An Unlikely Visitor

by Joanna Cannon, Unknown Author

‘A profound and nuanced story about the connections we forge and those seemingly little moments in our lives that actually turn out to be the huge ones. So beautiful, so moving, never overstated, so very human. Joanna Cannon is a phenomenal writer, I am obsessed' ELIZABETH DAY

Margaret thinks her time is up…

Things have been hard since her husband Derek died, and they never really got over the disappearance of their daughter, Jeanie, all those years ago.

Despite everything, they built a lovely life together… it’s just starting to feel impossible for Margaret on her own.

But maybe her time is now?

Then one day, Margaret returns home to an unlikely visi­tor, and together they set out to discover what really hap­pened to Jeanie.

Perhaps if you knock on enough doors, you might find another end to your story…

'Brimming with Jo's trademark compassion, insight and wry humour, An Unlikely Visitor is both a meditation on a grief, a mystery of a missing child and a powerful exploration of the human condition. Jo writes so beautifully about human frailties and her kindness illuminates every sentence. A treat of a novel' HANNAH BECKERMAN

'A novel that appears to be telling Margaret and Derek’s poignant story becomes, in Joanna Cannon’s gifted hands, a profound reflection on the human condition, and therein lie the joy and the magic… We are left marvelling at how extraordinary ordinary people can be, and what a wonder it is to live and love at all' JOANNA GLEN

Praise for Joanna

‘Emotional, sweet, funny, hauntingly sad and poignant’ SARA COX

‘Lovely, lovely, lovely… Sue Townsend meets Kate Atkinson meets Nina Stibbe’ MARIAN KEYES

‘An utter delight’ SARAH WINMAN

‘A joy and a triumph’ RACHEL JOYCE

‘Charming, wise and profoundly human’ ERIN KELLY

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Contemporary, Audiobook, Grief, Crime, Mystery Thriller

Hardcover

About the author

Librarians note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Joanna Cannon is the author of the Sunday Times bestselling debut novel The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, which has sold over 250,000 copies in the UK alone and has been published in 15 countries. The novel was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize, shortlisted for The Bookseller Industry Awards 2017 and won the 2016 BAMB Reader Award. Joanna has been interviewed in The Guardian, The Observer, The Sunday Times, The Times, and Good Housekeeping magazine, and her writing has appeared in the Sunday Telegraph, Daily Mail, and the Guardian, amongst others. She has appeared on BBC Breakfast, BBC News Channel’s Meet the Author, interviewed on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 5, and is a regular at literary festivals across the country including Edinburgh and Cheltenham. Joanna left school at fifteen with one O-level and worked her way through many different jobs – barmaid, kennel maid, pizza delivery expert – before returning to school in her thirties and qualifying as a doctor. Her work as a psychiatrist and interest in people on the fringes of society continue to inspire her writing, and Joanna currently volunteers for Arts for Health, an organisation bringing creative arts to NHS staff and patients. Joanna Cannon’s second novel Three Things About Elsie is published in January 2018 and explores memory, friendship and old age. She lives in the Peak District with her family and her dog.

Reviews

[Liz]

Trust me, Joanna Cannon totally gets what it’s like to be a recent widow. Not just the quiet and talking to someone no longer there, but the need to take on what had been someone else’s responsibilities. Because as she says, each marriage has a division of duties.
Margaret has only been a widow for 3 months. And when she was much younger, her 11 year old daughter went missing. So, once again, she’s trying to reconfigure her life. And then, she comes home to an unexpected visitor.
The plot veers between the present and the time when Jeanie went missing. Margaret decides to use her new “found time” to finally figure out what happened to her daughter. She enlists an unusual cast of characters.
The story relies on a healthy acceptance of magic realism. I struggle with this genre. But the book was just so spot on as it tackled grief, starting over, compassion (for oneself and others). I fell in love with it. It helped that Margaret felt totally real. Not just how she deals with the loss of Derek but her unresolved trauma from not knowing what happened to her daughter.
I was totally attuned with the philosophy behind the book and found myself highlighting a lot of passages. The resolution was easy to envision. But given that this isn’t really a mystery, that didn’t bother me. At heart, it’s a feel good story about pushing on with life.
Pet owners - I’ll admit that the tears I cried had to do with her neighbor, Majid and his dog, Sonny.
My thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for an advance copy of this book.

