I have long been an admirer of Edward St. Aubyn and was delighted to receive his latest novel. It begins beautifully, with conservationist Francis, a naturalist, surveying the land in the Howorth Estate, where he has been responsible for giving it over to 'wilding.' As Francis wanders through nature, he awaits Oliva, who he recently met at a conference in Oxford. Their unfolding love affair coincides with the arrival of Olivia's friend, Lucy, who has returning to London to take up a new post, but hardly arrives when she discovers she is ill.

This novel sees the coinciding of the many personal relationships - and there are many - with many more, wide-ranging, topics. As well as physical illness, St. Aubyn explores mental health, business, science, research and tech. While the personal relationships include friendship, love, adoptive, parental, that of employers to employees (Lucy's new employer, Hunter, was one of my favourite characters) and the wider exploration of scientific solutions to the worlds problems.

These topics are quite dispersed and that may be one of the reasons why I have given four, rather than five, stars. This could have been tighter, I felt, and also suffers a little because of recent events which have changed our world-view so much. Still, the author showed that awareness of the importance of research and business and, as always, he writes with humour and presents characters the reader cares about. St. Aubyn's prose never disappoints and he writes beautifully and creates a really immersive, literary world. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

After Edward St Aubyn's earlier books, which I have greatly enjoyed, I found this one disappointing. The story seemed like a bare framework on which to hang a handful of characters to provide mouthpieces for the author's attempt to produce a big novel of ideas.

It is stuffed full of science: in places I felt I was being lectured at and I wasn't entirely convinced of the credibility of the lecturer, which sent me off looking things up, which is not what I want to do when reading a novel. (I think Richard Powers does science much more convincingly.)

I don't think St Aubyn is good at getting inside the heads of women: his female characters are often stereotypes. And the Shakespeare allusions were heavy-handed and became obtrusive.

In places the writing was very vivid and he is good at snappy dialogue. The conversations between Olivia and Lucy, the two main female characters, were often entertaining - the sort of daft riffs that close friends indulge in - but St Aubyn didn't need to point that out to the reader. And the conversation between the cartoonish Cardinal and Father Guido was very funny, although it felt like a minor scene from Shakespeare.

St Aubyn is also very good at writing about the effects of hallucinogenic drugs and schizophrenia. At least, I think he is, because I haven't experienced either. I do, however, live with a brain tumour and there is nothing convincing about Lucy's experience.

As for the ending, it felt as if he suddenly ran out of steam. I didn't expect a tidy conclusion - there is no way to achieve that effectively with big themes - but this reminded me of the last episode of the first season of a TV drama, leaving cliffhangers to be resolved in a subsequent season. But I didn't care what happened to any of the characters, which, for me, is the test of a good novel.

Other readers may enjoy the big themes but this reader didn't.

Thanks to Netgalley and Vintage for the ARC.