Featured Book of the Month ~ Expectation by Anna Hope

Delighted to share my Featured Book of the Month

Black Swan
July 2020

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

What happened to the women we were supposed to become?

Hannah, Cate and Lissa are young, vibrant and inseparable. Living on the edge of a common in East London, their shared world is ablaze with art and activism, romance and revelry – and the promise of everything to come. They are electric. They are the best of friends.

Ten years on, they are not where they hoped to be. Amidst flailing careers and faltering marriages, each hungers for what the others have. And each wrestles with the same question: what does it take to lead a meaningful life?

What did I think about it..

This is the story about three friends who seem to have the whole whole at their feet and yet each of them are dissatisfied with the hand fate has dealt them. Looking back at the early days of their friendship, Hannah, Cate and Lissa were filled with all the zest and buoyancy of youth, nothing could touch them, however, ten years later and the story is very different, and whilst they remain the best of friends their lives are now overshadowed by very different burdens.

This is not just a story about female friends and how even close friendships can shatter in a heartbeat, but it is also about all the hidden hopes, longings and lost ambitions, which all to often get swallowed up in the grown up world of relationships, both good and bad, which, unfortunately, seek to define us as adults.

Beautifully written, bringing together all the myriad strands of a story which kept me engrossed from start to finish. I loved every well written word, delighting in each of the characters who never seek to outshine each other. I had no favourites amongst the three as I could identify with each of them as they all feel so real, if not a little flawed. Their stories are all equally compelling and quite heartbreaking in places.

I was a bit worried when I heard that this author was dipping her pen into the world of contemporary fiction as I adored both her previous historical novels but I needn't have worried because Expectation is every bit as good as I hoped it would be. Originally published in 2019, the paperback edition was published in July 2020, which I why I have no hesitation in making Expectation my featured book for this month. It's also one of the Richard and Judy 2020 Summer  Book Club picks.

Perceptive, intuitive and emotionally driven, Expectation is this talented author writing at her absolute best.

About the Author

Anna Hope studied at Oxford University and RADA. She is the internationally prizewinning and bestselling author of Wake and The Ballroom. Expectation is her contemporary fiction debut and explores the theme of love, lust, motherhood and feminism, whilst asking the greater question of what defines a generation. She lives in Sussex with her husband and young daughter.

Twitter @annahope #Expectation

@TransworldBooks

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