Reading Group Questions

1. ‘Sometimes I think I am the unreliable narrator of my own life. Sometimes I think we all are.’

   It’s hard to know who to trust in this novel. Who did you most want to believe? Anna or Jack?

2. What was your favourite twist in the book?
3. ‘In the future, I expect people will long for fifteen minutes of privacy, rather than fifteen minutes of fame.’

   Given that Anna is such a private person, why do you think she pursued a career as a TV journalist? Was it to please her mother on some level? (Who named her after the newsreader Anna Ford).

4. ‘Home is not always where the heart is. For people like me, home is where the hurt lives that made us into who we are.’

   The quintessential English village of Blackdown is a fictional setting, but places like it do exist. What makes some people desperate to escape tight-knit communities, while others never want to leave?

5. ‘Popularity can spoil a place just like it can spoil a person.’

   What do you think the killer meant by that?

6. ‘Wine is always the most reliable crutch when it feels like I might fall.’

   Several characters in the book could be described as functioning alcoholics. Attitudes to smoking have dramatically changed in recent years. Is alcohol simply Anna’s generation’s drug of choice?

7. ‘Funny how often life seems to work in reverse. We were children masquerading as adults and now we are adults acting like children.’

   The changing roles we play in life, family and work feature several times in the book. Why did it take Anna so long to start looking after her mother?

8. ‘It might be true that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, but sometimes the apple can roll down a hill, far, far away from where it landed.’

   How much do Anna and her mother really have in common?

9. ‘Youth fools us into thinking there are infinite paths to choose from in life; maturity tricks us into thinking there is only one.’

   Age discrimination is an interesting topic in this novel. Is society too quick to judge the elderly?

10. ‘Worry makes her world go round.’

    Several of the characters suffer from one or more forms of anxiety. Did that hinder them? Or, did it somehow make them more determined to achieve their goals?

11. ‘Memories are shapeshifters. Some bend, some twist, and some shrivel and die over time.’

    Sometimes Anna’s and Jack’s memories don’t quite match. Do two people ever really remember things the exact same way?

12. ‘The sting of loneliness is only ever temporary, like that of a nettle. If you don’t scratch at the solitude, it starts to feel normal again soon enough.’

    Loneliness is such a big theme in this book, and affects almost every character on some level, regardless of their age. Is life in 2020 more or less lonely than it used to be?

13. ‘People rarely see themselves the way others do; we all carry broken mirrors.’

    Is anyone who they first seem to be in this novel?