whitneydaniell

by: Claire Lynch
published: May 29, 2025
genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA
240 pages, E-Book
Goodreads | Amazon

Summary

In this split-timeline story of betrayal, grief, and forgiveness, we follow parallel narratives of mothers fighting to be and do the best for themselves and their children.

In 1982, twenty-three-year-old Dawn is navigating life as a wife and mother. Without many friends, her days are consumed with caring for her daughter, Maggie, and her husband, Heron. As he goes off to work, Dawn keeps the home, gets Maggie off to her playgroup, cooks dinner, and manages all the domestic responsibilities in between. Then Dawn meets Hazel, and their blossoming friendship begins.

Forty years later, Maggie is facing her own transition. She wants more from her marriage but isn’t quite sure what that “more” is. She carves out time for herself—separate from her role as wife and mother—yet still feels stuck in a life she isn’t certain she asked for. Maggie loves her husband of twenty years, Conor, and their children, Tom and Olivia, but alone on the train to work, she often wonders what life might look like if this weren’t her life.

Maggie and her father, Heron, share a close bond—at times, uncomfortably close, as Conor would see it. While Heron has always meant well, he has erased a large part of Maggie’s past, wiping it clean like a factory reset. Now, as Heron prepares to tell his only child the devastating news he’s received from his doctor, he must not only grapple with the reality himself but also prepare those around him. With that preparation will come questions—questions he is not ready to answer. Heron can’t tell her about his diagnosis, just as he can’t reveal the other secrets he has been keeping from her for so many years.

A Family Affair is an exploration of love and loss, intimacy and injustice, custody and care, and whether it is possible to heal from the wounds of the past in today’s changed world.

Character Summary

Henry “Heron” Barnes is a regimented man, stuck in his ways. He likes things exactly as he wants them, and at this stage in his life, he isn’t about to change. Once a young man full of hope and dreams for his family’s future—even if those dreams weren’t shared by his wife, Dawn—Heron has hardened with age.

Dawn Barnes entered adulthood by checking off all the boxes she thought she was supposed to: mild-mannered, find a nice man, get married, have a child, buy a house. But she quickly felt lost in the life she had created. Drawn to the joy she found with Hazel, she makes the hardest choice of her life.

Hazel Wright, a schoolteacher, had gone to college, traveled, and lived a life that fascinated Dawn. Together, Hazel and Dawn could block out the world and live freely, unashamed. But in 1982, this kind of relationship was frowned upon, and no upstanding mother was expected to subject her child to such “depravity.”

Maggie and Conor met in college. Their love sprouted quickly and lasted twenty years, producing two children. Conor, even without fully understanding Maggie’s idiosyncrasies, often gives her grace and space to work through her thoughts and emotions. Maggie, meanwhile, is blunt, sometimes speaking without considering the emotional weight of her words. Still, for all her flaws, she has always been fair and done right by her children.

My Thoughts

More than the book itself, I appreciated the Author’s Note, which shed light on the 1980s LGBT experience in the United Kingdom, specifically how courts viewed these kinds of situations when custody of a child was at stake.

The book itself, however, didn’t move me to chorus. It’s a solid read. The writing is engaging, eloquent, and, when needed, concise. The timeline shifts are clearly marked in the chapter headings, making it easy to follow. The prose is well-structured, and each narrator’s voice is distinct without needing constant reminders. We begin with Heron, then Dawn, then Maggie.

Without spoiling the plot, I think this book does a good job of pulling you into these lives and opening you up to an emotional connection with at least one character. Each of them—even Conor—offers a piece of yourself to identify with or empathize with as the story unfolds. Despite plenty to dislike about Heron, Dawn, Hazel, and Maggie, Conor stands out as faultless. In the end, the little quirks or flaws you may dislike in the others don’t matter as much in the bigger picture.

The ending, however, is why I couldn’t rate this higher than 3.5 stars. The book simply stops. And yes, maybe that’s the haunting reality of life—it just ends, without a neat bow or epilogue. But in this case, why does Heron get off scot-free while Dawn must explain herself? That part, I didn’t care for.

Final Verdict

I picked A Family Affair for my Goodreads Summer Challenge—it checked off both “Lightning Round” and “Chart Toppers,” earning me 9 of 9 achievements collected.

It was a quick read, though not an easy one. Didn’t hate it.