[Carolyn]

When Margaret’s husband Derek dies, she feels bereft with nothing else to look forward to in her life. She also feels more strongly a profound grief for their only child, Jeanie, who disappeared four decades ago when Jeanie was only eleven and was never found. But then an unusual and unexpected visitor arrives to stay with her. One who wants to help her find out what happened to Jeanie, giving Margaret a new lease of life as they investigate together.

This is a wonderful story, tenderly told. Although it is about the pain and lingering effects of grief and loss, it never felt heavy but moving and compassionate, as well as hopeful that one can learn to move through grief to live alongside it. Tinged with the perfect degree and tone of humour to show us Margaret’s inner thoughts and personality that she keeps hidden, and infused with a little magic, it’s brilliantly written, right to the final heartbreaking reveal.

With thanks to Harper Collins UK via Netgalley for a copy to read>

[Ceecee]

It’s tough for Margaret these days since Derek died and the couple never get over the disappearance of their daughter Jeanie many years ago. Despite their profound loss, they do build a nice life together but these days she feels the walls are closing in as it’s just so hard. Then an unlikely visitor appears and perhaps for the first time in many, many years she can find some answers about what really happens to Jeanie.

Fellow book lovers will know exactly what I mean when I say this has been the most wonderful reading experience encompassing all the emotions. Ever since her debut novel ‘The Trouble with Goats and Sheep’, I have loved Joanna Cannon‘s books and I’m certain this will be another best seller. It’s a beautiful book which is beautifully written with genuine feeling, empathy, sensitivity and understanding of Margaret and her life. I can honestly say I truly love being in Margaret’s company for the hours it takes to read this. The author has quite simply taken an ordinary, everyday life and made it extraordinary in every possible way. It’s wonderfully written with some witty and apt turns of phrase, summing situations up to perfection. The characterisation is exemplary.

Clearly, the novel has grief at its core but it’s grief wrapped up in a mystery which evolves naturally through the writing. It’s also sprinkled with a lot of magic and some marvellously surreal moments which the author 100% makes me buy into. It’s an emotional rollercoaster, the loss of Jeanie and the living with the not knowing, the loss of lovely Derek but it’s also heartwarming and life affirming. I defy anyone not to have a tear in their eye at the end. It’s a truly poignant story written with compassion and huge imagination. Absolutely fabulous.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to HarperCollins, HarperFiction/The Borough Press for the much appreciated early copy in return for an honest review.

[Jules]

When Margaret's husband, Derek, dies, she becomes all alone in the world, because Margaret and Derek's daughter, Jeanie, disappeared when she was 11 years old and neither of them saw her ever again. For several months, she struggles to adjust but one day an unlikely visitor appears and helps her to find a new path to discover what happened to her daughter.

Joanna Cannon is absolutely exceptional at writing character and this book is chock full of them! She dissects what it is to be human, what makes us unique and individual, and fills all of her characters with all those little nuances that make each of us who we are.

Now, I will say this book is sad and it may break your heart (I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a tear in my eye at times). However, it is beautifully written, packed full of emotion and will hopefully make you realise that, despite all our flaws, ultimately the world is full of kindness.

Bravo again to Joanna for another wonderful book - she never fails! All the stars!

Thank you to Joanna and Borough Press for sending me a proof.

[Stephen]

found this novel had an unusual twist which was refreshing

[Lydia Bailey]

Goats and Sheep & Three things about Elsie are two of my favourite reads ever so I was excited to receive Joanna Canon’s latest book on Net Galley. I love her writing and the first section of this one - when Margaret loses her husband, Derek- is profoundly sad & poignant & very much resonated with the character’s grief. When her ‘unlikely visitor’ arrives and together they investigate the reasons behind Margaret & Derek’s daughter, Jeanie’s disappearance forty years before, the story does become slightly surreal and dreamlike and I have to say it lost me a bit! Still a lovely read but a bit too fantastical for me.

