The Mistress of Novels about Broken Relationships. The Best of Friends by Joanna Trollope

Joanna Trollope proves that she is the mistress of novels about broken relationships in this moving account of how the selfishness of adults affects their teenage children. She has sympathy for all of her characters, but her true heroes are the teenagers who are forced to reinvent their lives when one breakup causes chaos. Sophie is especially realistic and memorable.

A quiet, lonely girl, Sophie, an only child, seeks refuge with her friend Gus and his two brothers and happily married parents at their hotel, The Bee Hive. Her mother and Gus's father, Laurence have been best friends for years and have a strange relationship, although Hilary is also friendly with Gina. When Sophie's father Fergus leaves, he starts a trail of misery which Sophie finds difficult to cope with as she gradually finds that she can hardly depend on anyone and her illusions are being shattered, one by one.

I have read most of Joanna Trollope's novels, and this is the best one I have read. I found it difficult to put down. Although it was a quiet domestic story, it was extremely dramatic, and certainly kept me wondering what would happen next!

This is highly recommended.