Product Description

What happens to families and relationships when people find it impossible to say the words, ''I love you''?

When love is not spoken about, a hole is created into which memories, happiness, relationships, trust and eventually people fall into. Mothers fail daughters, who then find themselves failing their own mothers. Parents abandon children through fear; husbands desert wives.

However, this is not an heroic tale or a memoir of devastation, but an everyday tale of loss and recovery. It takes a special event, a mother's first public speaking event since her breakdown, for the years of silence to make way for reconciliation. Silence can be a deathly force but the power of a whisper acknowledging love and acceptance is far greater.

This novel shares the importance of literary expression and creativity for overcoming fears and doubts and should be instrumental to book groups.

''It's a novel suffused with a love of storytelling, and a warmth that makes it a pleasure to read.'' - The Daily Mail, 8th February 2008

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #168411 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 356 pages

Review
"Utterly gripping - quite beautifully written and constructed...I can't praise it highly enough." Joanna Lumley

From the Author
Angela Young was born in 1951. She has had short stories for children published in the American short story magazines, Cricket and Spider, and a story for adults is published in MsLexia. BBC Books published Young's 30,000-word ending to Edith Wharton's last, unfinished novel, The Buccaneers, and, in 2001, Young graduated from Middlesex university's MA in Creative Writing. Speaking of Love is Young's first novel and she is working on her second novel which will be a modern version of Beauty and the Beast.

About the Author
Angela Young is a writer and editor who lives and works in London. She was commissioned by BBC Books to finish Edith Wharton's unfinished novel, The Buccaneers, which was was published in 1995. In 2002 she graduated from Middlesex university with an MA in Creative Writing and in May, 2003 was the first unpublished writer to be awarded a bursary by Arts Council England to begin researching and writing a novel.

Customer Reviews

Staggeringly beautiful.
I really don't know where to start in order to do this book justice. I'll begin by saying that the opening lines had me hooked immediately . . . 'I have come home, after a long and difficult journey. I travelled alone and it was sometime before I realised that I had arrived'.

The tale we hear is about Iris who is a storyteller, her daughter Vivie, and Matthew, who was Vivie's childhood friend. All 3 take turns to tell their story, about how Iris has a mental breakdown and how her and Vivie become separated when Vivie was very young. The three stories end up linked together in a staggeringly beautiful finish that had me blubbing but at the same time filled me with joy. The book examines what it's like to live with someone who is suffering from a mental illness and the effects it has on everyone involved. The author makes us realise how important it is to tell each other what we are thinking and to not hide our feelings away from those we care about. I loved the symbolism of the tree all the way through this book and of how deep the story roots go. Also, I thought it was very clever to link the 3 main characters' chapters with fairy tales that are delightfully told.

Angela Young is definitely an author to look out for. More please, Angela!

An unusual novel, beautifully written
Speaking of Love is a first book, and please may it not be Angela Young's last. About a lot of things, including schizophrenia, love, loss, missing the point, it hits the spot on all of them. I was caught swiftly, and minded about more than one of the characters throughout. The stories are interwoven but stand alone, and each of the people lives and breathes in their own way, connected to each other, yet individual. Angela Young writes vivid description and includes unexpected but important detail that brings things alive. I loved it.

A remarkable novel
This is a wonderful novel, beautifully written and characterised, it is engaging, lyrical, gentle, compassionate, wise - and, most important of all, a fantastically good read! I couldn't recommend it highly enough.