Many thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC.

[C.A. Simonsen]

3.5 stars

This one is not easy to review. The opening fifty pages or so are quite banal with a definite PG feel, as an elderly woman named Margaret tries to come to terms with being alone. This premise has been done many times in literature, most notably and best in Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel: an absolute classic.

A third of the way into An Unlikely Visitor, the reader begins to receive bits of information about a daughter Margaret lost many years prior. This mystery aspect makes the read much more interesting. Despite the author's irritating addiction to using the word "very" (four per page is too much for me), I found myself more drawn into the story. The ending is satisfactory, although Margaret's reactions are perplexing at times. The continual metaphors, such as the golf metaphor, are over the top.

[Joanne]

When you have loved all an author’s earlier novels, it can sometimes make you a bit nervous about reading a new one. What if you just don’t like it as much? Well, I’m happy to say that I needn't have worried about An Unlikely Visitor: I was in safe hands with Joanna Cannon.

Now this is one of these books that you really can’t say too much about because you don’t want to spoil it for other readers. You will see from the blurb that the book is mainly about an elderly lady called Margaret. She lost her husband Derek and, as you would imagine, is finding life rather hard. They had experienced a tragic loss in their lives when their only child Jeanie vanished without trace many years ago. Somehow they had got through this time and managed to rebuild their lives. Just when Margaret is at her lowest ebb, she receives a most unexpected (and yes, unlikely) visitor and they resolve one last time to try to find out what happened to Jeanie.

The story unfolds over two different time frames. In the past, we follow Margaret and Derek through their darkest times from the day Jeanie disappears and the subsequent weeks and months as the police investigate her disappearance. My heart went out to both of them as you could sense their desperation as time went on with no sign of Jeanie. I could completely understand some of the things which Margaret did in her efforts to uncover the truth. Any mother in her situation would probably do the same.

In the present day, Margaret and her visitor uncover more clues as to what may have happened to Jeanie and grow closer to the truth. The grief that Margaret feels over the loss of her husband and, of course, the unexplained loss of her daughter was incredibly moving to read about. I have to say that Derek was a wonderful character. He was so supportive of Margaret and so loving despite his own devastation. I had a real lump in my throat at times reading about their love for each other: “when you love someone, you never leave them. Heaven, or whatever you call it, is right here, with the people you love the most.”

Joanna Cannon is so good at writing compelling stories. She draws you in with wonderful characters and intriguing mysteries that you just want to solve along with the characters. As Margaret delved deeper into the past and went out of her comfort zone to talk to her neighbours and other people from her past, it didn’t just help her but made a difference in many of their lives too.

I adored An Unlikely Visitor and I think it may be my favourite Joanna Cannon novel yet. It’s such an emotionally charged read yet is full of humour, warmth and hope. Just wonderful!

[Phoebe]

Got to the last page and cried in public

[Angie Miale]

★★★★★

An Unlikely Visitor is one of those quiet novels where the sadness doesn’t announce itself at the door. It settles in gradually, almost unnoticed, until suddenly you realize just how emotionally invested you’ve become.

Margaret is 74 and recently widowed after the death of her husband, Derek. But hers is a life shaped by more than one kind of grief. Decades earlier, their eleven-year-old daughter, Jeanie, disappeared, leaving Margaret and Derek with the particular agony of losing someone without ever knowing exactly what happened to her.

The novel begins with Margaret telling us about the ash tree in her garden—a tree she has watched, loved, and connected with for years, until a storm damages it beyond saving. It’s such a quiet, understated opening, but it beautifully establishes what Joanna Cannon does throughout this book: examining the things we lose, the spaces they leave behind, and what it means to keep living when something—or someone—we assumed would always be there is suddenly gone.

