A look into relationships using the medium of psychology, so very intense and hard-going in places.

The book does not shy away from some very disturbing subjects and for that I applaud it.

I’m online enough to remember the fascination of Friends Reunited and looking for names from the past so this story was interesting in that respect, likewise menopause is a familiar subject, so I could connect with Marianne in some ways. It’s not a bad read but personally I didn’t fall head over heels in love with it. Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for the digital copy in exchange for a review.

Meeting Lydia is the second book that I have read by Linda MacDonald having read and enjoyed The Man in the Needlecord Jacket last year, you can read about that here.

This book is again an exploration of relationships and dynamics that was engaging and enlightening, the reader can't help but be drawn into the lives that are portrayed, the unravelling and the putting back together.

At the centre of this story is Marianne. A history of bullying has left its scars, and the authors portrayal of this is sensitively handled and accurate. Fast approaching middle age, the menopause and the catalyst of her errant husband leads Marianne into the realms of online relationships and Edward Harvey.

This book is not particularly fast paced or full of dramatic suspense but what it brings is something else, something different. It peels back the layers so that any of those characters traits could belong to you or me. It was uncomfortable at times. It felt like being a fly on the wall, on the other hand Linda MacDonald has managed to scrape beneath the surface and make her story seem very real and relevant to a whole host of readers.

Linda MacDonald is a talented and ingenious writer who is capable of getting to the depth of her characters hearts and minds. I look forward to reading more from her in the future.

Highly Recommended.

Linda MacDonald has studied and taught psychology and this is clearly shown in her writing as she understands the complexities of the human mind and relationships.
Meeting Lydia is a story of a young girl who was so cruelly bullied at school until one day a like-minded scholar joined her class and she felt like she’d gained a comrade and had a kinship that could share the load of troubles. Now the young girl Marianne is in her mid 40’s she’s starting to recall her troubled times as a child and the constant fear she felt throughout her childhood. With Marianne’s life now changing into it’s next natural path she is starting to feel vulnerable again. Marianne’s husband has started to gain the attention of a much younger female colleague which is bringing back feelings of fear, isolation and despair.
To try and put the ghosts of unwelcome feelings from her past behind her and to seek friends and classmates from her school days Marianne decides to seek the help of an online site. This site has given her an invisible cord to her past and she finds the courage to speak behind a screen about her insecurities and her demons from the past. This little connection has given her the strength to find positivity from her past and to accept that there was good in everything.
The story was quite thought provoking at times and very poignant. I felt empathy for Marianne’s character and could totally appreciate and understand that the situation Marianne was in would be felt by thousands, if not millions, of people around the world. We often think our problems are unique but each and everyone of us feels the emotions of vulnerability at some point in our lives.

Meeting Lydia is a thought-provoking and sometimes moving account about relationships and growing old(er). At an age where you’re supposed to have it all figured out, insecurities crop up. Never mind a grey hair or two, what’s with all these wrinkles and saggy bits? Not helped by the fact that you feel time is running out. Is your life all you thought it would be? What happened to your ambitions and dreams? What if you’d done this or said that when you were younger? Would your life have been different?

Marianne’s concerns and feelings are undoubtedly familiar to quite a few of us. She was bullied quite severely as a young child, an experience that still affects her to this day. So when she returns home one day and finds her husband, Johnny, in the kitchen talking to a glamorous colleague, all her old insecurities resurface. Is she not beautiful or sexy enough anymore? Jealousy rears its ugly head and while Marianne is also forced to deal with the dreaded menopause, her marriage begins to fall apart.

In her time of need, Marianne turns to an old classmate. A boy she used to have a crush on, one who didn’t bully her. It is in talking to him and facing her past that she and her husband may still have a future together. I must say that this correspondence didn’t quite turn out the way I expected it to and while it is explained why Marianne decides to turn to this person, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around that. The more interesting conversations are the ones Marianne has in her head, where she talks about things she doesn’t communicate in person.

Meeting Lydia covers a variety of interesting topics. From relationships both in “real life” and online, to menopause, to bullying and its effects. It explores human behaviour, not just through Marianne’s life but also through the psychology lessons she teaches her students. You’d think Marianne would follow her own advice but as they say “those who can’t do, teach”, I suppose.

