This is the first E J Noyes book I have read and I was not disappointed. I really enjoyed it.
Evie meets Annika when Annika moves to Boston from Germany for a year for work. They live on the same floor. It soon becomes apparent that Evie has money but does not flaunt it and is estranged from most of her family. Annika is very family orientated.
I loved the amalgamation of the American and German Christmas festivities.
I even enjoyed (if you know what I mean) the sister dying of breast cancer and the trauma that such an event created. Cancer does not respect wealth or status.
My sister died of cancer. I recognised the seismic ripples that erupt and affect all areas of life afterwards. In fact I think it was quite therapeutic reading for me. When the coffee pot broke I knew the significance. I’ve broken things. Things that I now have the pieces of tucked away – even to mend them feels huge and more than. Maybe because I then have to acknowledge that there’s going to be a time when things are gone. And there’s obviously been a while since there were any new things at all.
I liked the constant smattering of German throughout – and the increase of this when drunk. I thought the delivery of for want of a better word ‘broken’ English for a known German word was very cleverly done. And the constant ‘Ja’ seemed to remind me to read it with an accent (in my head of course).
There is of course an epilogue.
A surprise gift had been arranged – to do a most ordinary and some would say tedious household chore. And the answer to the possibility of a question would be ‘Ja’.