The Unfinished Business of Eadie Browne by Freya North is a heartwarming story about growing up. It is told through happy and sad times with humour.
It is a story of friendship, love and dealing with the past to move forward – something many will relate to.
30-year-old Eadie and her husband are returning to Eadie’s hometown for a funeral. It is a four-hour journey. As Eadie says to herself, “Four hours stuck together in a van on such a big day, so much we should talk about and yet we’ll probably say little.”
On the journey, Eadie uses the silence to reflect on her life.
Her parents were a little unusual and her childhood home was right next to Parkwin Garden City’s multi-faith cemetery. The cemetery became her playground where she found peace, growing up around the living and the dead and taking inspiration from quotes on the headstones.
She reflects on her school years when she was bullied and her two best friends who stuck up for her. Why do friends drift apart when they leave home for university?
The freedom of leaving home, the things you can get up to during your university days, and did she always make the best decisions? Finally, she ponders on her marriage.
An event has sent Eadie back in time to her painful childhood memories and now she has a plan to take care of unfinished business.
What we don’t know, and this is the mystery that keeps you engrossed is……whose funeral are they attending, who is Eadie’s husband and what is the unfinished business?
We get to know Eadie Browne from a 7-year-old, her teenage and young adult years through to the present time. Eadie is a wonderful character, quirky, full of life, and vibrant. In times of joy and times of despair we share her every emotion. Eadie is someone you would love to be friends with.
Eadie’s parents, her two best friends and her husband are all great supporting characters.
The writing style is easy to read. So much living is packed into her journey – I loved every minute of it, especially the twist!
5 stars, a brilliant read.
A selection of our Beauty and Lace Club members are reading The Unfinished Business of Eadie Browne by Freya North. You can read their comments below or add your own review.
I love to read, any book on any topic. I now love ebooks as they are easier to store, I was running out of bookshelves! My other interests are family, gardening and our beautiful King Charles spaniel dog who is my reading companion.
Eadie Brown. What a character. The story “Unfinished Business of Eadie Brown” follows Eadie from childhood and into adulthood, jumping back and forward in time as the story meanders around her current life and memories of her childhood that shaped who she is and how she finds her direction in life.
Growing up next to a cemetery, Eadie found friendship with those who had passed and by reading the inscriptions on their tombstones, created lives around the dead.
Eadie’s friendships with Josh and Celeste, meeting Kip and reacquainting with those in her childhood, left lasting impressions on Eadie and what she chose to carry with her into adulthood.
A beautiful story with humour, sadness and love in all its forms, Freya North created a story that will be enjoyed by many.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read this book. Freya North always writes a good book, in my opinion, and this one is no different.
The story follows Eadie from her childhood living next door to a cemetery where she spends a lot of time. She doesn’t have a lot of friends and is bullied at school. Two other students stick up for her but as they grow older, they lose touch.
We then see Eadie with her husband, driving back to her home for a funeral. The marriage is not a good one but they’re hoping to spend time together and make things better.
The final surprise was a bit of a shock but fits in well.
This was kind of an extended coming-of-age story, about Eadie Browne. Unlike some coming-of-age stories when people deal with stuff as they leave their teens, Eadie’s thirty before she finally finds the courage to reflect over her life and deal with her ‘unfinished business’.
As the book begins she’s in a car with her husband (not named), and going somewhere important. We don’t find out about where or what or who this is all about until a while later in the book – and also by then I was wondering, well, who *is* her husband, as there were a few possibilities.
In between the car trip we see young Eadie as a little girl, from around the age of seven, living with her slightly eccentric but gentle parents in a house that backs onto a cemetery. So the cemetery becomes her playground, somewhere she visits regularly and makes ‘friends’ with the ‘residents’ therein. Also the groundskeeper (who teaches her to smoke a pipe), and the piper who occasionally plays at funerals.
At school she has only two special friends, Josh and Celeste, but they truly are special. And then there is her nemesis, the young bully Patrick, who makes her life a misery.