Relationships take work and communication is key. Nobody is a mind-reader and that’s probably for the best. But in this case, I’d say Marianne’s struggles put a strain on her marriage that could possibly have been avoided if she’d known how to talk about and tackle her feelings. Will she be able to find some self-confidence and stand up for herself? Can her marriage be saved? And who is this Lydia? You’ll have to find out for yourself when you read this honest, realistic and relatable story about how the past and unresolved issues can affect your future, no matter how old you are.

Meeting Lydia is an exploration of women, relationships and the impact of the modern world on our lives. Marianne is in her late 40’s, married to Johnny and their daughter, Holly, is about to head off to University to study Law. She arrives home one day to find her husband having a cup of tea and a chat in the kitchen with a glamorous and much younger female colleague of his and the green-eyed monster strikes. Although she is a sensible, competent woman who teaches psychology at a college she lets the jealousy take over the rational part of her brain. Convinced that her husband is having an affair, she descends on a path of self-sabotage and begins to reminisce about a boy from her childhood, Edward, who was a friend to her when she was tormented and bullied during her school days. Set in 2002, Meeting Lydia examines what happens when Marianne finds Edward on Friends Reunited and begins an e-mail communication with him.

I’m not sure that I am necessarily the intended audience for this novel as I am in a completely different part of my life to that of Marianne (I graduated University in the year the book is set) so I struggled to understand some of the motives and thought processes purely because it is something I have no frame of reference for. However, I am a woman and can understand the hot feeling of jealousy and feeling “less than” when comparing myself to somebody who is everything I am not. Marianne feels all of these things when confronted with Charmaine a woman who she describes as “a vision of feminine sexiness” who “was perched on a stool by the table, mug between both hands, legs crossed, short skirt riding up above her knees” and this incident causes Marianne to feel things that she hasn’t felt since she was bullied as a young girl. Linda MacDonald uses this as a starting point to explore a myriad of issues such as how our past affects our future, whether infidelity is only a physical act or if an emotional affair is more damaging and effect of the menopause.

Marianne’s communications with Edward are via e-mail and I enjoyed their musing on life as they were almost philosophical in nature. These messages are dotted throughout the novel and are interspersed with flashbacks to Marianne’s childhood and the present day lectures at college where the themes are further explored. I thought this was a clever way of reinforcing the themes and provided a number of different viewpoints of what was occurring in Marianne’s real life. As Marianne gets closer to Edward she moves further away from Johnny and as a reader it was so frustrating to see this happening to a marriage. Marianne is a difficult character to love, she jumps to conclusions, reads too much into things and at times many of the issues she faces are as a result of her own actions. Conversely, this is something that we have all been guilty of at some time and reading it in black and white feels uncomfortable because it may be too close to the bone.

I especially liked the relationship Marianne and Johnny had with their daughter Holly and her boyfriend, Dylan – it felt true to life. There is a lovely moment when Holly returns from her first term at University and Marianne realises she has blossomed into a woman. This of course is the crux of Marianne’s difficulties – as she reaches menopause her daughter is reaching womanhood, a daily reminder of her situation.

Overall I found this is detailed and complex exploration of women, our ‘place’ in the world and the complicated natures of relationships. The first in a series of books (that can be read as standalones), Meeting Lydia was a different read which threw up many questions.

In my review of The Man in the Needlecord Jacket I said that for a book to really impress me it needs to engage my emotions, win my heart, and move me – and it’s even better when it engages my brain a little too. This book did all that, and more – with its focus on Marianne, approaching her fifties, feeling the changes to her mind and body and their impact on her marriage.

One of the author’s exceptional strengths is in allowing you to inhabit the mind and thoughts of her characters – and Marianne’s mind isn’t always an entirely comfortable place to be, however recognisable from your personal experience. As well as the insecurities at her stage of life, Marianne carries a lot of baggage from her dreadful experience of bullying, as one of a small number of girls at a boys’ preparatory school – a legacy she’s never shared with husband Johnny, nor come to terms with. The novel is set in 2002, in the early days of electronic relationships – the relevance of “Lydia” (very cleverly) becomes clear as Marianne re-establishes contact with Edward, a fellow student she admired from afar, through Friends Reunited.

I very much liked the book’s structure – her initial search for contact, the email exchanges agonised over for tone and content, together with the deeper, more reflective drafts never sent but revealing far more about Marianne’s thoughts and feelings. I also loved the portrait of her marriage – the realistic exchanges and reactions, the words that couldn’t be unsaid, the jealousy souring each attempt at reconciliation. It would be wrong of me to tell too much of the story, but there were moments in this book when I was angry with her, wanted to hug her, and one significant point when I wished I was standing behind her to cheer her on.

