Separate Lives is billed as a romance but it is definitely not. It could be better categorized as soap opera – the dull, predictable, bland kind of soap opera of the past. While the distinct British flavor of writing is at first reminiscent of Mary Stewart or Daphne Du Maurier, this story rapidly proves itself to be of a much inferior quality. Stilted, unemotional narrative combined with poor plotting and flat, unsympathetic characters make this book plodding and totally forgettable.

The cover blurb leads the reader to believe this is the story of Mervyn Corwen, an artist who teaches at a private girls’ school, and Moira, one of his students to whom he is drawn, and it does indeed start out that way. The year following Moira’s graduation, the pair renews their acquaintance, and eventually a relationship of sorts develops. Mervyn and Moira come from completely different backgrounds; there is over a decade’s difference in age between them, and it is clear to almost everyone that they are completely unsuited to one another. Despite this, circumstances lead to an engagement, and eventually they marry.

Mervyn has a small art studio and villa on a Greek island where he has spent every vacation since he was a small child. His dream is to live there full-time and sell his paintings to tourists, and after the wedding he and Moira make the move. Moira immediately hates everything about the island and begins plotting to force Mervyn to move back to England. Against Mervyn’s wishes she gets pregnant, and they decide that it will be best for her to move home with her parents until the baby is born, after which Mervyn will join her in England.

While Moira is away Mervyn enters into an affair with a beautiful, sophisticated, rich Italian contessa with a tragic past. Then Mervyn receives an urgent communication that all is not right with Moira, and he rushes back to England to arrive at the hospital. But it’s too late – Moira is dead, and Mervyn is now the sole parent of an infant daughter. We are less than halfway into the story.

The rest of the book follows Mervyn, the contessa, Mervyn’s cousin Athena, and their various children, among others. There is a mysterious villain from the contessa’s past, people being killed off in ridiculous ways, and a lot of years passing before there is finally a happily-ever-after ending for two characters. Which two? I won’t say.

The problems with this book are legion. Let’s start with the characters. Mervyn has understandable relationship problems that derive from his lack of any kind of normal family life as a child. He is also totally passive, spineless, and two-faced. He has a strange kind of dual ethics that forces him to marry a woman he doesn’t love to keep from inconveniencing her parents and yet allows him to enjoy a mistress while his pregnant wife is away. He’s not a particularly admirable character, although the reader can come to pity him. Moira is portrayed in an almost totally unsympathetic light as a selfish, spoiled, stupid, manipulative, and completely immature female. The contessa is among the more sympathetic characters, but she still remains something of a "tragic" stereotype, who also matches Mervyn in having the morals of an alley cat. There are multitudes of other characters who share the limelight from time to time, but almost all of them are flat and silly, and it is difficult – if not impossible – to relate to any of them.

Then there are issues of plot and setting. The plot twists are at once predictable and highly unlikely. The characters’ reactions to events are boring and uninspiring, and since it is difficult even to care what happens to any of them, there is little to keep the reader going past the first few chapters. The introduction of a villain is contrived and his vendetta is ridiculous, spanning generations. There is no historical detail to pinpoint when in time this story takes place, although the reader eventually finds references to telephones, automobiles, TV, and airplanes. There are two worlds depicted: that of the mundane, middle-class English, contrasted with that of the sophisticated, super-wealthy jet set, both of which have as much depth and realism as a cardboard stage set. The style of writing is heavily omniscient in point of view, successfully distancing the reader from the action. This further contributes to the lack of emotion.

If a reader can forge far enough into the story, there is a strange kind of fascination that can motivate her to find out whether anything can be redeemed in this sordid tale, though not enough to make it worth the hardback price, in this reviewer’s opinion.