This book is full of interesting characters and ideas about art. It also shows that sometimes you are so close to something (or somebody) that you don’t get a clear look at what is really happening. 

This is an age gap romance, set in Bristol. The story centres around the grief of Caro, a well known artist, and how she reassesses her grief, life and love with her recently deceased wife and moves on with a younger Spanish animation student. We are introduced to Caro as she is literally on the doorstep as the police and ambulance leave her house following her wife’s death. That leads you (or at least me) to presume there is a reasonable suspicion that she had taken her own life. Caro struggles to move on and is unable to paint and create art without her muse. Her finances dwindle and she is finds herself having to take in a lodger – an animation student, Laura. Laura of course is determined to make this frosty woman lighten up a little. 

And it works – of course it does, or there would be no story. 

They both have trust issues and do not communicate them. Ultimately though, Laura is reason enough for Caro to try and move forward. When she starts to sort her wife’s things out she finds and reads her journal for her last days. She is not complimentary about Caro in it – and this prompts Caro to reassess their relationship, and she packs her things away. 

There is of course many side roads in the story. 

I  like it when I learn something from a book – the research or existing knowledge is appreciated as it transforms books into something vibrant with passion.

Epilogue – Predictably, this is their wedding. Although Laura’s work has been nominated for an award so that gets a mention.