A loose, modern retelling of Wuthering Heights, Alice Hoffman brings her magic touch to another book.

March Murray returns home for a funeral with her teenage daughter in tow, leaving her loving husband behind. But her old life casts a spell over her, returning her to former days, and most importantly, old loves. When she was a child, her father brought home a young boy who needed help, who was raised in their home like a brother. March and newcomer Hollis soon became inseparable, but her brother Allan despised him and triedd to mak ehis life hell.

Hollis never got over his sense of not having enough, and this feeling grew into a grasping nature and deep rage. By the time March’s father died, and Allan made Hollis pay back every penny spent on keeping him, Hollis and March were deeply in love, but torn apart by family.

When March returns, nothing can keep them apart now. But Hollis may not be the person that she remembered. A lot has happened in the intervening years.

In a lot of ways, this is March’s daughter’s story, as she sees the relationship from the outside, seeing Hollis for what he is in a way that March can’t. Gwen sees that her uncles life has been destroyed, an uncle she knows nothing about. That even though Hollis has taken on Hank, her cousin, that he does not have any deep feeling or nurturing to give him. She also developes a deep bond with a racehorse that no one else can ride.

It’s about the way that love can feel like magic, but blind us to the truth, and the way that bad relationships can slowly creep up, chipping away at our freedom and self esteem without us realising how bad it’s getting.

Read It If: you’ve ever fallen in love with the wrong person, or wondered what might have been.