The Master Bedroom

A single woman at loose ends becomes the object of two men''s affections—a father and his teenage son—in this sly richly drawn novel The Master BedroomAfter more than twenty years in London Kate Flynn has returned to her family home in Wales to care for her aging mother. Having cast off her academic career she is unmoored and when she runs into a childhood friend David Roberts at a concert she finds herself falling for him although she knows she''s grasping at anything to fill the sudden emptiness of her life.For his part David''s marriage isn''t as solid as it looks—his wife Suzie has begun acting strangely moving out of their bedroom neglecting their children and disappearing for days at a time—and he begins to seek refuge with Kate from the newfound chaos of his life.David''s seventeen-year-old son Jamie is also drawn to Kate''s eccentricity and her strange glamorous old house full of books and music and history. As both father and son set about their parallel courtships Tessa Hadley''s intricate graceful novel explores the tangled web of connections between parents and children revealing how each generation replays the stories of the one that came before in new and sometimes startling patterns.