'The novel is a reflection of the characters' lives - vivid, dramatic and sometimes chaotic, with emotional volume turned up to full blast . . . a narrative of striking exuberance and generosity - THE TIMES

Connie is the youngest member of a large Irish family and Ireland's too small to contain her. She is beautiful and impulsive. Men love her, while she roars through life, never looking before she leaps - sometimes onto rocks. Nina is English and middle-class, the shy, thoughtful, daughter of an army officer. She marries her boyhood love and has two children before realising how unfulfilled she is, and that painting is her true passion. Fay is American and Jewish, the granddaughter of a holocaust survivor. She's the ambitious one, who fulfils her dream of becoming a doctor before admitting a darker, more complex side to her nature.

'The female characters are so superbly drawn, so real, that you are reminded of the skill of the female novelists of the 19th century ... [the novel's] brilliance lies in a combination of the author's subtle observations - how jealous men can be of their wives' friends, for example - and the absence of sentimentality' - DAILY TELEGRAPH