What a beautiful novel this is, from someone writing at the top of their game. Structurally and stylistically, it’s a treat, with alternating sections telling the stories of the same character, Edith, fifty years apart. The younger Edith tells her own story, in the first person, through the device of a lengthy letter to a child, to be read in the future, explaining the circumstances of the child’s birth and subsequent life. The sections dealing with the older Edith are set in rural Ireland and are told in the third person. The sense of a whole life is given real substance by this technique, with the gaps and inconsistencies generating as much authenticity as the threads that clearly stretch unbroken through the fifty years that separate the two portrayals. What is the relationship between each of us and our younger selves? How much of our lives could have been predicted by the clues provided by our beginnings?
The book uses the two settings, 1960s Tuscany and Ireland in the 2020s, to explore some weighty themes: Antisemitism and the fallout from the holocaust, refugees and immigration, what constitutes nationality and a sense of belonging, family bonds, conventionality versus bohemianism. All of it, though, is firmly rooted in character, relationships and drama. There are two major plot strands, but plot is not the narrative driver here. It’s Moss’ gorgeous prose that drives the reader on. Well, this reader anyway. (although in the second half, there were a couple of occasions when I felt the reflective lyrical writing slowed the narrative down. I’m nitpicking, but hence the four stars, rather than 5). Beautiful descriptions of both Tuscan countryside and small town/village life in the Republic are subtly blended with Edith’s reflections on first growing up and then getting old. Both are done brilliantly - her awkward, self conscious sense of being out of her depth in the artistic commune in Tuscany is as wonderful as her sense of self and certainty as an older single woman still grasping life with both hands. It’s a very compelling affirmation of the truth that one of the joys of later life is the liberation of not giving a toss what other people make of you, and doing it without being a boor or a reactionary old redneck.
Honestly, this is a must read book. Beautiful and thought provoking.

"There's something Fascist , don't you see, in the idea that your genes are your story? I have learnt this: there are no border guards at the chambers of your heart. It's only the immigration officers who might care, where your mother was born, what passport your father carried.
If history grants you the chance, be free of all that, that's my advice”

My first foray into Sarah Moss’ writing did not disappoint; she’s an exquisite writer, and her latest novel, Ripeness, shows an author at the height of their literary powers. Edith is the novel’s main character, and we see her story unfolding across two timelines, fifty years apart. In the present(ish) day, Edith is living on the west coast of Ireland, enjoying an uncomplicated life - or so it seems, for Edith is a little haunted by the events of one Italian summer about fifty years prior. This Italian summer is explored in the second timeline; here, Edith is 17, living with her pregnant older sister Lydia and her mates in a Tuscan villa. Lydia is here as she’s been sent away to deliver her first child and immediately hand it over for adoption. Grim!

I enjoyed this a lot while still finding it quite hard going; Moss’ language is dense, she doesn’t use quotation marks and is fond of the odd philosophical tangent. None of this is a criticism, it just didn’t suit me at the time of reading. That said, I still found myself drawn in by Edith’s stor(ies) and loved some of Moss’ more political commentaries. There’s a subplot about refugees coming to Ireland and local resistance to the same that she ties to her family history of Holocaust Survival, which sounds like a reach but was superbly done. Moss also explores the emigrant experience (like Edith, she is English living in Ireland), what that means as a form of identity, and how it affects feelings of belonging to a place or a people.

Strangely, I felt more drawn to present-day Edith’s story than teenage Edith - I found the older version of the woman more compelling, though what little action happens in the novel takes place in the 1960s section.

Repeated mentions of Isr*el got my back up, given the ongoing genocide taking place in Gaza, but other than that i’d recommend this novel - it’s a multi-layered story of womanhood, place and identity that probably would have offered a lot more to me if I hadn’t been reading it during a particularly exhausting week.

I did enjoy it but the plot moved slowly and I definitely didn’t feel compelled to pick it up. I’m glad I finished it though and felt it was a worthwhile read.

