In splendid, poignant prose, Hadley portrays the many ways in which her characters deceive themselves, both in parent-child relationships and between lovers. The result is a lavish and surprising novel.
Publishers Weekly

«Free love is a seductive novel, easy to read and yet profound; Beneath its surface flutter the imperishable and perturbing questions of freedom and destiny.
Hilary Tablecloth

At the Fischers' house, everything is ready to receive a guest for dinner: the young Nicholas Knight, son of an old family friend. Until that hot night in 1967, neither Phyllis, an attractive forty-year-old housewife, nor her husband Roger, a diplomat in the Foreign Office, had stopped to question their life together, firmly established in an uneventful routine and full of amenities. However, after dinner, in the dark in the garden, Nicholas kisses Phyllis, and the foundations of that world of lavish and illusory happiness are shaken.

Attracted by this rebellious and bohemian-looking boy, Phyllis throws herself into a sentimental adventure that will revolutionize her life until she breaks everything, to the astonishment of her daughter Colette, just a teenager about to enter adulthood. The experience will call into question the way of life of the Fischers and will reveal what is hidden behind the facade of appearances.

Free love plunges us into that vibrant London of the late sixties in which countercultural movements coexisted with bourgeois values, and it does so with Phyllis, a woman willing to deal with uncertainty and accept the consequences of embracing freedom. . With the same elegance and subtlety that she already displayed in What Remains of Light, Tessa Hadley explores the psychological recesses of her characters, charges the everyday with meaning, and creates enveloping atmospheres in a novel that speaks of the uncontrollable shock wave of our lives. decisions.