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Jane Green’s sixteenth novel is a wonderful insight into a marriage, gossip and the power of persuasion.

 

About the Book

Grace Chapman has it all: perfect family, beautiful home and the time to indulge her love of cooking and helping others, but when their assistant departs to look after her ailing mother the cracks in Grace’s marriage begin to show. Then Beth appears in their lives. Homely, sweet-natured and blessed with extraordinary organisational abilities, she is everything they need. Soon Grace becomes convinced Beth is trying to take over her life, but is she the gold digger Grace believes or has the mental illness that dogged her mother begun to manifest in Grace?

 

My Thoughts

Saving Grace is an intriguing exploration of a marriage and touches on many of the issues facing middle-class society: the superficiality of image over substance, misdiagnosis and the over-prescription of drugs, and the willingness to abandon someone in crisis. The tension between what people think they know about other people’s lives and the reality of those lives is beautifully realised.

The opening sets up a story of emotional and mental abuse and I looked forward to following this storyline, but as Grace relates her story it becomes about her mental stability. Likeable Grace is utterly believable as a woman willing to make excuses for her husband’s bullying and while there is little mystery about where the novel is headed, Grace’s growth as a whole person, independent of her husband’s career, is well worth following.

Saving Grace is escapism with a message about the dangers of keeping up appearances and of relying too heavily on others.

 

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Acknowledgements

A special thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an ARC