The River House: A Novel [Hardcover]

In Leroy's second U.S. release (Postcards from Berlin), heroine Ginnie Holmes—a respected psychologist and mother of two—shakes up her comfy, middle-aged life by embarking on a passionate affair with a married man. The duo throw caution—and their bare behinds—to the wind every Thursday afternoon in trysts along deserted, woody banks of the Thames. As it gets colder outside, Ginnie and Will (aka Detective Inspector Hampden) seek privacy in an abandoned river house. One day, "entangled" inside with her "smoke and cinnamon" scented lover, Ginnie spies a suspicious-looking man by the river. Initially unnerved, she dismisses her reaction as projected guilt—until a woman is found murdered near that very spot. Thus begins the real conflict in this atmospheric love –story–cum–psychological thriller. Should Ginnie remain silent, potentially allowing a murderer to go free? Or should she speak up, and thereby expose her affair and ruin two marriages? As she frets over the decision, all the while juggling a career, an emotionally aloof husband, a difficult 16-year-old daughter and an ailing mother, Ginnie seems less a heroine and more a hapless fly caught in a moral spider web. Leroy manages to make Ginnie sympathetic—even though she isn't always likable—and her dilemma chillingly real.
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To saints and altruists, perhaps, the question of doing the right thing is never a difficult choice. For the rest of us, however, such black-and-white situations are often more familiarly cast in myriad shades of gray. Such an intricate moral conundrum lies at the core of Leroy's cautionary tale of desire and passion versus responsibility and loyalty, in which a middle-aged wife and mother jeopardizes her family's security when she enters into a furtive love affair. Set adrift in an emotionally bankrupt marriage, Ginnie Holmes is receptive to the advances of a handsome colleague, their weekly assignations quickly becoming the touchstone of her life. When she witnesses the aftermath of a brutal murder during one of their trysts, Ginnie is faced with the dilemma of concealing what she knows and protecting her affair or publicly testifying and destroying her family. Leroy's sensuously ethereal, subtly electric drama discerningly probes the affective fragility of a woman struggling to preserve all she holds dear, without losing herself in the process. Carol Haggas
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"In some ways The River House reads like a suspense novel written by Richard Yates. Leroy elucidates Ginnie's moral conundrum beautifully." - Washington Post "Leroy expertly draws a picture of a woman and a family in crisis and the moral questions one sometimes has to face." - Toronto Sun "Margaret Leroy writes like a dream" - Tony Parsons" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

- The novel's story line revolves around a single moment that threatens to unravel a woman's entire life and will appeal to readers of Jane Hamilton, Sue Miller and Ann Packet.- "Postcards from Berlin, Leroy's previous novel, was a "New York Times Notable Book of the Year and is being developed by the BBC into a television drama.

Margaret worked as a social worker and counsellor, specialising in marital therapy and child protection for fifteen years, before becoming a full-time writer. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.