Twenty-nine year old Sydney has not been lucky in love. Her first marriage ended in divorce, and then her second was brought to an abrupt end by the death of her surgeon husband. Two years down the line, she is slowly putting the pieces back together, and assuming that she had already had her share of love. She finds herself in the employ of the Edwards, who want her to tutor their teenage daughter, Julie, during the summer at their beach house. She forms a close bond with Julie and her father, but Mrs Edwards remains cold and distant. Enter Julie's brothers. Within a very short period of time, one of them seduces Sydney and shortly afterwards, proposes marriage. This causes a rift within the family and what should have been the blossoming of a happy ever after for Sydney starts to drift into melancholic shadows. Author Anita Shreve has woven a deceptively tender tale of a woman who, despite what the world has thrown at her, still opens herself up to the possibility of love and the closeness it can bring to a fellow human being. Body Surfing is certainly not a book for anyone that wants their drama full of big action scenes and fist fights. It is more understated and subtle, and feels much more real as a result. There is so much that is not said, but which becomes more and more obvious to the reader as you follow Sydney over the course of a year. I haven't read a book like this in a while and I wasn't sure about it to start off with, as I thought there wasn't really much going on, but I'm really pleased that I stuck with it. A satisfying book that worms its way slowly, but surely, into your consciousness and hangs around after you have turned the last page.
My STAR rating: FOUR.
Length: 264 print pages.
Price I paid: 50p.
Formats available: print; audio CD; ebook.
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