A Free Woman - Couverture rigide

'Clever, humane, elegant and wise. Like the Dutch masters, who saw beauty in a woman sewing, or cracking eggs, and whose calm elegance her prose recalls, she sees the fragility and strangeness that are present in even the most commonplace of lives, if only one knows how to look.' (The Times 2001-09-01)

'Families are funny things - in real life, as in the novels of Libby Purves. . . Still, all's well that ends well - as things usually do in the novels of the perceptive Ms Purves.' (Evening Mail 2001-09-01)

'Purves tackles a number of topical issues head-on, while astutely depicting family life' (Woman & Home 2001-09-01)

'Most gripping . . . erupts with extraordinary and unexpected force.' (David Shukman, Daily Mail 2001-09-01)

'A satisfying cocktail of sexual politics and common sense.' (East Anglian Daily Times 2001-09-01)

'Calm eye, coherent thought and deft plotting . . . A thoughtful and compelling read with a wise message for modern parents.' (Wigan Evening Post 2002-02-16)

Sarah Penn and Maggie Reave are sisters, as different as a tabby and a tiger. Sarah has married kind, reliable Leo and settled contentedly into small-town life. Maggie, light-hearted and footloose, has spent fifteen years drifting round the world with a backpack and a cheerful willingness to do any menial job as long as it has no future.

But now Maggie has come home, pregnant, and undecided whether or not to keep the baby. And as she discusses this with her sister, lets slip that she's had an abortion before, and that the father was Maggie's husband. This throws everything into confusion, but Christmas brings reconciliation and a new baby.