Past and future imperfect

This is a book about the failure of two marriages. One is destroyed by a past that refuses to slacken its grip, though the marriage itself has to limp on; the other is wrecked by a future impossible to avoid. They are seen through the eyes of four different people, two from one family, two from the other. Ruth, a precocious 15-year-old, has by far the most entries, hence the book’s title. The result of all this is a very crowded and colourful canvas, a patchwork quilt of a book.

The two families live within walking distance of each other in a sparsely populated part of Northumberland and they are in each other’s pockets whether they like or not. And Graham Burden, a farmer, doesn’t like it at all, despising Ruth’s family as holidaying Londoners and hating her and her two sisters and brother running all over his farm. His wife, Alison, for good measure hates their mother, Lizzie, because she reminds her of another woman whom she had known at a very bad time in her own life.