The Summer Before the Dark

Kate Brown is a middle-aged woman whose husband and grown children are away for the summer. For the first time in decades she is free of family duties. She takes a temporary job as an interpreter and begins a new relationship, then travels, and falls ill. As her circumstances change, she reconsiders who she has been as a wife and mother and how others see her. The novel is a clear-eyed look at ageing, identity and the roles women are expected to play.