Neely and Andrea are linked by one woman that they love, but don’t actually know. It’s only when Angela goes missing at the beginning of Julia Kite’s The Hope and Anchor that they realize how little they know about her. Her absence is a huge hole in their lives, especially for her girlfriend, Neely. As Neely wanders the streets, looking for Angela and questioning their mutual acquaintances about where she might have gone, the novel grows ever more tragic. By the end, I was stunned at the emotion pouring out of the book.
Neely and Angela live on Harrow Road, in West London, but neither of them is there at the opening of The Hope and Anchor. Neely is returning from an ill-advised one night stand with Sam. Angela never turns up after an evening of mysterious errands that Neely only learns about much later. As Neely walks up and down London’s streets, wracking her brains for any clue about where Angela might have gone, we learn about Angela’s tragic, brutal past and the mismatches between the two. Neely is middle-class, intelligent, but moans about how she just hasn’t made a success of herself. Angela is from a poor neighborhood. Her life with Neely is much better than what she had as a child.
Despite the mismatches of expectations, Neely and Angela make each other happy in that ineffable way that soulmates do. Which makes this novel all the more heartbreaking when we and Neely find out what happened the night Angela went missing. Most of the book focuses on Neely, but we also get to see how this disappearance affects Angela’s sister, Andrea. After getting the news, Andrea is beset by memories of how violent and angry she used to be in her efforts to protect her sister. Andrea had managed to put most of her past behind her after marrying and having children. But after learning about Angela, it all comes flooding back. Like Neely, Andrea isn’t sure how to be without Angela.
The ending of The Hope and Anchor is explosive. The beginning of the novel didn’t lead me to expect where it would end up. This isn’t to say that the ending was out-of-character. In retrospect, it fits, because this book is all about what one finds after kicking over metaphorical rocks to see what awful things are crawling around underneath. The last rock that gets kicked over in this book is a doozy. Readers who are interested in taking this book on should start bracing themselves around the halfway point. The Hope and Anchor really packs a wallop.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.