This book was a nice easy read.
If you like ballet, or you don't mind stories about Irish girls getting taken for granted and being left pregnant, you will love this book.
It is a well written book with lots of philosophy/ common sense, and a bit of history/geography (of Ireland, Italy, France, USA and England).
Not enough really happened in it for my taste.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This book was perfect for me - not because I had nothing to complain about, but because, despite its flaws, it simply worked.

The story is told on two levels: A 73-year-old Edith, who has recently separated from her husband in order to enjoy a few years of freedom, is the focus of the first. She is well off and lives her life for herself. When her friend Méabh is confronted by an American man who claims to be a son her mother must have had when she was 16, Edith helps her through it - and remembers her own Italian adventure nearly 60 years ago. This is the second point of view, told in the first person. Waiting for her Oxford studies to begin, a 17 year old Edith helps her sister, a ballet dancer, give birth to a baby who is not meant to return with them to Ireland.

This is not revolutionary storytelling. We soon realise that Edith is writing her story for the baby in question, set in motion by her friend's experience. It is a classic narrative device. But the prose is simply beautiful, the story compelling and all the characters full of life. The themes are many: Motherhood, sibling relationships, friendship, art, bodies, rape, privilege, sex, self-actualisation, pain, loss, xenophobia - but they all fit together so organically that you hardly notice how they intertwine. I preferred the Italian storyline, but I was glad to get to know 73-year-old Edith and her world from time to time. All in all, a great novel!

This story starts not only 'in media res' but also 'in flagrante', with Edith in bed with her lover Gunter who visits on Thursdays. 'Ripeness' is a more subtle novel than this might suggest. In the 'present tense' of the story, Edith is in her seventies, but there are several flashbacks to another timeline - a visit to Italy when she was a teenager in the 1960s, visiting her pregnant sister Lydia. In the acknowledgements, the author mentions that the novel was partly written during a fellowship at Casa Ecco on Lake Como - perhaps inspiration for the lush Italian settings in this part of the story ("...I sat with my back to the church and looked down to the villa, to its miniature garden and round sapphire pool, the cypresses...").

The narration moves between past and present tense, and first, third and second person - by the end, I had a grip on the story (or it had a grip on me) and it worked beautifully, but it took me a bit of time to find my footing. The writing is elegant, and has a certain archness and humour ("all the reasons we should not have married forty years ago have bloomed and spread like mould behind the bath"). In the passages where Edith muses on modern life in a free-flow of thought, I was reminded a bit of Virginia Woolf. In the end, this was a novel which I liked rather than loved. I'm glad I read it (many thanks for the ARC), but it didn't find a place in my heart the way that 'Ghost Wall' did.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance copy.

This took a while to get into, I liked the style of writing but it was quite hard work initially. But I did get into it. I actually expected more twists than there were. I enjoyed the parallel story lines and the mirroring.

The 1960s, and Edith—barely out of school, her sense of self still unformed—is sent to rural Italy, her mother’s will pressing down on her like the heat of the continental summer. She is not asked to make choices, only to carry out instructions. Her elder sister, Lydia, a ballet dancer now stilled by the weight of pregnancy, must be watched over. Edith will be there for the final weeks, a shadow at the edge of Lydia’s life, assisting where she can, awaiting the inevitable. It is a task both small and immense, the kind of moment that leaves no visible scars but rearranges everything beneath the skin.

Decades later, Edith is in Ireland. Living in the sturdy comfort of a life she has at last chosen for herself, she is settled into her friendships and the quiet satisfactions of a home that belongs to her. But belonging is never simple. Maebh, her oldest and dearest friend, receives a call from a man who claims to be her brother. Across the decades the past is pressing in, and Maebh must decide: does she open the door to it? Does she let herself be reshaped by what she finds?

This is a novel written by an author at her peak. Moss makes us feel how thought gathers—layer by layer, shaping into certainty or doubt, slipping unspoken into silence, into decisions made. This is a novel that understands that consciousness is not a linear stream but a slow sedimentation, an accretion of impressions, obligations, and histories that press down and shape identity from within.

