Off Balance

by Mary Sheepshanks

Book Overview

To all appearances, Isobel and Giles Grant have it all: happily married, with two adored children, and a glorious house in Scotland, they are about to fulfil a lifetime's dream by launching the Glendrochatt Arts Centre. The perfect life, it would seem. But beneath the surface, there are cracks which threaten to destabilize everything they've worked for. While their daughter Amy is bright and talented, her twin Edward is different -- nobody knows quite...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312980426
• ISBN13: 9780312980429
• Release Date: August 2002
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 340 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Off Balance

Typical story man loves woman in comes in another woman to steal the man but with so many other dynamics that make the book truely enjoyable.

Thoughtful and sensitive

I absolutely love this book. It is beautifully, even elegantly, written (except for a few phonetic errors such as "poured" instead of "pored"). The scene is vividly and appealingly set, and the characters finely drawn. Quite simply, I want to live in the world of Isobel and Giles and those around them. I want Isobel's spirit, her equanamity, her capacity for loving, her energy, her dog, and her household help. This is very much a testament to Ms Sheepshanks' evocative writing skills. I did not want the book to end.What truly sets this book apart, however, are the twins, Edward and Amy. It is rare to find such wonderfully handled ten-year-olds. Amy is brilliant, loyal, challenging, and musical, and clearly feels all the pressure to succeed that the gifted sibling of a disabled person is bound to experience. The portrayal of Edward is perhaps the most sensitive and understanding portrait of a handicapped child I have ever encountered. There is no attempt to sentimentalize him nor to get inside his mind, something no one would be capable of doing. But he is so beautifully depicted that he becomes real in a way rare in any writing.I am desperate for another novel by Mary Sheepshanks. I love all four of her books, and I REALLY want to find out what happens when Lorna drops her bombshell on Giles and Isobel. I do not hope for a sequel (although I would love one): another skill mastered by Ms Sheepshanks is her ability to tell her readers what has become of the characters in her earlier books even while she is writing about different people. For example, one learns about Flavia, the heroine of Facing the Music, in Off Balance, in which she is a relatively minor character.Please, Ms Sheepshanks, keep writing your fabulous novels!

Love it Love it Love it

"Off Balance" did take a few pages for me to get into it. But after that I loved it I still love it. Mary Sheepshanks did a wonerful job with this book. I had so many feelings for the wonderful characters that I really thought they were real people. I felt like it was happening in my life. The end made me so happy with relief. The epilogue stunned me! I almost fell out of my chair. I cant wait for the next. Please let there be a next.

Brilliant

With this novel, Mary Sheepshanks has stretched her talents to a different level. No longer is she merely a chronicler of a certain genre of British country life...although all of her books thus far have been enjoyable, insightful, funny and delightful."Off Balance" is all those things as well--but it also explores a subject of serious intensity: can a family whose catalyst is a handicapped, possibly autistic child survive an intrustion that upsets its very center?Giles and Isobel Grant, a loving and devoted couple, belong to Scotland's upper-crust country community that Sheepshanks describes so well. They have two preadolescent twin children: Amy, precocious, musical (she and her father are both enrolled in a rigorous Suzuki violin class), outgoing and loveable--and Edward, an enigmatic, sickly little boy who marches to his own drummer, and whose heartbreaking handicap is described in an unblinking and yet totally sympathetic manner by the author.Despite Edward's illness, which necesarily dictates the family's daily routine, life at the country estate is a happy one, full of the eccentric and sometimes outrageously funny characters that populate all of Sheepshanks' novels. Case in point: Lord Dunbarnock, who has not cut his hair or beard in several decades, and who, clad always in proper tartan gear, carries antibacterial handwipes in his sporran (the Lord has a dreadful fear of germs, due to an overzealous nanny in his youth). Then there are Mick and Joss, two New Zealand giants who act as handymen/babysitters/cooks for the Grants...and whose relationship with each other is, well...loving. And, Flavia the flautist, heroine of Sheepshanks' "Facing the Music," returns, much more likeable in this book, as she has settled into motherhood, marriage, and the resumption of her brilliant musical career.Enter Lorna, Isobel's beautiful, bitchy and self-centered older sister, who has divorced her South African husband and who begs shelter with the Grants until she can get her life together. The fact that this rehabilitation includes a plan to steal away Isobel's husband, with whom Lorna had a brief affair before Isobel was in the picture, is lost on nobody except Giles.Lorna's entrance on the scene upsets the balance in the Grant household almost immediately, starting with her cruel treatment of Edward, whom she insists on regarding as a spoiled brat; and her aggressive foray into Isobel's daily life. Isobel, whose happy-go-lucky personality has always been her strong suit, is trying to hold on to her own balance, already knocked severely askew by Edward's unending physical and emotional problems. Amy and Edward, with the clear insight that children so often have, loathe their aunt, and she is regarded with strong distrust by Mick and Joss as well.As if this were not enough, a sexy young male artist, Daniel, arrives at the estate to paint the backdrops for the property's theater, a pet Grant project. Although Daniel's arrival has been planned and anticipa

ood drama

In Scotland, anyone who lives near the Glendrochatt estate believes that Giles and Isobel Grant are the perfect couple, lovingly raising two children together. However, the idyllic relationship between Giles and Isobel becomes disrupted when her sister Lorna returns from South Africa to spend time with them. Lorna was once Giles' lover and has jealously decided she wants everything her sibling has, starting with her spouse. Lorna is willing to pay any price to obtain everything she desires even if that means destroying her sister, niece, and nephew in the process. Giles and Isobel's preadolescent twin children, Amy and Edward, can sense the tension between their parents and the cause, their visiting relative. They especially resent the intrusion of their aunt on their once happy home. Also adding to the confusing of adult interplay is the machinations of artist Daniel Hoffman who wants Isobel as his. OFF BALANCE is an entertaining complex relationship drama that works because of the hexagonal interplay among the six key players. At times, the two children with their actions and reactions to the adult muddles steal the show. Although Lorna appears as a cartoonish villain, readers will feel pity and compassion for her efforts that, in turn, allows the audience an opportunity to glimpse into the lives of some wealthy Scots.Harriet Klausner