After Derek’s death, Margaret receives the “unlikely visitor” of the title, and the novel gradually becomes part literary mystery and part meditation on grief as Margaret begins searching for answers about Jeanie. We DO eventually get those answers, and I found the resolution incredibly moving.

My closest comparison is The Correspondent. The books are structurally very different, but they share that same tenderness toward an older woman whose present life cannot really be understood until we begin uncovering her past. Both stories are interested in memory, regret, grief, reconciliation, and the possibility of hope even very late in life. I’d also recommend this to readers who loved the emotional depth of Broken Country.

There are moments of genuine humor here, and Margaret herself is wonderfully observed, but make no mistake: this book becomes devastating. It’s a slow burn emotionally. The sadness sneaks up on you.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Emily Joyce, and she is absolutely wonderful as Margaret. Her polished British delivery feels completely natural for this character and her generation, and the narration is exceptionally easy to follow. This is exactly the kind of literary fiction that works beautifully on audio because so much of its power comes from voice, memory, and reflection.

Tenderhearted, contemplative, occasionally funny, and ultimately heartbreaking, An Unlikely Visitor is a beautiful novel about ambiguous loss, enduring love, and finally allowing yourself to confront the past.

An easy five stars for me. I’m already hoping this turns up in one of my November book boxes because I’m going to need a trophy copy for my shelf.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster Audio for the early listening copy through the Simon Audio Influencer program.

#SimonAudioInfluencer

[Natalie M]

Comforting cosy mystery.

An unexplained child loss set against aging, grief, loss, friendship and the unimaginable pan of not knowing. The characters are wonderful and the story tragic, but the magic is in the unfolding.

A new author to me, now on my TBR list.

[Liz Hein]

There’s a lot I didn’t like about this book, but wow did it get me in my feels multiple times 😭🥹

[Morgan]

Review of advanced copy received from Netgalley

Margaret has suffered unimaginable loss between her husband Derek and daughter Jeanie. She promises Derek that she will continue to keep chugging through life but how can she when there is nothing left to live for?

Joanna did an amazing job of delving into grief by carefully peeling away layer by layer of humankind through the development of Maraget "maggie" and Derek. Maraget and Derek's relationship is the fantasy that everyone dreams of to find in a partner. They balance each other out impecably but it never felt like a "too good to be true." Joanna balanced the messiness of coping, anger, grief, love on such a delicate scale it made me want to keep on coming back from more. Although the story situates itself in sadness, I found myself emotionally invested in Margaret and Derek's journey to find the answers they have been searching for these past decades. There was a sense of heaviness without it weighing down the story. A sense of joy without it overshadowing the tragedy that had unfolded.

I am excited to keep reading other books Joanna has published thus far and those that have yet to be published as well!

[Janet]

A story about loss and grief and about love. Margaret is recently widowed and struggling to cope. Additionally, in the past she has had to deal with the disappearance of her daughter. Her unlikely visitor helps her to find confidence and together they solve the mystery of her daughter's disappearance.
Joanna Cannon writes a poignant and at times quite emotional story. Her observations on life and her characters are intelligent and insightful. The book started off so well but on the arrival of the unlikely visitor, I'm afraid the story lost something for me. It became rather surreal which didn't sit comfortably with the seriousness of the subject matter and the ending was rather cloying.
Sadly for me, this wasn't as good ass her previous books.
I received a free review copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for my honest and unedited review.

[Marianne]

“In life’s most intense moments, when your emotions are fierce and overwhelming, all of your senses become fierce and overwhelming too. And so you remember the smells and the textures and the sounds of that moment. All the pockets of tiny details. As if God has turned up the brightness and the contrast and the volume on everything to make sure that you’ll never forget.”

An Unlikely Visitor is the fifth novel by award-winning, bestselling British author, Joanna Cannon. The audio version is narrated by Emily Joyce. In the almost four decades since the mysterious disappearance of their daughter, Jeanie left a gaping hole in their lives, Margaret and Derek Ford have tried to fill that space with activities, committees and routines, even though “it often felt artificial. Constructed out of necessity, rather than joy. What we really wanted had been snatched away, and we’d become runners-up in our own lives.”

