Learning By Heart

Jun 1, 2025 10:00 AM

Author:Elizabeth McGregor,Karen Cass

Learning By Heart

One small, faded, leather-bound journal.

One photograph in a newspaper.

These two seemingly small items are set to change lives forever.

Just when career success seems set fair for Zeph's writer husband Nick, she discovers that he has been having an affair. Wounded and angry, she turns to her mother for support, only to discover that the past has also come back to haunt Cora, a person who always seemed utterly flawless.

For now comes evidence of Cora's own long-ago relationship with a famous man, a man who so adored Zeph's mother that he never forgot her.

Zeph is forced to see her own childhood, and the bond with her beloved father, in an entirely new light. Was she really loved, as her mother and father tried to deal with their problems? Was their happiness a sham, as hers and Nick's threatens to be? And how much can you trust the person who tells you that they love you?

As Zeph struggles to piece together her shattered images of husband and parent, she suddenly realises the connection between herself and the writer of the journal which has appeared in the morning mail, posted from Italy; a last gift from a dying man, an anonymous and passionate stranger.....

Set in both England and the alluringly beautiful island of Sicily, A YEAR IN THE LIGHT explores the complexities and subtleties of marriage, of lasting love and human frailty.

Reviews

A good holiday read.

—— DAILY ECHO

Full of insight, full of sharp ironic twists, full of wisdom about American idealism, and full of terrific fun... A profound and personal meditation on the changes in the American psyche over the last fifty years

—— Financial Times

A tragedy of classical proportions...a magnificent novel

—— The Times

Wonderful, rich...entirely gripping

—— Sunday Telegraph

A momentous novel

—— Observer

Brilliantly written...angry, grieving, witty, acute...compellingly and convincingly rendered

—— Sunday Times

Utterly tragic and compelling. It's one of the greatest modern American novels

—— Tatler

Philip Roth’s American Pastoral is one of those books you know is going to change you in some profound way shortly after you start reading it and it did for me. I read it last summer and nothing has quite surpassed it for me since. A very painful read.

—— Angea Nagle , Irish Times

[American Pastoral] is gorgeously written with passages of breathtaking beauty filled with wisdom and pathos

—— Sarfraz Manzoor , Week

A simple beautiful ending to a deeply sombre book

—— Scotland on Sunday

There is enough plot for several novels here (enough sex for dozens), all vividly conveyed in the author's excitable style... Her many fans will not be disappointed

—— Literary Review

Harris does it again with this brilliantly told tale.

—— THE SUN

Voluptuous helpings of magic, mystery, love and, of course, mouthwatering discriptions of her favourite chocolates, combine to make a rich, satisfying story that should keep you riveted to your sun lounger page after page

—— SHE magazine

The Lollipop Shoes is a sensory fantasy, Harris writes with an original and satisfying poetic flair.

—— DAILY TELEGRAPH

...the magic still enchants

—— MAIL ON SUNDAY

...a sumptuous treat.

—— HEAT Magazine, May 2007

...a sensory fantasy, Harris writes with an original and satisfying poetic flair. Harris is a delicious treat.

—— DAILY TELEGRAPH

This novel has the richness of the best quality dark chocolate.

—— INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

Sparkling black comedy

—— Play

Pearson is a hilarious author who captures the guilt and the exhaustion of the working mother's life perfectly

—— Dublin Daily

It's the incisive details and Pearson's vivid writing that propel the story

—— New York Times Books

Smart book...great fun

—— New York Times

Pearson is insightful, witty and full of fun

—— Daily Telegraph

Wonderfully warm, witty and intelligent

—— Sunday independent

A Bible for the working woman

—— Oprah Winfrey

Her social observation is unerringly accurate...so beautifully written that it brought tears to my eyes, as well as a wry smile

—— Daily Telegraph

Pearson...to write a novel...that has already sold a gazillion copies and is going to become a film. Hats off to you, madam!

—— Ok Magazine

She will...make you laugh

—— Culture, Sunday Times

Pearson...has made it all fresh again

—— Time

Entertaining, compulsively readable, and brilliantly written

—— Daily Candy

Hilarious and...poignant

—— Publisher's Weekly

This terrific novel is alternately hilarious and sad

—— Upfront

It may change your life

—— The Observer

Pearson is a very witty and moving writer. Her prose is spare and skilful...waspish truisms and spot-on social observations

—— Daily Express

Intelligent, witty and of-the-moment, it mixes sassy, brittle perceptions with barefaced sentimentality

—— The Herald, Glasgow

Brilliantly captures and defines the mood of the moment...sparkling wit and razor sharp insights

—— XW Magazine

Sharply observed and frequently funny

—— Evening Standard

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