Later, Alice, takes him home and let’s him stay. After a brief conversation, Alice discovers that the man doesn’t remember who he is or how he got there. When walking her three out-of-control dogs on the beach in the rain, Alice approaches a man she’s already spied from her window. And Romaine’s dad was the love of my life but …” She pauses.

He just disappeared one day, when Kai was about five. We were-excuse the expression-fuck buddies. Kai’s dad was my next-door neighbor in Brixton. Didn’t know I was pregnant until I’d been home for two weeks and had no way of tracking him down. I’ve totally failed in the providing-a-conventional-family-unit-for-my-children department.

“Her whole life has been shaped, virtually destroyed, by her sexual desires.” Alice is an open, messy, book: This is a woman whose positive characteristics–she’s loving, generous, open, trusting–have also led to her downfall. Alice’s life and circumstances are chaotic and shaped by her character. They live in a cramped little seaside cottage which is also shared by three rescue dogs. The novel, which never lags at 342 pages, follows three narratives, and it’s the strength and connections between these narratives, particularly the two from Lily and Alice, that make this an intense, absorbing read.Īlice Lake scrapes together a living and supports her three children, all from different fathers. If you think you’ve just connected the dots, then the novel has a few surprises in store.

Meanwhile in London, newlywed Lily, fresh from Ukraine, is devastated when her husband, Carl doesn’t return from work one day. In the Northern town of Ridinghouse Bay, Alice, a single mother of three finds a man on a beach and, feeling sorry for him, takes him into her home. Lisa Jewell’s novel I Found Youis an engaging pageturner which centres on two men–one lost and one found.

I found you lisa jewell summary