The writing, as ever, is superb – a lot of introspection and self analysis, but very well handled, and an emotional touch that’s quite perfectly judged. There’s darkness and light, humour and tears, characters you grow to love, and a strong narrative drive that carries you through with a yearning to discover how things play out. I really enjoyed this book – and I’m particularly delighted that I still have two more books to look forward to reading, to explore the characters further.

Meeting Lydia is the first in a set of four books that feature some of the same characters but are standalone reads. I have read book four, The Man in the Needlecord Jacket, which I thought was a fantastic read so I was keen to read another by this author.

I'd been wondering who Lydia was as she didn't seem to be mentioned in the blurb. It all becomes clear in the story which is about Marianne primarily. She's menopausal and when her husband, Johnny, brings home his attractive younger colleague, she's incensed by it. It brings back her school years when she was bullied as one of only a handful of girls in a boarding school for boys. It drives her to Friends Reunited (the book is set in 2002 and at the time that site was the cutting edge of social media) to look up an old school mate, Edward, and they begin an email correspondence in which Marianne pours out all her feelings.

This book looks at how events of the past are always there, waiting to rear their, sometimes ugly, head. Marianne is deeply damaged by the bullying but had pushed it into a recess of her mind. Edward is someone who might understand, might remember, a kindred spirit, as he was there at the time.

There's quite a lot of philosophical thoughts in this book, particularly in Marianne's emails to Edward. Not surprising, given that she is a psychology lecturer (and the author was too). Philosophical thoughts aren't quite my bag but they represented Marianne's look deep within her psyche, examining her inner feelings and fears.

It was nice to read something about Friends Reunited as that site had a massive impact on people. For the first time, it was possible to look people up on the internet and connect with them again. I also enjoyed the themes involved in this story, being ones of jealousy, insecurity, the change of life. Linda Macdonald is most definitely an accomplished writer of stories about feelings. She's able to look deep into the heart of her characters.

I really enjoyed Meeting Lydia and am looking forward to catching up with the characters from different perspectives in the two books that I have not yet read. This is intelligent fiction about a woman at a crossroads in her life, trying to work out whether to stick on the road she has travelled so far or to take a different path.

I’m such a fan of Linda’s books so I was very excited to be invited onto the blog tour for the paperback release of Meeting Lydia.

This was another fascinating book from Linda, examining the psychology of relationships and how our past can continue to affect us. Bullying is a very emotional subject and one that, unfortunately, everyone experiences at some point in their lives. As someone who was bullied at school, this was subject I knew a little about and it was heartbreaking to see how much it still affect Marianne’s life. The bullying scenes were quite uncomfortable to read about as they seemed very real, the author doesn’t sugar coat the situation so the reader is exposed to all the hurt and confusion that Marianne feels.

I loved Marianne! She was one of those characters that you can really get behind as she is so relatable. I wanted her to have the happy ending she deserved, though sometimes felt like shaking her as she made some interesting decisions. The reader gets to know Marianne on a personal level which made me a lot more affected by what happens.

The author adopts a intimate, fly in the wall style of writing that makes the reader feel like they are standing next to the characters watching everything unfold. This made me feel more involved in the story and I felt I cared more about what happens as if it would affect my life too. The chapters alternate between the present day and Marianne’s time at school which helps give the reader a more holistic view of her life and greater understanding of what happened.

The drama/ tension in the book is created by normal, everyday things that helps make the book very original and incredibly gripping. This could actually happen, to you or someone you know which makes it even more thrilling as you wonder what you would have done.

Linda is the author of four books and this is the second book I have read by her. I really look forward to reading more from this talented author.

Huge thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the tour and to Linda MacDonald for sending me a copy if her book.

I enjoyed this book. Realistic topic with characters and situations that you can relate to.

Marianne doesn't have an ideal life, nor the ideal childhood, I did like her feistiness. The way she said it to your face, specially her husbands alleged mistress. That part I liked and cheered her on.

Marianne becomes obsessed with a online site kind of like facebook to see if she can find her childhood crush Lydia. Once she finds him she and him exchange emails over a time. They set out to meet up but things keep getting in the way. Does Marianne and Lydia meet up? Read this book to find out. I wasn't satisfied with the ending but it is what it is. I do like the correspondence between Marianne and Lydia, very satisfying. You can tell they are both very educated. I also like Marianne's class discussions.

Thank you Net Gallery and Matador Publishing for this book in exchange for my review.
Cherie'


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