Five Days
Douglas Kennedy
Five Days
How long does it take to fall in love? For twenty years, Laura has been a good wife and a good mother. She's supported her husband through redundancy, she's worried about her son, she's encouraged her daughter. She's stopped thinking about all the places she'd like to go and all the books she'd like to talk about. She's not unhappy, exactly. She's not that self-indulgent. As anyone would tell you, Laura is wonderfully constant, caring, selfless. She's certainly an expert at putting on a brave face. But a chance meeting in a hotel lobby - and the five days that follow - remind Laura of the young woman she used to be - and the woman she could have become. Is it ever too late to have the life you wanted? Or do we owe it to ourselves to pursue the promise of happiness?
3.5 out of 5 based on 4 reviews
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Omniscore:
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| Classification |
Fiction |
| Genre |
General Fiction |
| Format |
Paperback |
| Pages |
336 |
| RRP |
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| Date of Publication |
March 2013 |
| ISBN |
978-0091795825 |
| Publisher |
Hutchinson |
| |
How long does it take to fall in love? For twenty years, Laura has been a good wife and a good mother. She's supported her husband through redundancy, she's worried about her son, she's encouraged her daughter. She's stopped thinking about all the places she'd like to go and all the books she'd like to talk about. She's not unhappy, exactly. She's not that self-indulgent. As anyone would tell you, Laura is wonderfully constant, caring, selfless. She's certainly an expert at putting on a brave face. But a chance meeting in a hotel lobby - and the five days that follow - remind Laura of the young woman she used to be - and the woman she could have become. Is it ever too late to have the life you wanted? Or do we owe it to ourselves to pursue the promise of happiness?
Leaving the World by Douglas Kennedy.
Reviews
The Independent
Christian House
“The possibility of escape and rejuvenation is the refrain of this novel, and it is a theme for which Kennedy has a particular fascination. He possesses a Hitchcockian approach to this narrative hub; tension and twists are administered in equal measure in order to retain readers' emotional attachment to otherwise domestic scenarios. The ordinary becomes, through his careful plotting, extraordinary. Kennedy's trick is to pull all the strings of thriller writing in the romance genre.”
06/04/2013
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The Daily Mail
John Harding
“… a gripping emotional rollercoaster, pressing so many buttons it’s likely to have readers examining their own what-might-have-beens.”
28/03/2013
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The Times
Kate Saunders
“Totally, blissfully absorbing.”
23/03/2013
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The Daily Telegraph
Toby Clements
“The situation Kennedy creates is not intrinsically uninteresting. A more thoughtful telling of the story could have made something out of it. One problem, perhaps, is the choice of telling the story from Laura’s point of view, and in Laura’s words. Kennedy can congratulate himself on a feat of literary ventriloquism, but the question remains: why make his readers suffer? Laura is someone who yearns to escape her world, and after 328 pages, you’ll want to, too.”
28/03/2013
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