EXCERPT: I was nearly asleep when Aunt Seraphina came in. She was in her long summer dressing gown and the flowers on it looked black in the white light from the uncurtained windows. She half-drew the curtains against the strong light, fearing moon madness. Her hair was brushed long over her shoulders, grey and fine, and her face looked smaller on the long wrinkled neck. A withered bud, a frosted rose on a long stem. Circe in decline.

She looked at me, hesitated, but did not come to kiss me. At the door she turned, asked quietly, 'I would like to know the real reason for this visit, Louise.'

Just as quietly I replied, secure in my childhood room looking up at that tree patterned ceiling, remembered yet strange, telling her the truth, too tired not to, 'I want to know why my marriage has failed. This is where I can find out.' And went to sleep surprised at myself, for the truth is not a courtesy the young often extend to the old.

ABOUT THIS BOOK: One secret can tear a family apart…

Sensing the end of her marriage, Louise Yeovil takes the initiative and leaves her husband.

Twelve years ago and madly in love, she’d eloped with Max Yeovil, much to her family’s disbelief.

Life with Max had been good, but it had its challenges.

A series of miscarriages and Max’s eccentric, never-ending, stream of friends and colleagues filtering into their lives, had left Louise unable to cope with the path she’d chosen.

But she knew there was more to it than just that.

Returning to her home, The Hollies, the house she’d grown up in, Louise believes she will find the answer to some of her niggling thoughts.

Nothing much has changed in the twelve years she’s been away.

There is Aunt Seraphina, who steals cuttings from under the park-keepers’ noses; Aunt Rosa, the eldest, who has the ability to hurl a cushion as straight as a die, with her one eye; and Aunt Cissie in her wheelchair, tiny and malevolent

An unexpected turn of events results in Louise learning of troubles that had been kept secret from her and she makes it her mission to unearth the truth from her ever-cunning aunts.

But how can she find out more about the secret she revealed?

A chance encounter with someone from her childhood leads Louise to The Common, just outside their garden gates.

The Common had always been a place that attracted danger, of one sort or another; a place her aunts had always warned her about as a child.

But how was it connected to the secrets her aunts had kept from her all these years?

Louise needed to find out what happened… at whatever cost!


MY THOUGHTS: This is a beautifully written journey of discovery as one woman seeks to make sense of the demise of her marriage, in a time of social change.

Should you be thinking that this is a book of angst and vitriol, you couldn't be further from the truth. While it is a voyage of self discovery for Louise, she also begins to make sense of many things from her childhood that puzzled her over the years as she unravels a labyrinth of secrets and lies perpetuated by her aunts.

A gentle story, an unexpected joy, that left me wanting to read more by this author.

A couple of my favourite quotes from Across the Common - 'Might as well be dead now,' said old Mr Protheroe. 'We're in the book, but we've lost the page we're on.'

- 'Reality's all right,' she added strongly, 'that is, for some people, but you can't live with it all the time.'

THE AUTHOR: Elizabeth Berridge grew up in the ‘safe London suburb’ of Wandsworth Common. A year in Switzerland and a ‘hateful’ period at the Bank of England, described in Be Clean, Be Tidy (1949), was followed by work in a photographic news agency. She married Reginald Moore in 1940, published her first short story in 1941 and, in 1943, after the birth of the first of her two children, moved to a remote house in Wales, where Moore edited Modern Reading and other wartime anthologies and she wrote the stories reprinted in Tell It to a Stranger – published as Selected Stories in 1947; they returned to London in 1950. Elizabeth Berridge published nine novels, Across the Common winning the Yorkshire Post Award for Best Novel of the Year in 1964. She reviewed fiction for the Daily Telegraph for twenty-five years. Her last novel, Touch and Go, was adapted as a play by BBC Radio 4.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Endeavour Press via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Across the Common by Elizabeth Beresford for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

Please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com for an explanation of my rating system. This review and others are also published on Twitter, Amazon and my webpage sandysbookaday.wordpress.com