Towards the end of the Swinging 60s, Phyllis Fischer decides to throw away her conventional life with he husband and two children for the appeals of a much younger man. Throwing herself into the Sexual Revolution, Phyllis embarks upon a whole new life. Sparking dialogue and a evocative sense of time make this an interesting and intelligent read.

Free Love is set in an interesting time period; it’s London in the late sixties. There is political unrest, societal upheaval and attempts at change as new ideologies are being protested by the young, who are distancing themselves from the previous generation. The older generation are worldly wise and have seen too much. They only seek to make more peaceful lives for themselves after living through World War II.
The people and places are described so carefully and realistically that you are there: in a suburban villa’s kitchen with its formica topped table and chipped lino floor, in a squat in the middle of Ladbroke Grove with dirty mattresses on the floor and cigarette smoke mixing with the stale smell of curry in the air, in a boutique trying on fancy dresses while an older lover slowly nods his head and brings out a thick wad of notes with which to pay.
I love the way the author describes little things such as dun-brown paint on a stairwell and the features of a wooden lift that may, or may not get stuck between floors in a rambling old building, which has very much gone to seed and is awaiting demolition. The old ladies who once lived there in safety, in genteel surroundings amongst respectable neighbours but whom are now stranded, impoverished with no other options, tore at my heartstrings.
The story centres upon one family and the repercussions of one night when a sandal is retrieved from a pond, or perhaps it is all from a time twenty years earlier….
There are secrets and people not being or communicating authentically, It’s messy and restrained all at once. Free Love is about wanting to shed an old skin amidst the tantalising possibilities of changing everything.
I loved it.

I will definitely be reading more by Tessa Hadley.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an ARC of this wonderful book.

This is the first book I have read by Tessa Hadley so I don't know how it compares to her other work but, based on this first impression, I am not sure if she is an author for me.

Free Love is set in 1967 London where we follow Phyllis, wife to Roger and mother to two children. On the surface, Phyllis is dedicated to her family but a discontent simmers beneath the surface. The arrival of the son of a family friend, Nick, brings many of these feelings to the surface and lead Phyllis to make a drastic change.

Hadley is clearly a talented writer and the prose is rich with descriptive detail. For me personally though it felt a bit over-written at times and affected the pacing of the story. Also, I have a dislike of books that don't use speech marks and unfortunately Free Love falls into that category and uses dashes to signify dialogue instead. I never understand why certain authors don't use speech marks and feel like their omission doesn't add anything to the story, except confusion about who is talking.

Unfortunately I found the story very predictable and the characters were flat and uninteresting. Although I will say that the 60s setting was captured well in the family dynamics and Phyllis' point of view. Perhaps with a different story that I feel more engagement with, I might enjoy Hadley's writing more.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House UK for the ARC.

This is, of course, extremely well-written, as you'd expect from Tessa Hadley. Character, Nikki, is compelling and Hadley's expertise in characterisation is showcased well here - Collette, for instance, as well as Phyllis are brilliantly formed. In terms of the narrative arc, there is a plot twist that is surprising and well conveyed. But listen to me, I'm talking like she's a student of mine, aren't I? Blah Blah. It's *good*, this novel, but that's what I'd expect, and personally, I love a novel set in the 1960s. There is, sad to say, a bit of yawnability with the main plot which is a little overdone. Older woman, younger man. That said, in anyone else's hands, this might have crashed and burned, and Hadley knows how to write a novel, for sure.

I'm grateful to Netgalley for the pre-read.

Brilliant writing. Skilled creation of a cast of unique, full-fleshed characters. A realisation of the time, that moment in the sixties when society underwent an apparently seismic shift, created through a layering of detail and insights into characters’ thoughts, and brought to life in Phyllis - a housewife of the establishment with an old lady name who begins to doubt everything and long for freedom. It doesn’t choose a side, not allowing an idealisation of either the old order of war time heroes, fragrant mothers, honour and civility or the new era of multiculturalism, peace, free thinking, free love. And in a way, that is both its strength and its weakness. I didn’t take any of the characters to my heart. I saw the truths but didn’t fully engage. The writer expertly takes us from the point of view of one character to another, but it felt disjointed, like I was just settling in one place and I was yanked to another. Perhaps that was the point, the intention, but it was unsatisfying. For me, the novel was like a tasting menu at a fabulous restaurant - you recognise that you are experiencing something wonderful created by a skilled practitioner of their art, but, for me, it was somewhat unsatisfying.

