The Labyrinth Year

The Labyrinth Year takes place mainly in Oxford, UK, and follows on from Baby, Baby (first in the Mullins Family Saga series), though it can be read as a stand alone novel. Jenny Guthrie Mullins spends a year in self-discovery, feeling her career as a mother-in-science challenged by husband Max (now a GP), whose demanding fundamentalist birth family require loyalties she’s not been raised with. Meanwhile her artist step-sister Daisy (Daze) turns up to stir the mix and hunt for her biological mother. It all looks like a hopeless maze: can it actually become a purposeful labyrinth? Mari Howard continues to use a snappy, economic style, and weave themes of today’s cultural dilemmas and diversity, medical science, marriage, relationships, secular and faith beliefs, and the way we can twist them. She introduces the reader to the Mullinses' children, Alice and Zoe, while managing to avoid an over-cute portraiture of pre-schoolers or any sentimental piety at a Retreat Centre. Brief descriptive details reveal that she conjures these portraits from her familiar world. The action, when moving from the writer’s home environment of Oxford, including its canal, Port Meadow, and the Perch Inn, takes us to Northumberland, West Cornwall, and a trip to Yosemite where Jenny has to take the place of her boss, and speak at a conference. ‘Once again Mari is prepared to tackle complex subjects with clarity , sensitivity and courage,’ Bridget Plass, author of just re-printed ‘The Apple of his Eye’, who with husband Adrian runs retreats known for their honesty, thoughtfulness, and wit.