Review: All Our Missing Pieces

All Our Missing Pieces by Sophie Ranald
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Orla inherits a dilapidated Georgian house in London from her late Grandmother. Orla has never set foot inside the house before, despite being raised by her grandmother, but she is determined to restore it to its former glory. Orla was estranged from her grandmother for two decades and it is bittersweet to inherit a house from her.

Beatrice is an American. She was adopted in Ireland at birth while her father was working in Dublin for two years. She has been privileged and indulged her entire life, but has managed to persuade her parents to let her nanny in London for a wealthy American family. The family offered to let her live in but Beatrice wants her own space. She hasn't let on that her reason for working in London is to try and track down her birth mother, her previous investigations having uncovered that the family had a big house in Spitalfields.

Livvie is in a flat share but for some reason one of the other girls has taken against her and is creating a toxic atmosphere, every time Livvie walks into a room they stop talking and/or laugh for no reason. After the girl's boyfriend tries to kiss her at a party in their flat it has got worse and she is desperate to move out.

Luke has recently split up with his girlfriend and was about to move back home, until Orla called him about doing some handywork in her house. They agree an arrangement where she pays him to help her restore the house and she lets him stay in the house at a reduced rate.

Over the course of a few months in 2005/6 these four people come together in the house. There's love, secrets, jealousy, it could bring them together or tear them apart.

I don't know what to say about this book. First, why set it in 2005 - was it just to explain a baby being taken away from its mother? Also, the book jumped between people's points of view but didn't give any clue as to who was 'speaking' at any one time. After a while I realised if the person was writing then it was Orla, but distinguishing between Livvie and Beatrice was more tricky.

More disturbingly, I just don't know what the point of the book was. I finished it and wondered if maybe it was part of a series, or a prequel (or whatever the opposite is of a prequel) but it doesn't appear to be. So we have Orla's story only half told. Luke's story only half told. Livvie's story half told. Beatrice's story sort of told. And a humungous sort of cliff-hanger at the end? Will there be a sequel?

Overall, it was both too predictable and lacked something

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