Three Mothers

Three Mothers is a deeply satisfying and rich debut from a talented new voice in contemporary fiction. Fleeing Nazi occupation in Austria, Helene escapes to London, where she meets and marries Charles, a British Intelligence officer. When she is summoned to join him at a posting in India, she is miserably seasick on the crossing, but also pines desperately for the baby she's been forced to leave behind. Twenty five years on, Helene's daughter, Vera, discovers she is expecting a child, and starts to suspect a downside to 'free love'. She begins to question her relationship with her radical, free-thinking husband, as motherhood takes her into uncharted waters of her own. Vera's daughter Susie, now a grown woman, has never been able to understand the animosity that exists between her mother and grandmother. With the terrible news that Vera has been diagnosed with a serious illness, Susie becomes determined to unravel their tangled family history before it is too late. As she delves into the past, she makes some surprising discoveries about the people she thought she knew best...