Marina Sigh is a doctor who has turned her back on treating patients after a traumatic accident during a caesarian and now works as a lab researcher for a large Pharmaceutical company. Dr Annick Swenson has been working for years in the Brazilian Rio Negro, developing a drug that could extent a woman’s fertility indefinitely. However she has failed to report her progress to the company and they send Marina’s colleague Anders Eckman to Brazil to get an update. He does not return. Dr Swenson sends a brief letter informing that Anders died of a ‘fever’ and his body buried. Marina is sent to follow in Anders footsteps and discover how he died and clarify Swenson’s research results.
Dr Swenson is working in an extremely remote area in the rainforest, living amongst a tribe who have had virtually no contact with the outside world and speak only their own language. The only access is by boat.
Patchett’s descriptions of the heat, the bugs, the rain, the snakes, the bugs, (did I mention the bugs), and the constant fear of being bitten by something that at the very least could make you very very sick and at the worst kill you in a very short space of time, is visceral.
But this book, like so many of Patchett’s, is about so much more: guilt and how it can cripple you; and love and all its permutations because ‘in this life, we love who we love’; it’s as simple, and complicated as that.
This book is so different to anything else I have ever read; I will never forget it. Highly recommended.

If ever there was a marriage made in heaven, it is this beautiful book being narrated by Merryl Streep. I have read reviews that called this book boring, complaining that nothing happens in it. Did I read the same book? Because the book I read had so much happening in it. Certainly no car chases, or grisly murders, but it brims with emotions; with joy, and sorrow, and grief and love.

Lara and Joe’s three grown daughters return to the family orchard to pick cherries. Covid has isolated them from the rest of the world, and the girls beg their mother to tell them about her time, on the stage, and her romance with Duke who became a famous film star.

The blurb describes this book as ‘a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born.’ Perhaps this book resonates more with older readers, who know what it is to look back at youthful passions with no judgment and gentle kindness.

Lyrical and beautiful, highly recommended.