, like small yellow alarm signals” are examples.

Similarly, she evokes feelings and mood with wonderful skill: “Stuck in the car, she was exposed only to herself, with no Harold to dilute her” and “Once again, she experienced that old feeling of being the wrong shape for the situation in which she found herself. Of being an intruder.”

Joyce gives her characters insightful observations: “a person could be trapped in a version of themselves that was from another time, and completely miss the happiness that was staring them in the face” in this novella filled with humour and heartache, wit and wisdom. The illustrations by Andrew Davidson at the start of each chapter add charm. Short, beautifully written: a joy to read.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Random House UK Transworld.