The Michaelmas Daisy: a contemporary story of loneliness, loyalty, love, finding new friends, and hope.
Beverley may be dead, but that doesn’t make it any easier to let go. She watches over her husband and daughter, sharing their pain, laughter, fears and dreams. As she watches, memories of her own life and love for her husband bring comfort and tears in equal measure.
Her daughter, Philippa (58, divorced), looks after her ailing father. She does so willingly, but caring for him 24/7 takes great patience and compassion, and such devotion is isolating.
Into their home comes Kaska (39). She provides respite care, brings kindness and energy, and helps Philippa realise it’s ok to still want some life of her own.
As her father’s condition worsens, Philippa’s dedication is tested to the full and difficult choices are necessary.
The Michaelmas Daisy: written in honour of those in need of care, and those who care for them.
There is something about Paul’s writing style that just captures me instantly and I’m hooked into the story, and what a beautiful story this was.
We first meet Beverley, who has been dead for almost 8 years but is still watching over her husband and daughter. I think the book being told from her perspective gave a completely different angle to the story and it was very clever and also very moving, with a dash of humour at times. We see Beverley reminiscing and filling in gaps that her husband Kenny no longer can, showing us the full story. We also see her getting rather annoyed that she can’t be heard even when shouting, and hoping that someone asks those slightly awkward questions that she so desperately wants answers too (well it is rather lonely in the house sometimes!)
Kenny is a great character, he is living with Dementia and being cared for by his daughter Philippa, when he says ‘I know you, you’re my daughter’ it just melted my heart each time. There are inevitably things that he cannot remember sometimes or even at all but he remembers the Michaelmas Daisy ditty that he has sung for years.
I thought the character of Kenny was written so well, showing what he used to be like and things that he used to do compared to how he was now and feeling embarrassed and ashamed that his daughter was having to do so much for him.
That brings me to Philippa, again she was a brilliantly written character. I felt so sorry for her as she must’ve been so lonely and exhausted. And I think that because the story was told from Beverley’s perspective it really showed here how guilty that Beverley felt at having left Philippa meaning she had to do everything for Kenny. I am so glad however, that Philippa took the chance of those couple of hours respite care and that’s how she met Kaska and from that a friendship seemed to blossom. I really liked this as it meant that Philippa wasn’t as lonely and even though she wasn’t immediately very open or sharing, it just meant that she wasn’t so alone.
Kaska was a brilliant character also, and she was just so caring, doing little things like making notes of songs Kenny liked to sing so that she could learn them for her next visit and talking to him soldier to soldier! Some of these scenes were honestly so lovely.
I think the storyline itself portrayed exactly what it set out to, and did it brilliantly. I honestly didn’t want the book to end as I was so invested in the characters. You can grab a copy here #Aff (If you buy a copy through this link I get a teeny commission of the sale from Amazon)
Huge Thanks to Love Books Tours and Paul Marriner for my place on the Readalong.
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