I borrowed this book off of a communal shelf at Jane Austen's House -- and I didn't recognize the author, or expect much from it. It was one of those books, though, that proved to be a really absorbing read.
The protagonist is a 43 year old woman (as am I), and I'm aware of being drawn to stories who feature someone like me -- a trait of children's reading, really. Anyway, I read this fact on the blurb on the back of the book -- and that's what made me pick out the book.

In this case, the protagonist (Kate Flynn) is an unmarried woman, an academic, a sophisticated city person, an only child -- who finds herself coming to several dead ends in her life, while simultaneously being needed by her mother (who is alone and suffering from dementia). The setting is the childhood home: a crumbling, once grand, house in Cardiff.
The mother-daughter dynamic was interesting to me, as was the theme of dementia (which is having some impact in my life). The book really explored the tension of a daughter suddenly having to be the caretaker of her parent, while at the same time emotionally regressing in a variety of ways.
The book had quite a lot of emotional pull to it, particularly in the last third -- when something rather surprising (even shocking) happens.

Just as a bit of stylistic trivia, the author, rather strangely, used dashes instead of quotation marks. I found it distracting and confusing at times. I've never seen that in any novel before.