Brilliant exploration of women moving uneasily into middle age

Anna Hope: her first contemporary novel explores three women’s fear of running out of options

FICTION: Expectation, By Anna Hope, Doubleday, €16.45

As anyone over the age of 40 knows, there comes a time in most people’s lives when we find ourselves looking at the world we’ve created for ourselves and asking, ‘Is that all there is?’ Anna Hope’s devastatingly tender new novel Expectation traces the lives of three women: Cate, Hannah and Lissa. Cate and Hannah are childhood friends, while Lissa and Hannah became friends thanks to ...