The Silken Knot (Three Sisters)
The second in the Three Sisters family saga explores Iris Hammond, a more forthright and less traditional sister than Rose, of the previous book. In 1947, Iris accepts a proposal of marriage from widowed single father, Pierre Rousseau. The couple have never met, and they move straight to Dinan, Brittany, where Pierre has relocated his haberdashery business so that his daughter Danielle can be near her grandparents. Iris is a single mother who makes no apologies for having had a relationship outside of marriage, but Pierre is content to offer his home to her and baby Grace, who Danielle immediately falls in love with. The new Rousseau marriage gets off to a rocky start. Pierre is an upstanding moral Catholic, and Iris feels she can’t compare to his previous wife or have relations with someone who considers her second-best. But there are outside forces at work which threaten to split them apart, and not everyone is as they seem.
Harris’s portrayal of the dynamic Iris and her gentlemanly Pierre is well-wrought. They are genuine people who gradually find enough common ground to form a solid friendship and a stable home for Danielle. Character interplay works well, and the history of the Dinan/Lanvallay/Léhon area is told in compelling detail. My difficulty lay with the dialogue which is too practiced, overthought and a bit too perfect at times – particularly in Pierre’s relating of local history and Iris’s psychological assessments of their relationship. The information relayed is spot-on, but the emotion is lacking. I could do without chapter headings like ‘later that day’ or ‘the following morning’, because it is easy to follow what’s going on. Otherwise, a well-told, inspiring post-war saga about generosity of spirit and the shape of forgiveness.