At its core this book is about belonging—where we claim it, where it is denied us, where we are forced to make a home from what remains. It is about the devastation of forced separation, about the quiet violence of decisions - and the raw violence of history- that sever families and rewrite futures. But more than that, it is about the way stories work—the way fiction, like identity, is made not from single moments but from accumulation, from silence, from all the things we cannot say but must still live with.

An impeccable, powerful, novel which will wrack your heart.

“We’re all wanderers. We all live dangerously; the brave thing is to know it.”

I really loved being immersed in this book for the time it took to read. When I first encountered Sarah Moss’s writing, I found her style a little disconcerting, but once I became accustomed to her style which is like a stream-of consciousness narrative, I became engaged with her characters and their views of the world. She is skilled at getting inside the heads of her characters and bringing them to life for the reader.

This is a coming-of-age story in one sense but also has much wider implications about our place in the world and what makes us who we are. It’s a plea for more humanity and compassion in the face of our human fragility and mortality. There is also the theme of art and literature and how a dedication to the arts can both liberate and constrain.

I’d like to read this again to savour the prose and the all the thoughts and ideas running through this short novel. It’s a rich and rewarding book to read and one I highly recommend especially in the uncertain times in which we now find ourselves.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

This was the first book I have read by this author, have to admit I did struggle a little with her style of writing, but that said, I did enjoy it and look forward to reading more by her in the future

I am a huge fan of Sarah Moss and this novel cements her reputation with me. The story quietly unfolds and the reader begins to understand what is at the nub of it without any pushy, showy, extraneous text. Family, loss, love, grief and growth are at the heart as always. The writing is sublime and I was entirely swept up with it. I wept and I hurrahed in places. It should be a massive success.

Sarah Moss is a writer of beautiful stories and with Ripeness all of her writing skills are in place to create a multi-layered novel which reflects on many themes. The central character of the book is Edith and her story unfolds over two times and locations. In the mid 1960's 17 year old Edith (Dita) is living in Italy for the summer to help her elder sister in the final stages of her unwanted pregnancy. This part of the story, told in the first person, is interspersed with the third person narrative of current day 73 year old Edith living in rural Ireland.
73 year old Edith is a wonderful character whom I can see having as a friend. She lives a happy life, comfortable in her own skin. She has many female friends, enjoys open water swimming, yoga and walking. She has a male lover but he is just one part of her existence. She is happily divorced from the father of their only child, Pat. 17 year old Dita is just getting to know herself in Italy and has her whole life ahead of her. She is linguistically talented, literary, caring and, as with her older self, loves the outdoors. She feels somewhat in awe of her beautiful elder sister Lydia who is a ballerina.
Relationships and descriptions are key in this story. Through Edith and Lydia's relationship with their Maman who is a tormented restless woman seeking her roots as well as the sisters' relationship with the new born child in Italy, issues of motherhood, family, adoption and identity are explored. Cultural, religious and linguistic identity is also threaded throughout the book with Dita's use of A level Italian in Italy, the arrival of refugees in Ireland, the place of the Irish language in education and life, cultural Jewishness and cultural Catholicism. Edith's reflections on the dangers of forgetting history; the problematics of 'othering' those with different passports' languages and/or cultures and the possible unwanted outcomes of DNA testing are intertwined into the story without any suggestion of heavy handedness and certainly cause the reader to stop and think.
This is such a rich story that it is one I certainly want to read and digest again and will recommend to many of my friends.
Thanks to PanMacmillan via NetGalley for an ARC of this lovely book which I certainly recommend to readers who enjoy thoughtful fiction.

A character driven novel primarily about Edith at two stages in her life - late teens and around the 70 mark. An inward reflection rather than a story, I found the pace quite slow and was only really engaged after the birth. A mother and two daughters and the journey of each to reach autonomy which comes sooner for some than others.

