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Title: Dot

Author: Araminta Hall

Narrator: Claire Morgan

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 1 min

Language: English

Release date: 05-23-13

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

The remarkable new novel from the best-selling author of Everything and Nothing, which weaves together three generations of women, intercutting their stories to create a warm and heartbreaking tale.

In a higgledy-piggledy house with turrets and tunnels towering over the sleepy Welsh village of Druith, two girls play hide and seek. They dont see its grandeur or the secrets locked behind doors they cannot open. They see lots of brilliant places to hide. Squeezed under her mothers bed, pulse racing with the thrill of a new hiding place, Dot sees something else: a long-forgotten photograph of a man, his hair blowing in the breeze. Dot stares so long at the photograph the image begins to disintegrate before her eyes, and as the image fades it is replaced with one thought: I think its definitely him.

Dot is the story of one little girl and how her one small action changes the lives of those around her forever.

Critic Reviews:

"Araminta Hall is an exceptionally talented writer A thoroughly enjoyable read." (Carol Birch, author of Jamrachs Menagerie)

Praise for Everything and Nothing: "An assured debut I suspect that this will be the first of what promises to be a new genre: the nanny chiller." (Daisy Goodwin, Sunday Times)

"Chilling and suspenseful." (The Sun, Best of 2011 book picks)

"An unsettling, menacing read." (Grazia, 2011 Reading List selection)

Members Reviews:

Interesting read, but not an author I'm going to re-visit,

Dot is a book about family and friendship and growing up with the absence of her father. Only itâs more than an absence; itâs a void and an emptiness that Dot feels, as her mother and grandmother never acknowledge or explain it. As Dot grows older, itâs the proverbial elephant in the room - for Dot anyway as her mother, Alice has little inclination to understand her daughter and how she feels.

Our viewpoint flips from chapter to chapter. Dot describes her friendship with Mavis from an early age to the cusp of adulthood. Her longing to know more about her father, but her unwillingness to tackle her mother or grandmother about him.

We follow Alice. We travel back in time and see how Aliceâs mother scorns her dreams and imposes her will on Aliceâs future. Alice meets Tony and falls pregnant and plots a life away from the strange environment her own mother Clarice has created for them. Tony with a separation from his own family and âissuesâ sides with Clarice and thwarts her escape. Until on Dotâs second birthday, deeply unhappy and in love with Silver the local barmaid who heâs been carrying on with, he deserts his family â departing to buy more birthday balloons but never returning. With no contact or explanation from Tony, Alice becomes more withdrawn, functioning but with most of the joy sucked from her life.

We see how Clarice, her mother perceives her daughter and granddaughter. We share in her mannerisms and formalities and peculiarities. Still deeply affected by the long ago death of her brother, the suicide of her mother and the perceived abandonment by her husband who was drowned at sea. These events (and possibly her breeding and a generational-thing) have shaped her and given rise to an environment in which emotion and love and affection is rarely displayed.

Mavis, Dotâs friend has her own family foibles. Sandra her mother is an obsessive, compulsive cleaner.