A chance meeting in St. Jamess Park begins young Lorna and Matts intense relationship. Wholly in love, they leave London for a cottage in a rural Somerset village. Their intimate life togetherMatts woodcarving, Lornas self-discovery, their new baby, Mollyis shattered with the arrival of World War II. In 1960s London, Molly happens upon a forgotten newspapera seemingly small moment that leads to her first job and, eventually, a pregnancy by a wealthy man who wants to marry her but whom she does not love. Thirty years later, Ruth, who has always considered her existence a peculiar accident, questions her own marriage and begins a journey that takes her back to 1941and a redefinition of herself and of love.

Told in Livelys incomparable prose, Consequences is a powerful story of growth, death, and rebirth and a study of the previous centuryits major and minor events, its shaping of public consciousness, and its changing of lives.

The New York Times Book Review

" A bold, lovely book."

Los Angeles Times Book Review

" An often beautiful novel of astute observations."

San Francisco Chronicle

"One of the most accomplished writers of fiction of our day" (The Washington Post ) follows the lives and loves of three womenLorna, Molly, and Ruthfrom World War II &era London to the close of the century. Told in Lively's incomparable prose, this is a powerful story of growth, death, and renewal, as well as a penetrating look at how the major and minor events of the twentieth century changed lives. By chronicling the choices and consequences that comprise one family's history, Lively offers an intimate and profound reaffirmation of the force of connection between generations.