When the Templeton family from England takes up residence in a stately home in country Australia, they set the locals talking - and with good reason. From the outside, the seven Templetons seem so bohemian, unusual... peculiar even.
No one is more intrigued by the family than their neighbours, single mother Nina Donovan and her young son Tom. Before long, the two families' lives become entwined in unexpected ways, to the delight of Gracie, the sweetest of the Templeton children.
In the years that follow, the relationships between the Templetons and the two Donovans twist and turn in unpredictable and life-changing directions, until a tragedy tears them all apart. What will it take to bring them together again?
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"Interesting writing style. The authors real gift is connecting you to characters and connecting characters to each other. These characters really don't fall flat in any way, they are multidimensional, you get to see them from not only their own vantage point but also that of friends and family,they are relatable, they are humorous, some are introspective, some are not but they are all so viably human that it really draws you into the story and gives you a deep connection with their lives and the storyline. That being said, I think the letters were perhaps not my favorite approach to reconnecting these lives after they displaced from each other. I felt some of that brilliance in writing was lost in the letters, it became extremely long winded and in the final portion of the book it just became almost as a sighing heave. It was too predictable, for such an obvious set of circumstances towards the end we really didn't need so many words to get us to this point. We didn't have to see it from EVERY angle possible, we didn't have to draw that out so much. I think it tired me as an audience member. It made me feel bored with it all. I would have loved it if she would have ended a bit more poignantly and left it to the reader? Perhaps at the bit where Gracie blows the whistle near the water when she goes back, Have Tom come up at her from behind, get to see that real spark and chemistry between those two and then leave it to our juicy imaginations where it went from there? I'm not saying she had to leave loose ends I am just saying that she needed less words and more emotional charge to really bring it all to a close. By the end the emotional charge had run out for me, it got lost somewhere in all of that writing, which was too bad because there were so many connecting moments and I just adored all of these characters, even Henry and Charlotte in their own ways. It was a completely human piece and all that being said, a really great one just to pick up and go with."
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Cassandra (4 out of 5 stars)