Thank you for the opportunity to read this book, however I did not have the opportunity to finish it. To be honest, I am not entirely sure what this book is about. The beginning that I did read jumped from person to person and through different life events. I just did not connect with it at all and could not finish it. Thank you.

Interpetations of love is a beautifully written book about reflection, redemption and second chances. The characters are written with depth and with empathy. Writing from the first person point of view of the major characters is especially effective. This book, while appealing to all, will be especially meaningful to those doing a life review. It brought me to tears on several occasions due to it's poignancy. I highly recommend it.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for sharing a copy of this book with me in return for my honest review.
While there were some interesting parts, I didn’t find that the storyline was strong enough to hold my attention. I had to look back a couple of times to see whose point of view the chapter was being written from. Unfortunately this is not one that I would recommend.

I don’t typically base reviews on format, knowing that this is a draft and will be revised, but I struggled with the structure of this book in kindle format. Things may be clearer in the printed version, but I also found the voice, and general demeanor of the characters off-putting.
Historical fiction, specifically of this time period and location, are a favorite of mine, and I do think the author did a wonderful job transporting readers. Jane Campbell is obviously a talented writer, the structure and these particular characters just weren’t a fit for me.

Interpretations of love is a novel that describes how tragedy at a young age can affect the life of a person until the end. How we cope with life’s circumstances and the understanding of how it can affect others is important in order to survive it in peace and hopefully happiness if there is one.

3.5. Centered on just a few characters, this book explores love and family and what each means to them. Malcolm is given a letter by his sister before she dies which in it describes a one-night stand during wartime that she had and who may very well be the father of her child. Malcolm sits on this letter for 50 years and then gives it to his niece.

There were many beautiful poetic sentences and paragraphs throughout this novel. But, the paragraphs were, at times, just simply too long. It wasn’t broken out into dialogue and full pages of just one paragraph made this more difficult for me to enjoy and I found myself just skim reading some of them unfortunately. Also since some of the characters were psychiatrists there was much talk of self-analyzing which was a bit too long and drawn out.

Thank you to NetGalley, Jane Campbell and Grove Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

It was before I read the author biog that I felt an old-fashionedness arising from the pages of the novel. That and a sense of the British class system dominating the characters. Perhaps the two elements are intertwined. Certainly this is a sensitive, penetrating and sometimes moving account of love, loss and family interaction. It expresses a radiant belief in love, indeed an idealized sense of this and other matters (gardens, Cotswold manor houses). And yet it seems to belong to another era and never quite shakes off that revivified mood. Not a book for a wide or modern readership, I would imagine, but in its own terms thoughtful and lapidary.

An interesting and unusual debut novel , told from several points of view and full of soul searching internal monologues.
Given that the author is fast approaching 80, it is understandable that this novel takes the long view of its characters' lives , and given Jane Campbell's academic background, it is unsurprising that much of her erudition and psychoanalytic knowledge is to be found in her writing.
The story, at its simplest, revolves around a single act and a single letter, and the ramifications of, and effects on, the main characters of both.
There is much self analysis and no little regret and even guilt, within the cast of characters and, since each is given a part of the story to tell, it is interesting to see how differently the revelations are dealt with and how separate the characters are within their own thoughts, even though, to the outside world they may seem interconnected.
Some of the prose in the novel is truly lovely, and at times positively lyrical, but all that being said, the book retains such a sense of melancholy and opportunities irreparably lost that it is very difficult to say that one " enjoyed" it.
I would take great care before recommending it as I think it might well be an acquired taste.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Grove Atlantic for this opportunity to read and review the novel

A really gentle, considered, quiet story.

Malcolm collects his niece Agnes, just before her parents are killed in a traffic accident. His sister with her last breath confirms he has delivered a letter for her. He has not.
We follow the extended family as they explore what love is and how it affects their decision, with this undelivered letter centrepiece in the story.

I loved the premise and the story, but felt even at the end I was only just started with the story.

Thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for an ARC of this book in return for an honest review.

This is a gentle and scholarly book. It starts with Malcolm collecting his niece, just before her parents are killed in an accident. He has a letter that he has been asked to deliver, but for valid reasons he doesn’t until 50 years later.. This book explores different types of love, bereavement especially at a young age and the myriad of things that contribute to our priorities in life. Some readers may find it a bit preachy as the characters self analyse themselves and their feelings, however the beautiful writing and generous and so very human characters make up for that in my mind. It is the sort of book that makes you sit and ponder, would you have done the things they did, especially in relation to the letter. The aftermath of the fallout from the contents of the letter was handled very well. Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC to read and offer an honest review of.

Compelling story with a main character you can see develop over the course of the story. We can feel emotions of the characters and want to see them succeed at a fundamental level.

This was an interesting book. I am not really a huge fan of collections of short story’s. But this one was well done. It definitely makes you think and the storyline was very interesting.

