Slaying Dragons

Our Beautiful Mess by Adele Parks is a marvellous contemporary suspense that gripped me from the start.

The novel opens with the ending before going backwards eleven days, and then working forwards. The reader knows what is coming and wonders what led up to that point, and how it is all going to end?

I thought the actual ending was superb – it came out of the blue and was serenely beautiful as the love radiated from the pages.

All the characters were well drawn and believable. We see the action through several alternating points of view enabling the reader to get to know the characters intimately.

This is a book about family. Family can be messy and complicated – but family is ultimately about love.

Life is tiring when children are small – but so much harder as they grow. Parents have to give their children wings to fly. “It was up to them to fall and flounder or fly and flourish. She was powerless… all they [parents] could do was stand back and trust that they’d given their kids enough guidance, resilience and basic common sense to get through.” We see that however old our children are, a mother will fiercely protect her offspring. “Her focus was on protecting Fran.”