But now, at seventy-four, Margaret is three months a widow, still very much missing Derek. “Pain takes everything from you. Your reasoning, your logic, even your ability to see clearly.” Despite encouragement from neighbours, friends and acquaintances to re-enter life, she’s no longer convinced it’s worth the effort: “We only have a limited amount of energy, but most of it we fritter away on convincing other people how well we’re doing”

But then, an unlikely visitor, and the impetus to discover what really happened to Jeanie.

Alternating narratives describe the disappearance of Jeanie Ford and its aftermath, and the steps Margaret takes, forty years on, to try to learn the truth. Cannon gives Margaret, and some of those she encounters, truly insightful observations about many aspects of life.

Musings on memories, grief, admitting to be struggling, avoiding pity, sharing confidences, self-harm, the heartbreak of the unconscious last leave-taking, guilt, the fear that misery is contagious, bullying, expectations that profound loss can be replaced, acting strong: all will resonate with any who have experienced them.

There’s a cast of the sort of people we all encounter in our day-to-day lives: busybodies who revel in the sequelae of the gossip they share, the bad news they relish delivering; the manipulative; the jealous, whose self-hatred is often directed it back at someone else; the overworked and busy; the kind-hearted; the defensive; the misunderstood, the grieving. “There was so much pain in his eyes, he looked like a completely different person. Grief can do that. It can turn you into somebody else overnight.”

The dialogue with Margaret’s unlikely visitor is often blackly funny, while many of Margaret’s observations are clever: “’This is a controlled area. No bicycles. No ball games. No loitering.’ I wonder where the bicycles and the ball games go to do their loitering now.”

Cannon is one of a select group of authors who have a talent for writing the small moments of everyday lives incredibly well, and her descriptive prose is wonderful: “The oldest part of the town is made up of an army of Georgian houses with their rigid symmetry and sash windows. Rows of identical, middle-class lives staring out beyond the glossy black railings and pale pavements.” An Unlikely Visitor is moving, thought-provoking, and quite brilliant.

[Milly Reynolds]

When I see a new book from Joanna Cannon, I have to pick it up. This one I listened to on Audible and I laughed and I had tears in my eyes. This is a sad story, but it is told with such lightness of touch, with some humour and such compassion. Joanna Cannon is such a wonderful writer of character, she sees every aspect of human nature and so many facets of her characters I could recognise in myself and in others. Margaret/Maggie has got stuck since her husband, Derek, died even though she promised him that she would keep going. The thing is this is her second major loss - her daughter, Jeannie, disappeared when she was 11 and for years and years, Margaret and Derek have missed her, have never had closure, have never known the truth. Did she run away? Did someone take her? Is she still alive? Then one day, Maggie returns home and finds a very unlikely visitor and together, they set out to see if they can finally find out the truth about Jeannie’s disappearance. Told in two timelines, we follow Maggie and Derek in the aftermath of Jeannie’s disappearance. The dark days when hope starts to fade. Maggie is written so clearly, I could see her. I could empathise with her and yes, I could see exactly why she acted as she did on some occasions. The frustration that she and Derek felt was tangible. The other characters, from the police to neighbours - each facet of their characters was crystal clear. And we meet some of these same characters again in the present day when Maggie and her visitor try to uncover the truth. Maggie’s grief is moving to read and Derek - his love and the support he gives - he’s just a great man. I loved this, the way that Joanna Cannon explores grief and how it manifests and how she shows the kindness that can still be found even when everything seems dark. A great read. Rounded up to 5*

[The Sub Librarian]

Many thanks to Scribner Books for my gifted copy.

This was such a beautiful surprise of a book.

Margaret is learning how to navigate life alone after the death of her husband, Derek. But his isn’t the only loss she carries. Years earlier, their only child, Jeanie, disappeared when she was just eleven years old, leaving behind questions Margaret has never been able to answer.

