This book also fall into the YA (young adult) category. The protagonist is the sixteen year old Lucas Swain. He lives with his mum, his older sister Mercy and his younger brother Jed. His father disappeared five years ago and nobody seems to know what happened to him, or if he is still alive. Lucas finds an urn, in the middle of the night in a mini-cab office. He discovers that the urn belongs to a lady called Violet Park and that she used to be a world famous pianist. He ‘rescues’ her from the dismal mini cab office and that’s when the story starts to get really interesting.

I don’t want to give too much away in this review. The book has a final twist that took me by surprise. Along the way Lucas makes several interesting discoveries about Violet, about his missing dad, about his mum, about his grandparents and his dad’s best friend Bob, who also fancy’s Lucas’ mother.

Although Lucas was meant to be a sixteen year old boy, he comes across as younger. The voice he has been given by the author sometimes does not really match his real age. Jenny Valentine makes great use of the grandparents, as a ‘go-to’ figure. This is quite a need solution, especially as young people often feel they can’t talk to their parents. It makes his nan and grandad useful adults in the book.

In the book he also meets a girl called Martha and they start a relationship, I do however find that this was an unnecessary extra character. I feel the role of his sister could have been more developed instead.

I did enjoy reading this book, especially the surprise ending was very well done. I did not take me long to read. I feel the book can equally enjoyed by adults. There is a quote from the beginning of the book, which I found very thought provoking, which I just leave here at the end. Enjoy 😉:

‘It’s funny when you start thinking about pivotal moments in your life, chance happenings that end up meaning everything’.

‘I always wonder what happens to all the choices we decide not to make’.