The art of drowning

"When her lover proves to be a liar and a thief, Rachel Doe begins to reassess her life. Work no longer occupies each waking moment, and at the art school where she enrols for life drawing classes she meets the charismatic Ivy Wiseman - part-time model, ex-junkie, a cleaner on the night shift, survivor of divorce, homelessness and the death of her first child. Ivy inspires life, as do her farming parents in their ramshackle house, with its swan-filled lake close to the sea. Rachel falls in love with them all." "During a sultry summer she is told of the drowning of Ivy's daughter; of the ex-husband, Carl, a brutal and ambitious lawyer, and of how Ivy's parents are desperate to locate him and the second, surviving grandchild. Blessed by the care and comfort the Wisemans give her, Rachel determines to find Carl, make him confront the harm he has done and bring them all together." "For someone like Rachel, Carl is easy to find, but the man she confronts does not have the outlines she had mentally drawn. Disarmed, confused and outmanoeuvred, Rachel continues in her naive passion for doing what is right, unaware, in her innocence, that in murderous family battles, there is no justice, only vendettas, and no life is sacred, least of all her own."--BOOK JACKET.