The Unfinished Business of Eadie Browne by Freya North

Having spectacularly failed to read and review The Unfinished Business of Eadie Browne by Freya North in time for the hardback release in February, I am delighted to share my review today well ahead of the paperback release. My enormous thanks to Emma Dowson at edpr for sending me a signed copy of The Unfinished Business of Eadie Browne all those months ago.

I cannot believe it’s nine years since I reviewed Freya’s The Turning Point and The Way Back Home when I very first began blogging. You’ll find those reviews here.

The Unfinished Business of Eadie Browne is available now in other formats and will be released in paperback on 12th September 2024. Published by Welbeck it is available for purchase through the links here.

The Unfinished Business of Eadie Browne

When your present meets your past, what do you take with you – and what do you leave behind?

Eadie Browne is a quirky kid living in a small town where nothing much happens. Bullied at school, she muddles her way through the teenage years with best friends Celeste and Josh until University takes them their separate ways.

Arriving in Manchester as a student in the late 1980s, Eadie experiences a novel freedom and it’s intoxicating. As the city embraces the dizzying euphoria of Rave counterculture, Eadie is swept along, ignoring danger and reality. Until, one night, her past comes hurtling at her with consequences she could never have imagined.

Now, as the new millennium approaches, Eadie is thirty with a marriage in tatters, travelling back to the town of her birth for a funeral she can’t quite comprehend. As she journeys from the North to the South, from the present to the past, Eadie contemplates all that was then and all that is now – and the loose ends that must be tied before her future can unfold.

My Review of The Unfinished Business of Eadie Browne

Eadie is growing up.

The Unfinished Business of Eadie Browne is just wonderful. It’s an absolute love song to who we are as humans, to our frailties, our hopes, our fears and our dreams. I loved it.

In essence, the plot is relatively gentle as the story travels through Eadie’s childhood memories whilst she’s on a journey with her husband in 1999. I loved the gradual unfurling of why Eadie is making that journey and how her past life has led her to this point. It adds a little mystery that is engaging and interesting. 

What is so utterly beautiful and moving about how Freya North writes is the way she manages to depict with absolute perfection the different stages of Eadie’s life. Eadie’s home might be somewhat unconventional, but her early childhood and teenage school years are absolutely those anyone can recognise. As a result it feels as if we’re reading about a much loved and missed friend from our own past. I thought the exploration of her marriage was emotionally exquisite. The depth of love, and the ease with which life can intervene and make us neglect those we care for most, is conveyed by Freya North with tenderness and reality. 

Eadie is intricately drawn. Her self-delusion, the selfishness and uncertainty of her youth, her gradual maturity and the realisation of what constitutes friendship, belonging and home, all combine into a character whose vivid personality leaps from the page. And through Eadie and her reactions we come to know and understand her parents Terry and Jill and her other friends. Each one feels true to life.

But this is a tale about more than just Eadie, marvellous as she is. It’s a warm, sensitive and totally absorbing example of life. The Patricks and Rosses of the world can be found in any location and through reading about them we learn humanity and compassion, even as we are entertained. Freya North weaves the strands that bind the characters together with themes of trust, family, education, friendship, crime, poverty and society in such a rich tapestry that it feels as if the people and events in The Unfinished Business of Eadie Browne could happen in any school, town, nightclub or university. And it isn’t just the imaginative aspects of the book that are so convincing. Also woven in are historical and geographical strands, from music to national and international events, that add reality, depth and authenticity.

I’ve long loved Freya North’s writing and it has been far too long since I read her. The Unfinished Business of Eadie Browne has proven just what I’ve been missing. I thought this narrative was utterly brilliant. It has earned a place on my list of books of the year because it is a book about Eadie Browne, but also one about you and me. Eadie might be looking for her place in the world but she helped me find my place too. Don’t miss this one.

About Freya North

For more information, visit Freya’s website, follow her on Twitter/X @freya_north and find Freya on Instagram and Facebook.