Commonwealth/ann patchett

Dazzling .

The combination of lightness, warmth and remarkable incisiveness creates a novel that is life-affirming and compulsively readable Sunday Times It is 1964: Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keatings christening party uninvited and notices a heart stoppingly beautiful woman.

When he kisses Beverly Keating, his hosts wife, he sets in motion the joining of two families, whose shared fate will be defined on a day seven years later.

In 1988, Franny Keating, now twenty-four, is working as a cocktail waitress in Chicago.

When she meets the famous author Leon Posen one night at the bar, and tells him about her family, she unwittingly relinquishes control over their story.