Sophisticated - Rated 
Another excellently written book from Joanna Trollope. As already said by a previous reviewer, this story is very much in the vein of her last two or three books. Second Honeymoon revolves around a couple whose three children have grown up and flown the nest; Russell is happy about this wanting to have his wife to himself again, but Edie is not. Just when Russell thought that the second honeymoon period of life was starting, all three children, and an additional lodger, move back home. The description of emotions is beautifully written but I felt it was lacking a strong storyline - hence four stars. It is certainly a lovely book and a sophisticated read but it is not gripping.
"It's not change that's so painful, it's getting used to it" - Rated
Writer Joanna Trollope always excels at portraying the difficult choices and the quiet domestic agendas facing her milieu, the British middle-classes. In Second Honeymoon, her penchant for skewing the needs, wants and desires of ordinary families is never more prevalent as she skillfully mines the issues and agendas of marriage at middle age.
It isn't easy for some couples to adjust when their children move on, just ask Edie Boyd whose life becomes a mess of confusion, longing and anxiety when the twenty-two-year-old Ben, the last of her three grown children eventually leaves home. He's only gone to Walthamstow, just a few train stops a way, but as far as Edie is concerned, it might as well be Mongolia.
Russell, Edie's husband is secretly relieved Ben has left, and he hopes he will finally be able to have some quality-married time with his wife. He thinks Edie is over-reacting to the situation and she should just find solace in her passion for acting. Edie, however, tells her sister Vivien she can't go from longing for Ben to be back to playing being just married all over again in a single seamless movement.
It isn't just Edie who is having problems adjusting. Her children are equally in distress: Matthew, the eldest, constantly worries about money, "even though it shouldn't matter that much," and his relationship with his yuppie girlfriend Ruth is strained over her decision to buy an expensive and glamorous flat near the Tate Modern which he can't afford.
Their daughter, Rosa has failed to find absorbing employment, botched in her efforts to sustain a romantic relationship, and also neglected to gain exactly the kind of control over her life that she had assumed to be an automatic part of growing up. And Ben, who in the process of leaving home, has ultimately discovered that living in a flat with his girlfriend's rigid mother isn't exactly what he had expected.
All of them are dealing with difficulties of one kind or another, rendering them tired and preoccupied. It comes to no surprise to Russell, that one-by-one, they beg to come home, intent to bring their emotional baggage with them. Adding to the mix is Lazlo, a stray twenty-something wafe who looks like "the boy in the fairy tale," and rescued is by Edie, "the genial giant," whom he meets whilst she is appearing as Mrs. Alving in a North London production of Ghosts.
Of course, returning home to their respective childhood nests doesn't exactly work out as expected. Times have changed - petty squabbles break out over rent money, there's a lack of hot water for showering, housework goes unattended, and because everyone is so busy now, shopping is neglected and there's never enough food for dinner.
Edie's is confused at having her children home again; it's so unlike the rapture she had anticipated. And for Ben the household has no coherence about it anymore, and instead of feeling like a unit, it feels like a collection of people living together without any real binding sense of unity.
The charm of the novel is author Joanna Trollope's astute portrayal of such a kind, loving and eccentric family as they navigate the unsteady waters of family loyalty, duty and domesticity. Russell, a left-wing actor's agent, has a sensible outlook on family life, whilst the neurotic Edie sees herself as a "jobbing actress up for anything as long as it will fit around the children."
Edie has spent her life trundling along trying to manage their rickety house and providing for her kids, yet also wishing for more. When Ben finally leaves, she tries to convince herself that she's ready face a new chapter, ready even to confront herself, and she imagines those times when the kids were small as timeless, certain they would never end.
Russell is the interested observer in the dilemma that Edie must face, she's spent her life being a martyr to the joys motherhood, with her children at the center of the debate, and he worries that she been changed by all those years of nurture, and that she won't "remember how it was to be just married, and how it was to want to be married."
Trollope manages to breath so much life into her characters, especially the unmoored Edie, a woman on the cusp of middle-age, reaching for one more bow in the spotlight of regional theatre; Russell is equally as fascinating, the stolid, dependent husband certain in his beliefs that when one leaves home one must not come back. "We married young because people did and we didn't have any money or furniture because people didn't but now they do and it's different."
The drama steadily unfolds as the kids muddle through their own personal and professional lives, forced to confront these shapeless days where most moral codes are an unsure matter of personal choice. Trollope is a sharp observer of human nature, and she manages to encapsulate all of her characters desires and insecurities, providing a portrait of a social class somewhat at a loss in the modern world, desperately searching for answers and support. Mike Leonard May 06.
Second Honeymoon - Rated 
Good old Joanna Trollope, another smashing read for a lazy weekend. This isn't any kind of startling departure from her previous novels, in fact it carries on some of the themes addressed in Girl from the South. The characters are very recognisable 21st century-UK inhabitants and she sympathetically portrays the dilemmas and tribulations of growing up and growing old in a materially wealthy but morally struggling society. There is a marvellous gentleness and tolerance in the marriage of Edie and Russell, and although a more cliffhanger plot would have made the novel more thrilling, I liked the sense of muted drama around the turbulence of the children and the rolling on of the story which comforted you with the knowledge that it was all 'just life' and that each generation would keep going with the threads of a decent, industrious life. Given how gritty and disturbing some of modern British culture can be, this book is very warming.
Ironic title for superb novel about 21st century life and pr - Rated
Joanna Trollope’s latest novel triumphantly deals with that period in life when the last child has left home and the parents are once again on their own, in the irony of the title, to enjoy a second honeymoon. In previous generations children married or formed partnerships and irrevocably left the family home and their parents, taking everything with them and severing dependence on their parents forever. However life is now so transient and uncertain, relationships come and go, jobs are no longer permanent, children need assistance with deposits on houses, the parent child relationships does not cease in the same way. And this is what the main character Edie Boyd and her husband discover when their last remaining son leaves home to live with his girl friend. Instead of a second honeymoon Edie revives her career as an actress, her husband Russell wants to renew their pre parent relationship and is frustrated, gradually their children drift back into their old rooms. One of the best characters in the book is Ruth, the partner of Edie’s son Matt. Ruth is a successful career woman earning twice as much as Matt, has ambitions for a flat only she can afford, with Matt struggling to come to grips with the changing and confusing role of men. Edie’s daughter Rosa is struggling with debt, is unfairly made redundant and struggles to re-establish her identity. She finds an affinity with Lazlo, an actor Edie is mothering in the play and has given a temporary home to. Then slowly everybody realises you cannot go back, that you have to move forward in life, and Trollope brings the book to an end in a totally believable way. An absolute must for all Trollope fans and as good a starting point for new readers as any of her other superb novels.
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