This was the first of Joanna Trollope's novels to be published in the United States but, fortunately, not the last. For our media- and youth-conscious culture, it's the perfect introduction to Trollope. This witty and imminently readable novel centers around two friends with much younger wives. Hugh Hunter is a popular British television personality whose age is rapidly becoming a liability and whose wife, Julia, is just now coming into her own in the same medium. James Mallow, a teacher, shares his home with Kate, who is 25 years younger than he. After eight years together, Kate is chafing against their relationship and beginning to see James as an old man stifling her. Their home life is made even more difficult by a cantankerous uncle and Kate's teenage daughter, Joss. The catalyst for some distinct and rapid changes in James and Kate's household is Beatrice Bachelor, an elderly woman whom James knocks off her bicycle one evening as he drives home without his spectacles.

The cast of characters for this lively novel is believable, interesting and contemporary. As with all her novels, Trollope's writing is strong and straightforward, with just the right touch of acerbic humor. Trollope gives her characters plenty of outside influences to work with --- violence against women, euthanasia, infidelity, teenage angst --- but it is interior growth, relationship interaction, and lack of predictability that make Trollope's novels a cut above the norm.

   --- Reviewed by Jami Edwards


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