Second Honeymoon

About this book

Ben Boyd is leaving home. At twenty-two, he's the youngest of the family and the last to leave. His father Russell, a theatrical agent, is hoping to get his wife back after decades of family life. But, his mother Edie, an actress, is distraught. Now that her third and last child has left the nest, her life turns suddenly and uncomfortably silent. She begins to yearn for the maternal intimacy that now seems lost to her forever. Be careful what you wish for... Living on your own, it seems, may not be as glamorous as it's cracked up to be. Ben's brother, Matthew, is wrestling with a relationship in which he earns less than his successful girlfriend. Their sister Rosa is wrestling with debt, and the end of a turbulent love affair. Rosa is the first of the Boyd children to think she may have to move back in with her parents—just until she can make ends meet again. Before long, a mother-and-child reunion is in full swing: life away from the nest has proven to be unexpectedly daunting to the children, who one-by-one return home, bringing their troubles. With an unannounced new phase of parenthood suddenly stretching ahead of her, Edie finds her home more crowded than ever.

Themes & subjects

About the author

Joanna Trollope

9 December 1943

Joanna Trollope was born on 9 December 1943 in her grandfather's rectory in Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire, England, daughter of Rosemary Hodson and Arthur George Cecil Trollope. She is the eldest of three siblings. She is a fifth-generation niece of the Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope and is a cousin of the writer and broadcaster James Trollope. She was educated at Reigate County School for Girls followed by St Hugh's College, Oxford. On 14 May 1966, she married the banker David Roger William Potter, they had two daughters, Antonia and Louise, and on 1983 they divorced. In 1985, she remarried to the television dramatist Ian Curteis, and became the stepmother of two stepsons; they divor…