It's an interesting book, I'm not too sure what to make of it.

I like the idea behind it, different perspectives or a large extended family organised around some family events, dealing with some complicated dynamics and interesting characters.

However, I felt as though the book got a bit too cerebral at times. The author is obviously interested in Freud and psychoanalysis, but at points this is over-explained and feels a bit tedious. I think some of these ideas, like Oedipus-Elektra concept, would be better explored without so much overt examination. All the characters spend so much time reflecting on their own subconscious that it feels like a textbook at points.

This detracts from what is otherwise a fairly interesting story.

Thank you Net Galley and Jane Campbell for my ebook.

Agnes lost her adored parents to a car crash when she was four years old. She will never stop missing her mother’s love. Malcolm, Agnes’s young uncle wants only to love and care for his little niece but he has a secret and he is never sure when to reveal it.
Joe, an older man, also lost his mother at an early age and he, too, will always miss the love he shared with her. Joe is a psychiatrist whom Agnes had consulted during the troubled years of her marriage and he still feels a deep, unexplained, connection to his former patient.

This beautiful story of different interpretations of love is told in alternating chapters by the three main characters. It shows how their lives have been shaped from their earliest experiences, the decisions they have made and the relationships they have formed; their successes and failures. There is sweetness and sadness in all of their lives. They eventually achieve degrees of happiness in their own ways which made me happy as I had come to love them all.

I highly recommend Interpretations of Love to readers of literary fiction. I think I could go on reading Robin Campbell’s elegant prose for ever!

Published by Grove Press, New York

Interpretations of love is a novel that describes how tragedy at a young age can affect the life of a person until the end. How we cope with life’s circumstances and the understanding of how it can affect others is important in order to survive it in peace and hopefully happiness if there is one.

Agnes is an independent woman marked by the tragedy of losing both her parents at a young age, her first son later in life and a failed marriage.

Malcom is her uncle whose life is changed after his sister’s death. He never recovered from it and always felt guilty by the decisions he made in his life.

Joe, unknown to him is related to Agnes and Malcom. His life is also marked by the loss of his mother at a young age. He believes himself connected to Agnes for his wrong reasons without understanding what is really happening.

They all become entangled among other characters in this heartbreaking novel that will leave you with reflective insights about the importance of forgiveness and priorities at the end of our lives.

I just reviewed Interpretations of Love by Jane Campbell. #InterpretationsofLove #NetGalley

Malcolm's sister is killed in a car accident along with her husband. Malcolm was taking care of their daughter, Agnes, at the time of the accident. His two regrets: leaving Agnes to his parents immediately after the accident and, more significantly, keeping a letter that his sister gave him to himself despite her last wishes. The letter was for Joe, a person that Sophie believes is Agnes's biological father. The story unfolds as the family navigates life and loss, taking risks and avoiding them. This is an easy read and the story moves along. However, I felt somewhat ambivalent about the characters and I wasn't sure exactly what to feel. For some reason, it didn't resonate with me.

A group of people gather to celebrate a wedding, not knowing that they are all connected by a single event that happened decades prior in the aftermath of World War 2. Each chapter is told from the pov of one of the people going to the event. It's an interesting premise and one of the strengths of the novel. Some of the drawbacks are that the novel seems a bit overwritten, to the point that several of the characters sounded exactly alike to me. I also was uncomfortable about the 'secret' kept by Mally and how knowing the secret made me see other characters (generally, not in a good way).

Far too dry, long-winded, and boring as the main character speaks his story. I wanted so much to hear more about his sister, and then his niece. But it went on and on from the boring POV. DNF

The cover is my favorite part of the book. Very well done. Unfortunately, the contents was lacking for me. I got so far into it and did not finish. It failed to gain my interest or draw me in.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for a fair and honest review.

The book begins with Malcom Miller telling the story of the deaths of his sister and her husband and how their only daughter, Alice, was left behind. Agnes's mother gave Malcolm a letter before she died, asking her to give it to Dr. Joseph Bradshaw. It seems that Bradshaw is Agnes's father, conceived in a shelter on a night of bombing in London.
In a strange twist of fate, Bradshaw becomes Agnes's therapist many years later, both of them unaware of the connection as Malcolm never passed on the letter. As all the characters converge for the daughter of Agnes's wedding, we hear the thought, fears, secrets and doubts of each of them.

The writing here is brilliant. It is absolutely beautiful, and Campell is able to draw vivid scenes that resonate with the reader. However, the prose is thick with minimum dialogue, the emotion and angst is unending, and this reviewer found it difficult to keep up with which character was now telling the story. At times I felt as if I were just slogging through, but a few pages on my imagination was captured and I was again immersed in the story. This is difficult one to review, but overall I did not enjoy it.