In 1967, forty-year-old Phyllis leaves her stock broker husband Roger, teenage daughter Colette, young son Hugh and their comfortable suburban home for cocky, self-styled rebel Nicholas and his grotty flat in Ladbroke Grove. Is this just the story of a disillusioned female keen for sexual liberation and intellectual stimulation? Or might Phyllis's impulsive act touch on family secrets that other people wish remained deeply buried? I loved Tessa Hadley's elegant, nuanced prose and this novel made me determined to read her seven previous novels, too. Warmly recommended! My thanks go to the publishers and to NetGalley for providing me with a free ARC in return for this honest and unbiased review.

This is a beautifully-written novel set in 1967. Phyllis Fischer, living a conventional middle class life with her husband Roger and two children, Colette and Hugh, falls in love with the son of her husband’s friends and so upends their comfortable family life. It’s rich in characterisation and description - I loved every page and rationed it towards the end as I didn’t want to finish. It’s a dreamy, evocative read with memorable characters. I particularly liked Colette and how she deals with her mother’s departure. Free Love transported me from middle class suburbia to bohemian London and I revelled in every detail. Captivating!

Hadley is a writer of great economy and detail - not the contradiction such a statement might appear be in other hands. She evokes a place and time beautifully. Inhabits her characters fully. For all her brilliance, her rarified world view has perhaps been in danger of feeling a little out of step in recent times. Here, she uses it brilliantly to create something that does timely despite the 1960s setting. That she has managed to craft a coming of age novel for what are effectively three different 'generations' of women (in the cultural, if not necessarily literal sense) and to a lesser degree men, is a coup. That she's managed to do it so lightly is the work of a writer at the top of her game. Recommended.

London in the 1960,s means different things to different people. Phyllis is a dutiful wife and mother but suddenly she wakes up to being in love with a friend of her son when they kiss .He is a communist sympathiser and she wakes up to politics as well as passion with him. She then makes an unusual decision, to leave her comfortable middle class life to be with her new lover.1967 is a time of change and new ideas for a number of people and this novel captures this time brilliantly. The insight she gives us into people’s lives is brilliantly told. Bravery comes in many forms and Phyllis is a strong and very brave woman. It is a shame her lover does not live up to her expectations. The story becomes a sad tale of lost relationships, betrayal and missed opportunities

The writing is brilliant but unfortunately the plot didn’t live up to its initial promise. I couldn’t move past some of the similarities to The Graduate.

London’s leafy suburbs towards the end of the so-called Summer of Love in 1967, and forty year-old Phyllis Fischer finds her own different brand of love. Upper middle-class with two children and married to decent upstanding Roger, an Arab specialist in the Foreign Office, she embarks upon an entirely unplanned and for her, unprecedented love affair with a much younger tyro writer – Nicholas, a son of friends of theirs. Nicky is cynical, scruffy and self-consciously radical. The quotidian, comfortable family life of the Fischers is portrayed with telling precision and intelligence, located firmly in the mores of late ‘60s swinging Britain – despite the changes in society, a time of relative bourgeois certainty and comfort. As Tessa Hadley says in her acknowledgements, she wanted to capture “the spirt of those times”, which she does with elegance and authenticity. But as Phyllis’s infatuation with her young lover grows, she begins to take risks, is fully absorbed in her new passion and she discovers that while we may well have been entering a new permissive age of hedonism, quotidian complications are always there even for the new age, and to amend the familiar truism – there really is no such thing as free love. Phyllis makes a sudden decision which has immense ramifications for herself and her family, and we see how she and those close to her have their lives turned upside-down by this hasty choice.

Admittedly, when I read the premise for this I wasn’t sure if I would like it or not, so I did begin the book with mild trepidation, but this was soon expelled in favour of a desperate need to turn each page and read more. This was a super interesting read, and since I studied the 1960s last year – or ‘the long decade’ – I was looking forward to experiencing a book set just in this time. It was a good book, not brilliant, nor my favourite, but it was compelling.

This is very much a character-driven rather than plot-driven story, so if that’s not your kind of thing it won’t be for you. However, the characters are fascinating, and they just grow more intriguing as the book carries on and we learn more about them, their lives and their beliefs. The main character, Phyllis, is who we spend most of our time with and she’s a character even now I think a lot of women will recognised and sympathise with, whilst the way she she represents womanhood and the role of women in society has been done countless times before, it didn’t feel boring or stale. Her journey is unsurprising in the beginning, however I still enjoyed it, and as the book goes on she grows beyond this. Yet, I should note Phyllis can get a little old a little too fast, towards halfway through Free Love I was starting to grow a bit fed up with her an emotional whims – she’s forty, she should know better.

