"We're here on a family holiday—and anyway I love 'you lot.' That wicked little Eliot makes me laugh, and your girlfriend's bottom is doing wonders for your father—do look, Clive, he's gone absolutely scarlet."

Is it bad that I felt that every character in this book deserved to be miserable? I really could not find a character in this book that I actually liked (not even Clive and Martha's daughter, Eliza). Even though I was annoyed by the characters in this book I couldn't help but want to read about them. I was hooked from the beginning of this book and couldn't wait to read about these people that I started to despise. This is a relatively short book (compared to some of the books that I normally read) and I just flew right through it.

What really stands out about this book is the quality of writing. Olivia Glazebrook may have created characters that I hated but she managed to keep me hooked in the story because of her writing. Glazebrook just makes it so easy to get lost in these characters' lives. Usually if I don't like the characters than I tend to not like the book but in this case Glazebrook's style of writing really saved the book for me.

The secret that Clive is trying to keep from Martha is not that difficult to guess (in fact you can probably guess it before you even start reading the book) but I still found myself really wanting to know exactly what had happened in the past. I just loved reading the passages from the past and getting to see how the characters had grown from then. I may have been able to guess the secret but I was still fascinated by the events that took place in the past.

I would recommend this book if you are looking for a really well written book and don't mind characters that can be annoying. I received this book from a Librarything Early Reviewers giveaway. The content of my review is not affected by that in any way.