Overview

The Labyrinth Year takes place mainly in Oxford, UK, and follows on from Baby, Baby (first in the Mullins Family Saga series), though it can be read as a stand alone novel. Jenny Guthrie Mullins spends a year in self-discovery, feeling her career as a mother-in-science challenged by husband Max (now a GP), whose demanding fundamentalist birth family require loyalties she's not been raised with. Meanwhile her artist step-sister Daisy (Daze) turns up to stir the mix and hunt for her biological mother. It all looks like a hopeless maze: can it actually become a purposeful labyrinth? Mari Howard continues to use a snappy, economic style, and weave themes of today's cultural dilemmas and diversity, medical science, marriage, relationships, secular and faith beliefs, and the way we can twist them. She introduces the reader to the Mullinses' children, Alice and Zoe, while managing to avoid an over-cute portraiture of pre-schoolers or any sentimental piety at a Retreat Centre. Brief descriptive details reveal that she conjures these portraits from her familiar world. The action, when moving from the writer's home environment of Oxford, including its canal, Port Meadow, and the Perch Inn, takes us to Northumberland, West Cornwall, and a trip to Yosemite where Jenny has to take the place of her boss, and speak at a conference. 'Once again Mari is prepared to tackle complex subjects with clarity, sensitivity and courage, ' Bridget Plass, author of just re-printed 'The Apple of his Eye', who with husband Adrian runs retreats known for their honesty, thoughtfulness, and wit.

Full Product Details

9780956476975

Table of Contents

Reviews

A super read. Baby, Baby was good but the sequel is even better! I take my hat off to you for tackling such complex scientific themes, with all the practical research this must have entailed...Your characters are strongly drawn and I particularly liked the way we see a softer side of Daze in this book...The sisters seem to swap the moral high ground between them for a bit, which just shows how complex human nature is. The children...are just delightful. Too often children are used as vehicles for cutesie humour in novels, even by well-established novelists... But Alice and Zoe fit naturally into their role in the story and are utterly believable and unselfconscious. (Griselda Heppel, author of Ante's Inferno, winner of the People's Book Prize children's section, 2013) The characters are well-rounded and memorable, so much so that I miss them after reaching the end of the story--just as I did after Mari's first book, Baby, Baby--and I was very pleased to revisit them in this sequel. (Amy Robinson, writer, storyteller, and co-founder of 'Snail Tales') The descriptions of Oxford and Cornwall are breathtaking. It felt like being there. Whether a homey pub, a church, a research lab, a doctor's office, a country fair, or a beach --it all rang wonderfully true. (Francis Guenette, author of the Crater Lake series.)

Author Information

Mari Howard writes warm, thoughtful, thought-provoking novels at her home in Oxford, where she lives with her husband, and two cats, as creative, funny, and tiresome as their three now-grown children. As a teenager she wrote and performed protest poems, and became interested in the rapid societal change around her. Her ambition was to study art, but at Newcastle University, Mari hung out with art and medical student friends while studying religion, the basis of traditional societies. She later studied social and political science at Oxford's Department for Continuing Education, developing interests in women's social issues, the impact of the contraceptive pill, IVF, and equality. Her first published pieces were non-fiction for the 'liberal' faith-based social commentary magazine Third Way, and some short stories. The Labyrinth Year continues the story of Jenny and Max who meet in Baby, Baby, (the first of the Mullins Family Saga), again drawing on her interests in genetic research, cultural differences, acceptance, and inclusion, and following on a theme of the influence of powerful fathers. Mari has appeared at Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival (2015, 2016), and twice on Oxfordshire Live reading from her work and discussing writing along with author Debbie Young. She has exhibited paintings at Oxford Art Weeks and other venues. Find out more at www.hodgepublishing.com and www.marihowardauthor.wordpress.com Rachel Lawston graduated from the University of the Creative Arts (U.K.) in 2005, and has since developed as a designer and illustrator, working for large companies such as Penguin Random House, Walker Books, and Orchard books. She also works regularly for members of the Alliance of Independent Authors. She has experience in a variety of formats including gift and picture books as well as fiction in a variety of genres, and enjoys bringing a concept to life in covers or illustrations, 'helping it burst from the page'.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available