From the PR: “Anne’s life is rushing to an unexpected and untimely end. But her diagnosis of terminal cancer isn’t just a shock for her – and for her daughter Sigrid and granddaughter Mia – it shines a spotlight onto their fractured and uncomfortable relationships.

A spur-of-the moment trip to France acts as a catalyst for the three generations of women to reveal harboured secrets, long-held frustrations and suppressed desires – and to learn humbling and heartwarming lessons about how life should be lived when death is so close.

With all of Helga Flatland’s trademark insight, sharp yet warm wit and deep empathy, One Last Time examines the great dramas that can be found in ordinary lives, asks the questions that matter to us all – and ultimately celebrates the resilience of the human spirit. An enchantingly beautiful novel that urges us to treasure what we have and rethink how we live our lives, from one of Norway’s most distinguished literary novelists.”

It seems like only yesterday but almost two years ago to the day I read and loved Helga Flatland’s Modern Family so I was itching to get my hands on her latest. Then let’s get straight to the point here: One Last Time is an astoundingly good novel and Helga Flatland is a writer of tremendous talent. A touching and skilfully written literary examination of family relationships and the fragility of life, this really is a slab of the good stuff.

I recently read an old interview with Jonathan Franzen wherein he pointed out that he was initially “deeply ashamed, cripplingly ashamed” of having, in The Corrections, written a book about family – thinking nobody still cared enough about family. I mention this here for, in a way that brings that novel to mind, Helga Flatland has delivered a brilliant literary exploration of family and the relationships within that’s beyond ‘a novel about family’ – examining the psychological connections and baggage we carry, the dynamics between generations and how these shift in the face of upheaval and, of course, grief and how we cope in the face of approaching death, all within a gloriously packed 240 pages.

This is a wonderfully insightful, moving and engrossing novel and reading it is like reading a master of the written word at play.

Flatland has a narrative style to be savoured, it’s both warm and witty and, in its economy of words, quietly powerful and allows her to tackle heavy subject matter in a way that’s poetic and affecting, the ending moved me beyond words it was rendered so beautifully.

An absorbing and thoroughly rewarding novel, One Last Time deserves a place on as many bookshelves as possible. My thanks as always to Karen at Orenda for my copy and to Anne Cater for inviting me to review the novel as part of the blog tour.