The Unexpected Elements of Love

Janet is a TV weather presenter. Sometimes she'll admit to liking the adrenalin and modest celebrity of the nightly news. Other times she wonders if her job justifies the time away from family - after all, she's hardly curing cancer. But now the weather seems to be invading her home. Her young son Harry, is increasingly terrified by storms and endlessly distracted at school: everyone but Janet wants to put him on medication. And her husband complains that their marriage is slowly drying up. Like the content of her forecasts, Janet's life feels beyond her control. Roy is scared of the weather, too. An acclaimed sculptor and father of Janet's oldest friend, he is working on the biggest commission of his life. When he feels the first splinterings of dementia he knows the creation will be his last. He's got to make it count. After almost fifty years of devoted marriage, Beth can't bear to witness his deterioration. Is Roy producing a masterpiece or a monstrosity? What can she do in the face of the darkening clouds? Kate Legge's novel beautifully traces the shifting connections between people as they encounter the high pressure zones of youth and old age. The Unexpected Elements of Love is a wonderfully insightful, tender and engrossing portrait of how we live now, under a common sky.