When Margaret receives an unexpected visitor, the two set out to finally uncover the truth surrounding Jeanie’s disappearance.

Grief is front and center in these pages, but there is also a mystery quietly unfolding underneath it. And I think that’s what I loved so much about this story. I wanted answers about Jeanie, but it was Margaret—and the relationships surrounding her—that really kept me turning the pages.

Joanna Cannon writes beautifully about human connection, forgiveness, and all the complicated ways we carry the people we’ve loved.

There were so many passages I wanted to bookmark. The characters were incredibly well developed, and despite the grief and unanswered questions at the center of the story, there was this unexpected sense of calm running through the entire book. It felt quiet and thoughtful without ever feeling uneventful.

And the mystery gave the story just enough pull to keep me wondering where everything was headed.

But ultimately, this wasn’t really a book about solving a mystery for me. It was about grief, forgiveness, and learning how to continue living alongside loss.

A truly beautiful story and a gentle reminder that the people we love are never very far from us—even in death.

[Kerry]

I just adored this book - the story, the characters, the themes. It’s sad, yes, but it’s also full to the brim of heart and hope. It exudes all the warmth that I see from Joanna on social media, it absolutely a Joanna Cannon story and couldn’t be mistaken as being written by anyone else.

The book explores two ends of the bereavement experience; losing a child and losing a spouse after many years of marriage, and both are handled delicately and beautifully, showing both the uniqueness of each but acknowledging the similarities too.

Every single character, whether they have two or four legs, is a delight. Joanna understands people (and dogs) at a deep level and this means she can bring to life all the players in her books and make you connect emotionally with them. I think my favourite was Derek, closely followed by Majid. I also loved that there is a Lewis inspired furry character.

Now, the unlikely visitor. I didn’t for a second think it would be who it was but they are the perfect person to help Margaret unravel a decades-old mystery. This investigation added another layer of interest to the story and the journey was fantastically written, hiding the final reveal from this reader fully.

[cosylittlereadingcorner]

Three Things About Elsie (by the same author) is a book I still often think about. It was such a special and beautiful book and this latest novel by Joanna Cannon is an equally lovely read.

In this dual timeline novel, we follow Margaret in the present and also forty years earlier when her 11 year old daughter, Jeanie, disappears. We know from the chapters in the present that Jeanie was never found and of course this had a huge impact on Margaret and her husband, Derek’s, lives, especially as she was their only child. And now, in the present, following Derek’s death, Margaret is all alone and a little lost in life. That is until one day she comes home and finds an unexpected visitor in her lounge. No longer alone, Margaret finds a new purpose in life and a path that might just help her find the answers she has always been searching for.

A beautiful, genuinely emotive book with characters you will immediately warm to. It should be heartbreaking and sad and yet what shone through more than anything was love and hope. If you are looking for a read that will touch your heart and somehow leave it better than it found it, then I urge you to pick this one up.

[Anisha]

I have never been so grateful to randomly stumble across a book. *An Unlikely Visitor* is beautifully written, deeply heartfelt, comforting without feeling sentimental, and somehow manages to be a mystery, a subtle thriller, and a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be human, all at once.

At its core, the story follows Margaret, whose husband Derek falls gravely ill and eventually passes away. As Margaret begins to lose herself to grief, Derek returns. Not physically, but spiritually. Yes, he is a ghost, and no, she is not hallucinating. Together, they set out to solve the forty-year-old disappearance of their eleven-year-old daughter, a case that has remained unsolved for decades.

This is one of those rare books where I genuinely struggled to find fault with the writing. The prose feels effortless without ever being plain. The narrative flows beautifully, the author's voice is distinctive, and the internal monologues feel so intimate that you cannot help but become invested. Not once did my attention wander.

Along the way, you meet a cast of characters who each leave their own impression. Some are impossible not to care about, while others serve as uncomfortable reminders of the worst parts of human nature. The novel explores the damage people inflict on one another, but also the damage they inflict on themselves. It examines guilt, denial, shame, and the lengths people will go to protect their own image, even when the cost is someone else's life. It is incredibly perceptive about the way pain spreads from one person to another, often across generations.

