Author: Linda Rader Overman
Publisher: Plain View Press
ISBN: 978-1-891386-62-6

The beginning of this novel actually commences at the end. Could anyone have changed that?

Laura is trying to cope with her mother who is struggling with Alzheimer’s disease when out of the blue her friend’s husband, David, rings to say his wife Katherine has died. Katherine had written to her on a regular basis from the hospital but conversations over the phone always consisted of Katherine saying she was the devil and needed to die. Laura thought she had understood and talked her out of doing this but sitting at the church during the funeral she wondered how it had all actually ended for Katherine. Laura also wondered why David had wanted a separation. Katherine certainly didn’t.

After the funeral, David asked Laura to go into Katherine’s bedroom and there she found boxes of letters from herself to Katherine from the age of twelve years up to the present day.

Laura takes the box with her to the hotel she is staying in and rings her husband to send her own box of letters she has kept over the years.

Memories come flooding back as she wallows in them all and tries to understand the signs she missed by not reading between the lines. The things Katherine couldn’t talk or write about. Perhaps she missed the start of Katherine’s deterioration and realises she let Katherine down big time.

Laura messed with drugs and was too involved with her own life to really understand exactly what Katherine was suffering.

Did things really happen with Katherine’s father. Why hadn’t she picked up on that?

The chapter in which Laura loses her baby is heart-rending, especially when Katherine gives birth to her own daughter later on. The trials and tribulations the friends face should bring them closer together- but do they?

Too late, Laura tries to discover more of Katherine’s final hours in the hospital.

This story is touching, tender and compelling. It is quite an involved poignant story of growing up in the sex, drugs and rock and roll era of the sixties.

It covers many facets of friendship, love, hopes and dreams, sorrows and grief coupled with many regrets.

These are the backdrop of an excellent novel.

One shortcoming of the book was the typescript that at times I found difficult to read, it is a perfect read.

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