However, as the book progresses the narrative switches to a different character instead of Phyllis, who begins to slowly fade into the background, and we spent time with arguably my favourite character out of all of them, Phyllis’ daughter Collette. She’s a teenager living through the 1960s and discovering what it means to grow into a women without her mum by her side, and the conflicts you see rise in her, the confusion especially, expertly mirrors the way a lot of young woman feel. I particularly enjoyed her fumbling intellectual journey paralleled with her growth into a woman, it felt authentic and her attraction to certain new modes of life made sense, the only thing I didn’t like was her ending but it was still believable.

The secondary characters in this also helped to serve the book in brilliant ways, from Roger, Phyllis’ estranged husband, to her son Hugh where the exploration of the effect of the ‘old ways’ in children truly takes place. The characters we also meet in London are all curious, and I enjoyed the scenes where we got to see them all interact with each other, and how their different lives intersected but were also formed through their beliefs. The only secondary character I grew to have any issue with was Nikki, who at first was exciting as he is the character who truly introduces the action of the book, and the conflict of beliefs that runs through it, but who the character he grew into was one I found hard to engage with and ultimately hoped I would not see again.

An integral aspect of this book is the beliefs tied to it and it’s characters. Free Love is very much not only about exploring family dynamics and womanhood (for white women) in 1960s Britain, but also about Britain’s cultural and political beliefs at the time. Each character is assigned a different cultural and political standpoint whether it’s Roger who is the old, stiff-upper lip British colonialist, to Nikki’s new anti-capitalist, anti-colonial stance; or to someone like Phyllis who is drawn to the new debates with a desire to learn and discover. It makes for interesting storytelling, and conversation, but there were times I found myself getting lost as the narrative waded too deeply into this debate and losing sight of the characters.

Hadley is also able to create a very believable 1960s British setting within the book, at no time did I forget where we are, and it was clear she knew what feeling and atmosphere she intended to capture. I particularly enjoyed London at this time, and reading about the streets and the life contained within it as it always seemed so vibrant.

I would note, that this doesn’t do anything new or revolutionary with the ideas contained within it, everything is a trope I have seen before, or a conflict that is being rehashed for this book. As well as this, you should be aware this really does focus on the experience of white, middle-class British people and little else at this time; Hadley does attempt to include conversations through secondary characters to encompass more than just the white experience, but they are small and ultimately not the focus. Yet, even though it doesn’t do anything I would label as new, it is still well-written and nicely explores these themes.

Overall, it’s a great book, and I’m glad this is my first Hadley book as I’m now intrigued to see what else she has written and discover what else she has to say. It’s definitely one to pick up if you enjoy historical fiction and politics, if not this will be a miss for you.

I’m not sure why, but this is the first title I’ve read by Tessa Hadley and it’s a totally compelling page Turner. I have warm and vivid memories of the 1960s and the huge changes that were sweeping the world; hippies and the peace movement, civil rights, the pill, female empowerment and more and Free Love captures to perfection that undercurrent of change that was almost palpable.

The writing is perfectly pitched; it’s simple but but every word counts. It’s a story of an awakening; an early mid life crisis where values are challenged and changed, but at what cost? The characters have depth and I warmed to them and the unfolding situation. Beautifully written and after this taster, I’m going to look for more from Tessa.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley.

I've heard so many people talking about this book and both the cover and synopsis really intrigued me!

Set in the sixties, we follow 40-year-old housewife Phyllis who is living a normal but unfulfilling life. After meeting a younger family friend, she experiences a sexual awakening that is set to change her life drastically. Throughout the book not only do we get a deep understand of Phyllis and her frustrations and desires, but also her husband and children who have to cope with the upheaval to their family life.

This is my first time reading one of Tessa Hadley's novels and I'd definitely consider picking up more of her work. The writing was excellent and each of the characters were really well developed and explored. I think you could easily love or hate Phyllis because of her attitude and actions, but I admired the way she decided that her life wasn't yet finished, and that there was still plenty of time for more adventures.

Set initially in a quiet, leafy suburb of London we meet the Fischer family, Roger, Phyllis, Colette and Hugh who live a conventional, and unremarkable, life together, that is until homemaker, Phyllis becomes hopelessly infatuated with the son of a family friend. Nick Knight is twenty years her junior and his louche lifestyle is far removed from the middle class respectability which has stifled Phyllis's natural exuberance for far too long.

