The Christening

Denise Neuhaus

It's always hard to judge the quality of a book when you've gobbled it up during a plane journey. I read The Christening crossing the Atlantic last month and it passed the time nicely enough but it's nothing special. Or maybe it's just a chick's book. A girl friend sent it to me and the cover says a "tale of three women caught up in the dramatic events leading to the collapse of the USSR". Actually there are distinctly more than three female leads and the cast list is extensive enough to require a family tree at the start of the book. The men, on the other hand, are mostly two dimensional.

It's the story of a young unmarried Estonian girl, Piret, who gives up her daughter for adoption back in the 1970s. Piret's daughter will be brought up by her cousin, Helena, armed not only with a solid husband but a Swedish passport. You can do the maths. The secrecy surrounding the adoption will unravel at around as the USSR disintegrates. And it's not an unsatisfying read but perhaps it's just not my kind of book.