Mara Evans specialises in 'phantom pain', a phenomenon which happens when someone has lost a part of their body but still feels pain (sometimes very intense) in the lost limb. Like her patients, a part of Mara is missing, and has been for the decades since her beloved cousin Francesca died. Unlike them, she has successfully blocked out any pain by pretending the hole is not there - at least until she has to return to South Wales and confront her memories.

Mara, Francesca and another cousin, Aaron, grew up together, intensely close. Their three branches of the family were both tight-knit and warring, with divisions between the branches, within each family, and between the generations - particularly as the sixties turned the world upside down and the youngest members discovered idealism and rejected convention. Sadly, they also experienced the real dark side of the hippy dream (I could understand quite easily why Mara might want to block the memories out) - but even so, looking back, Mara is tensely conscious of how much she has accepted the compromises of adult life.

This is a complex book, in both its densely layered themes and its view of human nature. One of the most remarkable things was its ability to portray the tugs and contradictions of family love - the fluidity of the feelings you have for those who are closest to you. I really enjoyed reading it. ( )

Mara and her cousin Frankie grew up in Swansea in the '50s and '60s. They were part of a big extended family that loved hard and fought hard. Mara and Frankie were extremely close, always together and always getting in trouble. Frankie was the pretty one with a beautiful singing voice, and Mara was the smart, tough cousin. The book follows the girls through the teen-age years and then their 20s where drugs and free love wreak havoc on their lives and one of them doesn't survive. This is a deep, dark book about life led to the extremes. Highly recommended. ( )