The setting is reminiscent of a bygone era and the ambiguous sexual morality of the 1960s is juxtaposed alongside the conventionality of middle class suburbia. The country was undergoing great changes, both socially and economically and it was, most certainly, a time of discovery and unconventionality, the old order was gone and a new 'free loving' generation was going forward.

Each of the central characters are superbly flawed, and, it must be said, rather difficult to like, so all credit to the author for creating a set of people who, despite their many faults, start to become more credible as the story unfolds. Clever, sophisticated, entirely absorbing, Free Love is Tessa Hadley writing at her absolute best.

I think I requested this book through a NetGalley e-mail because the marketing around it made it sound like a heady, intriguing romance that would make me long for summer. However, looking at the cover and reflecting on it now, I’m struck by how unlike my usual tastes it actually is.

It’s 1967 in London and the Fischer family are welcoming a dinner guest. Roger Fischer is a family man who works in the Foreign Office while Phyllis Fischer is a dutiful housewife and mother to quiet, smart teenager Colette and eloquent, bright boy Hugh. Their guest is Nicky, a 20-something rebellious free spirit, whose youth and ideas beguile Phyllis and prompt an illicit affair. Suddenly, Phyllis sees the world differently and she’s making decisions that no one, especially herself, expected her to make.

Phyllis is clearly dissatisfied with her domestic life from the very start of the book and that’s almost certainly what caused her head to be turned by Nick. She is pretty superficial and I couldn’t warm to her, which got more difficult as the book went on. While I understand her yearning for something more, I was appalled at the way she went about it, so there was very little room for me to find the sympathy.

Colette reminded me of myself at 15 and I’m sure she will resonate with many young bookish girls. I think Colette was the only character that I really wanted to get out of the book in one, happy, whole piece. She seems to have spent most of her life in the shadow of her pretty, perfect mother and wants nothing more than to be just like her. Of course, when her mother started to do questionable things and make terrible choices, I feared that she’d follow.

Nicky’s chaotic energy spelled disaster from the moment he was introduced. There was one moment at the very beginning when I was worried that it would be Colette that he would corrupt, which would have made for a highly uncomfortable, controversial novel, given her age. I know that people like Nicky exist and they nearly always follow a life similar to the one he leads. Therefore, I felt that he was just a huge walking stereotype for a late 1960s bohemian.

Phyllis is obsessed with Nicky and as difficult as I found the writing style to get along with, I have to admit that it works to depict her intoxicated stream of consciousness. The affair literally consumes Phyllis until eventually it is all that she can think about. Anyone who has ever been completely and ridiculously infatuated with someone will know the craziness that comes with that headspace and Hadley does a great job of showing it within Phyllis.

The book is set in 1960s London and that comes with all of the attitudes of the time. Phyllis feels unsafe walking through Black communities and she compares it to the time she spent living in Egypt. These brief pictures of London life during that time are few and far between and I would have loved more interaction between the middle class white characters and the growing population of ethnic minorities in the city.

I was much more interested and invested in Colette’s story than Phyllis’. Like most teenagers, she wants nothing more than to be liked and accepted by everyone. She does this by imitating the adults around her and this of course, makes her vulnerable to being exploited by creepy older men. I was really concerned for her wellbeing for the whole of the second half of the book and I wanted to do what Phyllis should have been doing -educate and protect Colette.

Free Love is an exploratory study of unfulfilled minds and hearts and how they break free from the chains that bind them. It’s about discovering inner desire and finding a different version of yourself. However, it’s also a lesson that it doesn’t always necessarily lead to eternal happiness. Hadley writes in long, meandering sentences which I struggled with but which does undoubtedly suit the atmosphere of the book. I finished it full of anger and frustration towards both Phyllis and Nicky, which is perhaps not quite what the author intended!

This is an incredibly compulsive story about a woman’s sexual awakening. This audacious story reveals the inner workings on sexual freedom and romance

Set in 1960's London, we meet housewife Phyllis, her husband and two kids. But she starts an affair with a much younger man and changes all of their lives forever.

This was a slow burner, but the final third of the book made up for it.

I actually preferred the daughters story and found her the most interesting character. And I liked the unexpected twists at the end concerning the husband.

A beautifully written portrayal of a woman growing older who falls for a much younger man - and the effects this has on all the members of her family as well as her and the lover. The detail is exquisite and we know each character so well as we get inside their heads. A memorable story of a summer of love that goes too far for everyone.

A really good read.

Set in middle class London in the 1960’s, housewife Phyllis decides to change her life.
An unexpected plot twist halfway through added to the story and I became more invested in this novel.
Lots of interesting characters. I’m not sure I liked Phyllis or some of her decisions but her story makes for an interesting read.