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by Raffaella Barker
In April 1946 Michael returns from war and finds he cannot face the life that awaits him at home. Impulsively he leaps on a train to the western tip of Cornwall, and in doing so changes his destiny. He finds himself in a bohemian colony of artists gathered on the Cornish coast, and his fate is shaped by his heart, his new environment, and the fragmented Britain to which he has returned.
More than fifty years later, a man arrives in Norfolk to claim - reluctantly - his inheritance: an abandoned lighthouse, half hidden in the shadows of the past, now ready to cast its beam forward. Kit, a successful businessman, is fairly certain he wants no part in this legacy.
In a farmhouse, a woman falters in the middle of her life. Louisa's children are leaving home and the constant push and pull of family life has turned like the tide of the Norfolk sea - she is suspended, without direction. When Kit and Louisa meet, neither can escape the consequences of Michael's split-second decision all those years ago.
Moving between the postwar artists' colony in Cornwall and present-day Norfolk, Raffaella Barker's new novel explores the secrets and flaws that can shape generations. From a Distance is a nuanced and compelling story of human connection and our desire to belong.
"Sacrificing excitement, the reader is rewarded with a story refreshingly upbeat and free of any angst." - Publishers Weekly
"A not-so-complex mystery ties together the two strands of this breezy and entertaining novel, which should appeal to the Joanna Trollope crowd." - Library Journal
"Barker artfully brings the three stands of her narrative together, teasing the reader with suppressed passions, and bringing the story to a clever and reassuring conclusion." - Independent on Sunday (UK)
"[A] dreamy, poetic novel, full of references to Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse... A beautifully written, superior romance perfect for a hammock on a sunny day." -Daily Mail (UK)
This information about From a Distance was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Raffaella Barker, daughter of the poet George Barker, was born and brought up in the Norfolk countryside. She is the author of seven acclaimed novels: Come and Tell Me Some Lies, The Hook, Hens Dancing, Summertime, Green Grass, A Perfect Life and Poppyland. She has also written a novel for young adults, Phosphorescence. She is a regular contributor to the Sunday Times and the Sunday Telegraph, and teaches on the Literature and Creative Writing BA at the University of East Anglia and the Guardian UEA Novel Writing Masterclass. Raffaella Barker lives by the sea in north Norfolk. Visit her at www.raffaellabarker.co.uk.
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