The novel starts right off with a sex scene I can’t remember reading one that does

The story tells us about the life of Edith who has seen in two versions of one is an older woman living alone in the cottage in Ireland and the other as a young woman looking after her sisters and legitimate baby in a villa in Italy

I spent a lot of time googling the pronunciation of the beautiful Irish names mentioned in the book
I was very quickly immersed in the story and it wasn’t just because of the sex scene. I loved the fact it was an older woman’s story to begin with and the setting in Ireland was beautifully rustic as was the Italian lakes sections.
I love the fact that there is mention here of Ukrainian refugees in the future when somebody read this but this is really gonna root the novel firmly in 2022 or 2023

I spent a lot of time googling the pronunciation of the beautiful Irish names mentioned in the book for English read as it might have been helpful to have a pronunciation guide

The author has a beautiful poetic lyrical way of writing. I found myself stopping several times to save the beautiful writing for example I enjoy this line“How fast is one life time I did another way how limited”
This is the authors first book and in my view is a very accomplished piece of writing. It’s a well structured beautifully written novel with a big heart.

I strongly recommend this novel for those who enjoy a character based novel.

I read an early copy of the novel on NetGalley UK and return for an unbiased review. The book is published in the UK on the 22nd of May 2025 by Pan McMillan.

This review will appear on NetGalley UK, Goodreads, StoryGraph, and my book blog bionicSarahSbooks.wordpress.com.
After publication, it will appear on Amazon UK

Sarah Moss's Ripeness is a profound exploration of family, belonging, and the complexities of human relationships across time and place. The narrative alternates between two timelines: the 1960s, where a young Edith is sent to rural Italy to support her pregnant sister Lydia through a concealed pregnancy; and the present day, where a septuagenarian Edith, now residing in Ireland, aids her friend Maebh in confronting the revelation of a long-lost sibling. ​Ripeness stands as a testament to Sarah Moss's literary prowess, offering a richly layered narrative that resonates with themes of love, loss, and the intricate bonds that define us.

This is a fantastic book my Sarah Moss, the detail in her writing is exquisite, no word is wasted. This book is about family, belonging, trauma and identity and Sarah Moss explores each theme beautifully.

'Ripeness' is Sarah Moss's eighth novel. Her first, 'Cold Earth', mesmerised me and I went to hear her talk about her craft at a Book Festival in 2012, the year after her second novel 'Night Waking' had been published.. I was smitten. Here was a writer I could connect with and whose world I understood. But her writing? Miles beyond any aspirations I could ever have. So I wait with bated breath to read whatever she writes, hoping my fan girl status won't be upended by a dud. No chance! 'Ripeness' is brilliant. Don't let anyone persuade you that a younger writer can't inhabit the body of a woman in her 60s and write what that's like. Moss breathes her characters and the reader can feel the reality of their lives. I don't know how she does it. Interwoven in the story of this 60-something's current life is a back story that seems like it's being recounted so that Edith can put her life in order. And it is that to some extent, but Moss's magic is to add layers throughout the novel that finally, wonderfully, heartbreakingly coalesce at the very end. I really didn't want to finish this book - and re-read it as soon as I'd finished it. And I 'never' re-read books. But I'll read this one again, and again, and again. I urge you to read it once and you too may find that's just not enough. I cannot commend this novel highly enough.

" You'll belong by caring for people and places."You come from where you were last."

This is a story of love and belonging- identity - who we are..what connects us and how we define ourselves.

Ripeness is a story which alternates between two times; the life today of Edith living in rural Ireland and her friendship with Méabh who is contacted by an American claiming to be her brother - given up for adoption when her mother was 15.

The juxtaposing part of the book is set in Italy in the 1960s when a young Edith ( prior to going to study in Oxford) goes to spend the summer with her sister Lydia who is due to give birth to a baby whilst living in a lakeside villa surrounded by friends from a dance entourage.

Lydia's reflects up her life and loves - marriage and divorce -and her mother who is often absent as she lives in Paris ( a survivor of the holocaust) and her jewish identity.

Sarah Moss' prose is poetic, subtle but so full of depth- the adjacent tales build gradually bringing the full realisation and connection of the circumstances to the fore as the denouement approaches.

Edith's teenage conflict as she witnesses the events and aftermath of her sister's life in Italy and the emotions for her friend Méabh when the news of an unknown sibling arrives are palpable as she tries to understand what we man by family, genetics and defining yourself.

Moving, exquisitely crafted- Sarah Moss is at the top of her game.

