Product Description

A hot summer's day, a crowded motorway, a split second that changed people's lives forever. Gripping, heartbreaking, exciting and unputdownable, this new novel will be one of 2009's biggest and most enjoyable novels - from the irresistible Penny Vincenzi.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7552 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-14
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 768 pages

About the Author
Since her first novel, OLD SINS, was published in 1989, Penny Vincenzi has written fourteen novels, most recently AN ABSOLUTE SCANDAL, a massive Sunday Times No.1 bestseller. After college she worked as a journalist, writing for The Times, Vogue and Cosmopolitan amongst many others, before turning to fiction. Over five million copies of Penny's books have been sold worldwide and she is one of the UK's best-loved and most popular authors. Penny Vincenzi is married, with four daughters, and lives in London.

Customer Reviews

Cancel the weekend!
I bought this book to take on holiday in a couple of weeks but I thought I would open it just to see what it was about and I ended up not going to sleep that night. Penny is back on her best ever form and she presents her characters in a sympathetic light but she also makes them human. Some are likeable and some not so likeable but we end up understanding those that maybe we can't really like. I loved this book and her idea of a motorway crash has been well researched and this central theme allows this novel to unfold. It is going to be one of the summer reads

NO FIREWORKS - JUST A LARGE DAMP SQUIB!
Having read almost all of Penny Vincenzi's books, I was so looking forward to this new one. But what a massive disappointment. Apart from being far too long at 751 pages, and far too heavy, it really did not hit the spot at all. Quality not quantity was needed here. The storyline was spun out until I longed for it to go somewhere. A great deal of pruning was needed to make this book much more readable. It lacked so much and I felt that the characters had no depth, and some were downright irritating. There was far too much dithering and navel gazing. I ended up not actually caring what happened to any of them. If only Miss Vincenzi could go back to the brilliance of the Lytton Trilogy, etc. with the wonderful storylines, depth of character and superb detail. Books like that you simply could not put down. Not any more. She is now merely scratching the surface and making no impression. It is sad to see a previously excellent author's writing deteriorate like this. Exactly the same happened with Maeve Binchy's books.

Back on form
Although I'm a Vincenzi addict, I did feel that her last book wasn't up to the usual standard, This one sees her right back on form and it's totally compulsive. Once again life came to a stop for a complete weekend as I greedily devoured the stories of a group of people whose lives become connected through their involvement in a particularly nasty car smash on the M4.

The characters are believable and have real depth and the plots are innovative and credible. All in all, it's a really good read. When the paperback comes out, it will be the perfect holiday book - shame I won't have that pleasure as I just couldn't wait!