This one was another for book club, and I have to say that when I finished it I shut the book with a snap and said “That’s it?!”

Here be spoilers.

This is the story of Mary Boulton, the young widow who killed her husband. That we know from the outset, as Adamson tells us this as we are introduced to the fleeing Mary. Or, as Adamson constantly refers to her, “The Widow”. As if the two frightening brothers-in-law aren’t enough to remind us of her past, this moniker is necessary as well. Don’t forget, dear reader, that Mary killed her husband.

Why does Mary kill her husband? I’m not sure if Adamson intended that to be a mystery, but if so, it was a wholly unsatisfying one. And if it wasn’t meant to be a mystery, and Mary’s reasoning behind her act was meant to be obvious and sympathetic, well, Adamson doesn’t succeed with that either. Finally if it’s meant to be an illustration of her madness, perhaps he shouldn’t have told us she was half-mad on the first page.

Really, I suspect Mary killed her husband so that the author would have something to keep her running.

And run she does. For several hundred pages of drawn out, boring description. The Outlander can be seen as both Mary’s story and the story of those who come to assist her on her journey, and frankly I cared more for her angels than for the widow herself. There just wasn’t a whole lot there.

Not in terms of characterisation, anyway. In terms of mind-blowingly detailed (boring) description, well, there was more than sufficient amounts of that. In fact, I wouldn’t say I read this book so much as I skimmed it for actual plot.

I almost dropped it halfway, but was spurred on by the question of those two scary brothers-in-law who are relentless in their pursuit of Mary. Do they ever find her? That was what kept me going until the rather predictable end.

This has been a tough week.

Last Monday, June 1st, I was at work at 8:30 working on an urgent request. I had just come in, saw it in my email and headed straight to my boss’ office without noticing one of my team members, Lucie, wasn’t in yet. She would normally be in by this time. When I got back to my office my voice mail indicator was flashing with a message from a colleague.

This woman worked downstairs, used to work with Lucie, and was in fact her cousin. She was calling to let me know that Lucie had been in a car accident. She sounded strangely calm, and I thought it was a fender bender. Maybe a bad one, but my mind never went to the worst possibility.

Until I called her back and she was sobbing. “April, they’re saying she’s dead.”

I didn’t believe it. It had been so third hand, from Lucie’s daughter, to her mother, to her cousin, to me. They must be mistaken.

They were not, unfortunately. The car accident was brutal, sudden and fatal. Today was the memorial service.

Lucie worked for me for a mere three months, but in that time she had such an impact. She was so organized, so easy to talk to, I didn’t have to give too much direction, she knew what she was doing.

I remember one of my last conversations with her. I was letting her know that I understood it must seem like a lot of menial tasks, because I often asked her to draft emails that needed to be sent out to our network across the country. I told her that while it wasn’t glamourous there would probably be more coming her way. Not because she couldn’t do more, but because she was an excellent writer, in both french and english.

“Really?” she asked me. She seemed disbelieving.

“Absolutely. You write extremely well and it’s been a huge help.”

I wish I had said more. I wish I hadn’t been stressed out the last day I saw her. But I find comfort in knowing I had least had the chance to say that one little thing. One compliment, one acknowledgment of her strengths.

Not to be trite, but we should all do that more often.

Repose en paix, Lucie.