A review by claire_fuller_writer
Free Love by Tessa Hadley

3.0

There are novels by Tessa Hadley which have made my top ten books of the year, but sadly I don't think this is going to be one of them. The writing, as ever, is wonderful. Hadley has such a wonderful way of putting me right in the location she's writing about. The novel starts with the sound of children playing outside on a warm evening, and I was right there. But the story and its characters and their little bit of intrigue didn't scoop me up and sustain me. In 1967 a middle class woman with two children and a respectable husband embarks on an affair that turns her life and those of her family upside down. Maybe it didn't explore anything new - it felt like I had read this before, even though of course every situation is different for each new character.