Back To You

by Susy McPhee

A darkly funny and delicately executed tale of love and loss. Claudia and Marius were a happy couple, that is until Marius vanished whilst climbing in the Himalayas. Eight months on and Claudia's struggling to move forwards amid the well intentioned though often ill-advised support of her overbearing family. Her mother wants her to get a chinchilla. Her brother thinks she needs to find someone new. Claudia just wants to be left to her misery. Then one afternoon the unthinkable happens: Marius returns, backpack on his shoulder, tangible, warm and alive! But there's a problem: as real as Marius might seem to Claudia, nobody else can see him.

• ISBN10: 1291533729
• ISBN13: 9781291533729
• Publish Date: 3 September 2013
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Lulu.com
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 277
• Language: English

Reviews

[Leah]

I really enjoy Susy McPhee’s novels and I’ve anxiously been awaiting her third novel since 2009. It’s been a long time coming, but she eventually got around to releasing a new novel in September; I actually didn’t know a thing about it until Susy mentioned it on Twitter, she managed to keep it fairly quiet! She sent me a copy to review and it was a really good novel.

One thing you know you’re going to get with a Susy McPhee novel is an I depth look into how relationships work – and not always for the good. In Back To You, Claudia is stuck in a depressing, miserable rut. Her fiancé Marius disappeared 8 months ago when climbing a mountain and he’s presumed dead, but Claudia refuses to believe a word of it; she knows he’s out there somewhere and he’s just trying to make his way back to her. When she spots him on a street corner, outside the charity shop where she works she’s convinced her wish has come true, but when she gleefully informs her entire family, she realises she’s the only one who can see him and her family are convinced Claudia’s losing the plot… But is she?

I really enjoyed Back To You. Susy McPhee is such a fabulous writer and although the novel is about such a terribly awful thing, I actually didn’t feel the novel was all that depressing. Claudia was a heroine who you really wanted to root for; she had had such a tough time – not only with Marius’s disappearance but her Grandmother Grace had passed away as well, and then of course there’s Marius’s reappearance! I wasn’t 100% sure about ghost Marius but it actually really worked in the context of the novel so I was rather relieved!

Susy has yet again hit it outta the park with her third novel. Back To You was so absorbing, I barely wanted to put the novel down. The ending was a massive surprise, I didn’t expect it at all and I’m still not sure whether I liked it or not, whether I believed it or not. I suppose it depends on the reader. I did like it, don’t get me wrong but there was a bit about it that rankled a bit. I definitely recommend Back To You, I really hope Susy’s fourth novel doesn’t take so long to come, she’s super talented and three years is a long wait!