SOURCE: Yardley, Jonathan. Review of Next of Kin, by Joanna Trollope. Washington Post Book World 31, no. 28 (15 July 2001): 2.

In the following review, Yardley commends Trollope for her examination of change, loss, transformation, renewal, and growth in Next of Kin.

In this, as in her nine previous novels, Joanna Trollope finds large themes in unassuming surroundings and explores them with wit, feeling and originality. Next of Kin centers on a farming family, the Merediths, in England's Midlands. As it opens, one family member has just died, a victim of cancer; midway through a second dies, in more surprising and dramatic circumstances. From these sad events Trollope has fashioned a tale of loss, grief, transformation, renewal and growth, one in which there is much that is affirmative, but none of which is easily achieved.

Trollope writes about families, as do many of the best contemporary British writers. In this she stands...