Publisher: Arrow
Release: 12th September 2013
Genre: Fiction, Friendship, Women’s Fiction
Source: Received via Netgalley
Goodreads Summary:
"They thought they'd be friends forever.
Jen, Andrew, Lilah, Natalie and Dan were inseparable at university, but in the seventeen years since they left they have hardly seen each other. Until Jen invites them all to stay at her house in the French Alps. The house where they once spent a golden summer before tragedy tore them apart.
When a snowstorm descends, they find themselves trapped and forced to confront their unresolved issues, frustrated passions and broken friendships. And as relationships shift and marriages flounder, the truth about what really happened years before is slowly revealed. And Jen realises that perhaps some wounds can never be healed..."
Review
Amy Silver is one of my favourite authors for women’s fiction and I don’t think that her books get nearly enough attention as they deserve. If you enjoy character driven stories about realistic, and at times difficult, topics then Amy Silver is the author for you – I love unravelling the messy tangle of her characters’ lives! The Reunion is moving and compelling and it makes a nice change of pace from the happy festive reads that you can find in abundance at this time of year whilst still being an ideal read for cosying up with by the fire.
This story of betrayal, friendship and secrets begins with five old friends who haven’t spoken in years being thrown together in a remote cottage in France during a snow storm. Best friends at University until tragedy tore them apart Jen, Dan, Nat, Andrew and Lilah haven’t spoken since that fatal day. With news to share Jen invites them under false pretences to spend a weekend at her home in France that’s haunted by the happy and sad memories of the summers the group shared there. When a snow storm hits, the group are trapped and are forced to confront the past and untangle the messy and complicated relationships they have with one another as well as confront the blame and guilt they feel over the part they played on that life changing day. Amy Silver doesn’t give up all of her secrets at once; everything is slowly revealed in chapters that are set both in the past and present so that we get to thoroughly examine each character and their actions and the revelations that add vital pieces to the puzzle keep on coming until the very end.
Each character is so well developed. They’re all incredibly human with both good and bad traits. By the end of the book I felt like I knew every one of them inside out from what makes them tick to what brings them happiness. Each character had their flaws but I couldn’t help but love all of them because I could always understand where they were coming from and the thought process behind their actions. Each character has a place in the group and holds a piece of the puzzle and I loved seeing how one characters actions would then go on to influence somebody else’s decisions and so on until that heart-breaking final.
The Reunion is such a hard book to review because I don’t want to give away any of its secrets but if you enjoy books that give you plenty to chew over and characters who you can’t stop thinking about once you’ve put the book down then this is the book for you. Amy Silver has delivered an emotional and enthralling read and I’m already looking forward to what she comes out with next.