Quotes: There's something Fascist , don't you see, in the idea that your genes are your story? I have learnt this: there are no border guards at the chambers of your heart. It's only the immigration officers who might care, where your mother was born, what passport your father carried.
If history grants you the chance, be free of all that, that's my advice

I have loved Sarah Moss since her first novel, 'Ghost Wall,' and was delighted to get a review copy of her latest, 'Ripeness.' In her new book, we meet Edith at two stages in her life, as a teenager whose plan to go to Oxford is delayed and in her Seventies, living in Ireland. As with all of us, in-between that time, are different stages of her life - marriage, a son, divorce - but when we catch up with her in Ireland she is happy, and has friends and a lover.

However, in many ways, what happened in her youth defines her life and that of her sister, Lydia. Their mother is Jewish and fled to England during the war, where she married an English farmer. However, throughout the girls lives, she fails to settle, leaving eventually for Israel after her family are lost in the holocaust. So it is that when Lydia, a ballet dancer, finds herself pregnant, she is sent to an Italian villa by Igor, possibly the father, to give birth and give up her baby. Edith is told that she needs to stay with her sister, care for her (the driven and dance-obsessed Lydia does not, as we learn, wish to be cared for) and where she will both attend the birth and care for the baby under the disapproving eyes of the housekeeper until the Sister arrives who takes the baby for adoption.

This storyline touches lightly one related to Edith's friend in Ireland, which allows Moss to discuss so many of the issues of women's lives, from Edith's mother, to that of her friends mother, to Lydia and to Edith herself. It is also very pertinent when Europe itself is under attack. Europe is a small but beautiful continent. My own family has so many links with Edith, my mother's family from Italy, my father Irish, a DNA Ancestry test revealing that I have family from many other European countries, including Jewish heritage, while my husband arrived in the UK from Pakistan. In this book, Sarah Moss is passionate about Europeans remaining welcoming and open and retaining their humanity. She discusses the number of Ukrainians who have found refuge in Ireland during the war, of refugees told they do not belong, but centrally she discusses how children are displaced and the effect on them and those around them. If you have had a child, I dare you to read the sections where Lydia has her baby, of the adult decisions overwhelming and denying Edith's own desires to keep this nephew, and not cry.

This is a wonderful read. It tells of the way women protect themselves, of their pragmatism, the way they have the ability to separate their lives and to be different things to different people - mother, sister, wife, daughter. Also, of the way that things are often done to them, of how they have to live with the consequences of acts such as the situation Lydia finds herself in. In this world, so much in the lives of women are under threat. Women are not receiving an education in many countries and yet this is raising hardly a comment politically. They are unable to obtain healthcare in others, and their rights are being eroded, even in many Western countries. It is a reminder we need to look back, to see how things were and ask ourselves, do we really want to go back there? I have a daughter but also two sons, and certainly I do not. This would be an ideal novel for a reading group as it will offer so much discussion. I loved it and recommend it highly.

Another wonderful novel from Sarah Moss. How she manages to explore so many important aspects of what it is to be human, whilst also weaving together a number of fascinating narratives in ‘Ripeness’ is nothing short of brilliance.

Edith is in her seventies and lives in Ireland. She is divorced with an adult son and a lover of sorts. Whilst she feels that she will never be truly assimilated into rural Ireland, she is pretty content. She has friends and enough to live on.

One day her neighbour, Maebh, tells her that she has received a letter from someone claiming to be her elder brother, adopted by Americans as a newborn, and keen to know about his birth family. This stirs memories. Edith, too, is wondering about a baby boy given up by her ballet dancer sister, Lydia, decades ago.

The novel moves between contemporary Ireland and the past – 1960s Italy where seventeen year old Edith has been sent to support her sister in her final months of pregnancy. Clearly, the trauma has been deeply buried but as she forces herself to confront what happened, she knows that she must leave a written record in case, somewhere, a man is searching for his origins.

This is a beautifully written story in which Moss lays bare the sisters’ very different but equally painful experiences in Italy and how this determines their future choices. It’s about being an outsider, making sacrifices, living with a sense of loss, and much more. Highly recommended.

My thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for a copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.