An extended Reading the Bestsellers review of a 2025 novel by Emma Knight
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Viking, 2025. 384 pages. $20 (ebook $15, audio $20)
The opening of this novel depicts a poignant moment of a mother caressing her newborn daughter. At one point she lowers her baby onto her side beside a plush octopus, sent as a gift. The mother muses on the women who preceded them and the future trajectory of their lives. She reminisces about an earlier phase in life – her emergence into adulthood – and the rest of the novel tells that story.
It’s 2006, the year Penelope “Pen” Elliot Winters moves away from Toronto with her childhood friend Alice. The two embark on an adventure to study at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
Friend Alice wants to study acting and embrace all the liberties afforded in the life of academia. On the other hand Pen is pursuing studies in English and French and desires to become a journalist.
There is a sense of mystery at the onset. Pen is also on a personal quest to dig into her parents’ past. Her father Ted Winters studied at this university and befriended a man who would become his close friend and a famous mystery writer, Lord Elliot Lennox. Pen’s own middle name is Elliot, after all.
Why did that friendship end? Pen’s father has been resistant and silent when she has asked. Pen suspects the estrangement is somehow linked to the sad, painful divorce of her parents. She feels there is a secret to uncover and understand.
In Scotland she writes to Lennox under the guise of her own professional pursuits, hoping he will meet with her.
This debut novel by a Toronto author and entrepreneur starts strong on many levels.
The author convincingly captures Pen and Alice’s campus life, and their deep-rooted friendship. Their life as first-year students is an exciting set of new experiences – adding to their social circle, facing the deadlines, stress and homesickness, as well as college drinking, risky sexual behaviour and even some violence.
Pen’s visit to the Lennox estate is fun, heartwarming and delightful.
The author portrays strong female characters. It is a story about women, their choices, friendships and loves.
Pen is relatable – studious, skeptical and curious. She recalls going to church with her grandmother, believing in something, having God questions and acquiring a lifelong respect for the power of hymns. She acknowledges suffering and not having to go far to find it.
Pen’s mother Anna struggles with depression, attempting to have a relationship with her daughter, and building her own life piece by piece.
Christina Lennox, the wife of the famous writer, lovingly supports her family while participating in her community and giving back to it.
Margot, sister of the famous writer, chooses her career and independence while being a mother on her terms.
The prose is exquisite and lyrical, with captivating descriptions of the estate and the architectural beauty of the university. Edinburgh is vividly presented.
At times the plot has too many twists and turns to keep straight. Besides the plush toy at the beginning and a question between Margot and Pen at the London Aquarium, this is not a story about an eight-armed creature.
In the end, the author leaves readers to draw their own conclusions on the complexities of womanhood and similarities of a mother and a tentacled creature.
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