Strangely, although this is a story rooted in death and loss, it did not leave me feeling hopeless. It wasn't emotional enough to make me cry, but it stirred something I have never quite experienced in a book before. It made death feel less frightening and, in a strange way, almost comforting. I know that probably sounds odd, but that is the closest I can come to describing it.

As someone who reads a lot of thrillers, I also appreciated that I never saw the ending coming. That is becoming increasingly rare for me. Then again, I do not think I spent much time trying to solve the mystery myself because I was so absorbed in the characters and everything they were carrying.

I would recommend this to anyone looking for a story that offers hope without pretending life is easy, one that shifts your perspective without becoming preachy, or simply a book to pull you out of a reading slump. I also listened to part of the audiobook, and the narration was excellent, adding another layer of warmth to an already wonderful story.

This is one of those books that reminds you that people are rarely defined by a single moment, that grief and love can exist in the same breath, and that closure does not always arrive in the way we expect. I went into this knowing almost nothing about it, and I am so glad I did. It completely exceeded my expectations, and I have no doubt it will stay among my favourite reads of the year.

[Jennifer]

A solidly enjoyable read - as expected from Joanna Cannon who does ordinary people so very well, but not as I would expect from certain features of the story which are generally a big turnoff for me. Certainly had this been by someone else and had I known in advance who the unlikely visitor was, I probably wouldn't have chosen to read it. Here I could go along with all that, and sometimes too it is nice to have a book that fulfils your wishes.

[Flapper72]

Margaret's husband, Derek, dies and she's all alone. They had had one daughter, Jeanie, who went missing when she was only eleven. All that remained was her bike. No answers. No explanation. With Derek dead Margaret felt she had to find the explanation for Jeanie's disappearance and was helped, more than a little, by Derek. A really lovely book. Highly recommended.

[Kirstie Taylor]

Another great book by Joanna Cannon which I loved! Can’t say too much in the review or it will give the whole plot away! This is a truly heartwarming tale about an elderly lady and the tragic loses in her life and how a very unexpected visitor gives her a new lease of life!

[Corrina Tidman]

One of my favourite reads of the year.

[Lizz]

Brilliant.

[Claire Sage]

What a wonderful book this is. Loved it!

[Kirsten Mackie]

4.5 rounded to 5*

[Lynda Woodfield]

I’ve loved all of Joanna Cannon’s books but I think this one is her best yet and my favourite! It is whimsical, poignant, sad and amusing and Margaret is such a great character; I am sorry to have to leave her and Derek behind. It is difficult to say more without quoting the “blurb” or giving away spoilers so please just read this book!

[Jo Rawlins]

Listened to on Audible. Easy listening and enjoyable.

Comforting story of grief and a mystery of a missing child.

Interesting cast of characters, well plotted and nicely written.

Didn't blow me away but equally it gently coated me to read/listen on.

[Stephanie]

Every now and then I need a break from crime fiction and the darkness that can come with them. Whilst this novel does feature a crime, the unsolved disappearance of Margaret and Derek’s daughter Jeanie years earlier it also focuses on Margaret’s attempts to cope on her own since being widowed. This part of the novel I found incredibly moving, and it did make me cry but there was also a kind of acceptance that despite her loneliness and pain Margaret did have to adapt. There were also moments that made me smile, the inability to find anything, to use everyday things and the many moments when she talked to herself. I imagine all of these are very common.
The appearance of the unlikely visitor changed the novel slightly. It put Margaret on a mission to find what happened to her daughter and she retraced history, met people from her past and in many ways gained an acceptance. As well as helping her come to terms with the past it also encouraged her to help those close to her. To let her see that there were friends around her and also showing her that there were others who were also experiencing loss.
This novel had one of the most perfect endings that I have ever read. I was smiling but with tears in my eyes and I didn’t want it to end.