Starry, Starry Night (by Marcia Willett)

(Amazon UK link)

Marcia Willett has been one of my favourite authors for many years now. Every time she published a new novel, I put it on my wishlist as soon as it was available in paperback. That’s the case with ‘Starry, Starry Night’, published in 2021, and which I received for Christmas. I picked it up to read yesterday and finished it today. It’s not a long read - just 215 pages, unlike many of the author’s much longer novels.

I’m saddened to read that Marcia Willett died six months ago after the return of an illness. She was only 76. So this is her last full-length novel, though I understand there’s one more novella which has recently been published, not yet out in paperback.

As with so many of this author’s novels, there are some familiar characters as well as some new ones. Next time I do a complete re-read, I plan to keep a list of the people as so many recur in later books. I love picking up the threads and learning what happened to people I had started to care about, but sometimes need a reminder as I don’t generally read one author’s books one after another.

Leo is one of the most important people in this book. Separated amicably from his wife, with adult children living away from home, he lives on his own in a village in Devon where he has many friends. A nearby house is occupied by Will and Bea, an elderly pair of cousins, and the younger Giles and Tessa (familiar from earlier books by Marcia Willett). Giles is away on duty, their two children are grown up and have flown the nest, and since they recently moved from a gorgeous coastal property Tessa is feeling a little depressed. 

Into the story comes a young woman called Em, best friend of Leo’s daughter-in-law Bethany. Em is attempting to write a play, and is staying nearby; she has met the family and is rather taken with Leo even though he’s a generation older. Then Tessa bumps into an old friend, Sebastian, whom she was once engaged to. And Leo, out of the blue, hears from his cousin Alice who disappeared from his life forty years earlier, taking with her a secret that only the two of them knew about.

So the scene is set for a warm, character-based novel as is typical of Marcia Willett. Since it’s shorter than many of her other novels, there’s not much description. I’m not a fan of descriptive passages so that’s not a problem to me at all.  But the characters still shine through. I couldn’t really relate to Em or Tessa, but I liked Leo very much. I could sympathise with his general chivalry and kindness that makes him go along with other people’s plans, unwilling to say ‘no’, even if it got him into difficulties.

The writing is good, the story moves forward at a gentle pace with just the right amount of action for a relaxing, uplifting read. It’s poignant that one significant character has cancer; I didn’t know that Marcia Willett had it in the past, or earlier in the year. But most of what she writes is from personal experience, which is what makes it so authentic, so perhaps I should have realised.

I’m very glad I read this book and look forward to re-reading it in five or six years when I’ve got to the end of my next re-read of Marcia Willett’s novels.

Definitely recommended if you like this kind of gentle, sometimes poignant character-based women’s fiction.

Review copyright 2022 Sue's Book Reviews