نویسنده : جوجو مویز  

داستان كه در سال هاي 1963 و 2001 جريان دارد درباره مادر و دختري به نام آتنه فورستر و سوزانا پيكاك است.

آتنه دختري زيبا و خارج از كنترل است كه تنها دو سال پس از ازدواجش شايعاتي درباره رابطه ي او با مردي ديگر پخش مي شود.

سي و پنج سال بعد، سوزانا پس از پيدا كردن فروشگاهي كه مادر برايش به ارث گذاشته است، به آنجا پناه مي برد و تحت تاثير ديوارهاي جادويي آن علاوه بر گذر از مشكلات ازدواجش با دنيايي تازه روبه رو مي شود، اما روح آتنه رهايش نمي كند و اتفاقاتي دراماتيك را برايش رقم مي زند. او تنها از طريق رویارویی با گذشته قادر به روبرو شدن با آینده خواهد بود.

گزیده ای از کتاب :

Vivi sat down heavily on the stool, reached for a pot, and began to wipe the day from her face. She was not a vain woman – there were only two pots on her dressing-table, one for cleansing and a supermarket moisturizer – but tonight she looked at the reflection before her and felt immensely tired, as if someone had placed an intolerable weight on her shoulders. I might as well be invisible, she thought, for all the influence I have in this family. As a younger woman, she had shepherded her three children around the country, had supervised their reading, eating and brushing of teeth, had refereed their squabbles and dictated what they should wear. She had fulfilled her maternal tasks with certainty, rebuffing their protest, setting their boundaries, confident in her own abilities

Now she was impotent, incapable of intervening in their fights, of helping to lighten their unhappiness’s