The retired psychotherapist Cecilia and her novelist friend Helen are courageously battling cancer. The experience of undergoing a colostomy and living with a stoma binds them. Both are confronted with motherhood in the autumn of their lives: Cecilia, when her son Ian dumps a baby she had no idea existed on her doorstep, and Helen, when she receives a message from the daughter she’d given up for adoption in her twenties. They and their families discover that love has a way of finding you when you least expect it.

The same applies to Unexpected Lessons in Love. The book is that strange creature: a novel which is not exactly well written, clumsy and implausible at times, but one which has such irresistible charm that it is impossible not to love. Sadly, the author died of cancer around the time of publication.

Unexpected Lessons in Love
by Bernardine Bishop
John Murray, 2013

An edited version of this book mark appeared in the Cape Times on 5 December 2014.