To The Last Page

Initially, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of mystery or suspense about Underwater – initially there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of anything in the novel’s rather commonplace situation of Jane’s life. It’s the humdrum and somewhat bleak stuff of recovering from a serious illness, family troubles, a difficult childhood, a ruined marriage and a disabled son – far too many things that Jane finds hard to deal with. Any yet, there’s something that tugs gently, first on Jane and then on the reader – and at the bottom of it is a missing brother that starts to trouble her dreams and who could hold the key to acknowledging the truth of her past and perhaps finding a way out of her unhappy loneliness. The writing is quite simple, the dialogue ordinary and commonplace, the storyline a little bit melodramatic and… well… very much dealing with women’s issues (feelings, emotions, relationships, family matters), but Elizabeth Diamond does explore these areas so well that even though you can ...