It’s lovely to read how Eadie, Josh and Celeste stay close until they all leave school and go their separate ways. Eadie goes to university at Manchester, which opens up a whole other life for her with new friends and, eventually, a new love she meets in a very unexpected way (but oh, so right for Eadie).
But there is a lot about her childhood that Eadie hasn’t dealt with, unfinished business that comes to a head towards the end of the book. And the nature of it will move you and surprise you, as do the people who have loved Eadie. So tender.
I haven’t read a Freya North book before, although I’ve often considered it. It just seems like she writes the sort of book I want to read. Highly recommended.
Thanks to Beauty&Lace and Wellbeck Publishing Company for the review copy. What a delightful read.
Thankyou Beautyandlace and of course the author Freya North for the opportunity to read such a great book.
Eadie, born in 1970 is the daughter of parents that work nights and spend all day at their desks!
They live in Yew Lane, Parkwin, next door is the cemetery where Eadie spends most of her time helping the caretaker Michael, and talking to the people who inhabit the graves.
She is mercilissly bullied by a boy called Patrick Semple but has two friends Josh (who is jewish) and Celeste (whose mother is French) who she confides in about the bullying.
The friends are inseparable and continue their friendship until they go to their universities. Each to a different one.
The characters in the book are so interesting and apart from Patrick lovely people.
This was such an enjoyable read, really relatable, cleverly written and one that will keep you wanting to read it quickly to find out what happens!
The Unfinished Business of Eadie Browne by Freya North is a delightful coming of age story told by Eadie herself. We follow Eadie from age seven through her school and university days and into her early years of marriage. Throughout the book Eadie is searching for a purpose – more specifically her purpose in life. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, it is events from her past that ultimately help find her peace, calm and her purpose in life. Although there is twist that will surprise!
With well written, relatable characters and an easy to follow storyline that slowly reveals what Eadie’s unfinished business is, this is a very enjoyable read. Filled with friendship, love, life, death, laughter and tears this is a book that will stay with you long after you have finished reading.
Thank you Beauty and Lace, Wellbeck Publishing and Freya North for the opportunity to read
and review this delightful book.
Thank you so much letting me read The Unfinished Business Of Eadie Browne by Freya North.
I thoroughly enjoyed the novel. Eadie is a quirky, unique and lovable character. She is so proud of where she loves and an added bonus for her is that they live beside a cemetery and she is not scared, in fact she actually makes friends with them. She also has a friend in the cemetery caretaker, Michael.
She gets bullied but makes friends with two kind people who unfortunately also get bullied.
The book started when Eadie is just a child but follows her life through to college, marriage and beyond. I love how it jumps in and out of her childhood as you can see what has shaped her.
I found every character lovely for different reasons but each one added their own important piece to the novel.
I absolutely loved The Unfinished Business Of Eadie Browne and highly recommend to anyone looking for a book you can just sink straight into.
Thank you again.
Thanks to Beauty and Lace and Welbeck Publishing Group for my copy to read and review.
Eadie Browne lives next to the cemetery in a small town. She loves talking to the dead as she is bullied at school.
This book follows Eadie as she grows from the little girl to college to marriage. Eadie is a quirky character who you can’t help but love. She has a heart of gold. Her two best friends from childhood play a big part in this book too.
Her childhood bully eventually comes back into her life which causes much mayhem for her. It shows her strength in handling this situation as only Eadie can.
I recommend this book as it is easy to get lost in. Not complicated and easy to follow.
What a great book. So easy to read and once you start, you just have to know the end. The ending is not what i thought it was going to be but it was good. Eadie had me captivated though her younger years to where she is now having to relive her life back in her home town. It had funny moments, sad moments and overall just a great read.
Freya North is such a wonderful writer and never fails to deliver more with every book I have read so far.
This is a real in- depth analysis of the character Eadie as she finds herself having to navigate through life from the past to the present. This is such a unique story of resilience, bravery and emotion which will hold your attention till the end.
Thankful I got a chance to read this wonderful book!