A good day or a bad day?

I'm not sure at the moment whether it is good or bad. Mixed is I think the best I can do. My team's manager is one of the best in my long experience of managers. Now she's gone and got herself promoted - temporarily - and we're not sure who we're going to get in exchange. Added to which she's on holiday at present so we can't even talk to her about it! We knew she was going for the job, but I think we all individually hoped in a way she wouldn't get it. Selfish I know but we're well aware we'll almost certainly get someone not half as good. We're all a bit down about it and we were all scribbling away on the backs of envelopes to see if we can afford to apply for early retirement!! It's not quite as bad as that I suppose and we're all focusing on the word 'temporary'. I have vague recollections of it being 3 months - which would be bearable, as we would get her back at the end of it. Ho hum - I suppose there are worse things happening at sea. Apart from that work itself went well today.

I've just about finished reading 'Mothernight' by Sarah Stovell. Haunting, harrowing and claustrophobic are the words which immediately spring to mind. Something has kept me reading it even when part of me wanted to put it down. The whole plot revolves around the death of 37 day old Alfie - Leila's step brother. Who killed him? Was it his mother? Was it Leila and her manipulative friend Rosie? Everything comes to a head when Leila is 18 and is spending the summer at home for the first time in 8 years with her schoolfriend Olivia. The girls are involved in an obsessive friendship which worries their school. How will everyone involved deal with the situation and will any of them come out the other side calm and in one piece? The writing is spare and evocative and conveys the atmosphere clearly. Each chapter is written in the voice of a different character which seems to help to build the tension. I recommend it if you like your fiction full of undercurrents. As a debut novel it is startling and I think we will see more of Sarah Stovell.