Joanna Cannon

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.

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…

An Unlikely Visitor

Cassandra Tang

When everything around you has splintered, when the life you thought was solid and firm has been taken away, you search for something familiar, something you recognise. There are times when the only solace you can find is being with something that lived alongside you in the past. Something that knew what life had been like before your world was broken in two. A constant. But even constants leave eventually, because nothing is forever.

That’s the thing if you’ve lived in a house for long enough; it becomes a keeper of all your memories, like a giant suitcase. It holds them safe in corners and alcoves, and it scatters them around the garden and in the branches of the trees.

If you can no longer turn to someone and say do you remember when and bring them back to life, they begin to fade very quickly, and all you are left with is the sense that once upon a time, your life was very much better than it is now.

But the only thing I think we really need to accept is this: when you love someone, truly love someone, they never really leave. No one is ever lost to you, they’re just in a different place. That’s all.

An Unlikely Visitor quotes

Join the club