This is a tale of modern family life with all its joshings and jealousies, told with humour and compassion.

Catrin is just a normal Cardiff teenager looking forward to going to university when a shocking revelation rocks her world. Before she dies, Granny Lewis reveals that Catrin ‘is not blood’. This sets off a chain reaction, causing friction within the family, and forcing them all to re-assess their relationships.

While the story revolves around the Lewis family’s home in Victoria Park, a comfortable area of Cardiff, the narrative also moves to Welsh-speaking West Wales and to the Rhondda Valley. Through these trips we glimpse three very different Welsh lifestyles.

The novel, while concentrating on Catrin’s quest to find out who she actually is, cannot but touch on very contemporary moral dilemmas – whether it is ever right to conceal truth, nature versus nurture, and boundaries within relationships.

Dana Edwards

Books