Second honeymoon

Second Honeymoon is a novel by Joanna Trollope, an English novelist known for contemporary fiction about family life and relationships. It opens with Ben Boyd, aged twenty-two, leaving home. He is the youngest of three and the last to go. His father, Russell, a theatrical agent, hopes that with the children gone he can win his wife back after decades of family life.

His mother, Edie, an actress, is far less pleased. With her third and last child out of the house, her days turn suddenly and uncomfortably quiet, and she longs for the closeness with her children that now seems lost for good. She soon finds that getting what she wished for is not so simple.

Independent life is proving less glamorous than the children expected. Ben's brother, Matthew, is struggling in a relationship in which he earns less than his successful girlfriend. Their sister, Rosa, is in debt and has just come out of a turbulent love affair, and she is the first to think about moving back in with her parents until she can make ends meet again.

Before long the children are returning to the nest one by one, bringing their troubles with them. Edie, facing an unannounced new phase of parenthood, finds her home more crowded than ever.