At the start of the novel, an old man, Heron, is having to face up to the challenge of telling his daughter, Maggie, about a diagnosis which is probably terminal. It turns out that he has been having problems about telling things to Maggie for most of his life.

The narrative switches to 1982 and to a housewife, Dawn, who meets Hazel in an era where such relationships were considered perverse. Once exposed, Dawn is branded as a pervert and the Family Court considers that makes her a bad mother. She has no chance of gaining custody over Maggie and is driven out of her life. She makes a new life with Hazel.

Flash forward and Maggie thinks everything of her father, believing that her mother deserted her and the family. It is an event which has devastated her life.

It’s not difficult to see where this is going but it makes for an excellent story as the flashback structure emerges and takes shape. It turns out that Heron has been keeping a lot of things from Maggie!

The workings of the Family Court, properly researched by the author are horrific. It’s astonishing what was considered legitimate in 1982 and good to see how far the world has come since then.

It’s a very readable novel and avoids over romanticising the situations it describes while analysing them in detail. It’s well worth a read.