Never Mind Miss Fox
Olivia Glazebrook
Little, Brown, Aug 19 2014, $25.00
ISBN: 9780316242899
Martha and Clive met while attending Oxford. He fell in love immediately and felt
fortunate when he persuaded her to join his Barkes family Easter vacation in
France. Clive’s brother Tom’s special
friend Eliot Fox joined them.
After years away from England, Eliot Fox comes home to London. One of her students Eliza Barkes informs her
parents (Clive and Martha) that her piano teacher knows both of them. Whereas Martha relishes the coincidence, Clive
panics as Eliot was his series of indiscretions over the years. Fearing she will expose his betrayal to his
wife, Clive tries to keep the piano teacher away from her; but Eliot knowing
the power she has over her occasional lover refuses to back away from the
Barkes.
Appealingly rotating between the present relationships and past
illicit trysts, this is an absorbing character study that looks at the impact an
eccentric other woman has on her former lover and his family. The quartet is three dimensional making the
cause and effect of his cheating seemingly genuine. Although the encounters over the years come
across as well written but improbable happenchance, the trouble Miss Fox’s
return to England causes to the Barkes’ seemingly happy family makes for an
appealing novel.
Harriet Klausner
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