The accidental : a novel
(Book)

Amber--thirtysomething and barefoot--shows up at the door of the Norfolk cottage that the Smarts are renting for the summer. She talks her way in. She tells nothing but lies. She stays for dinner. Eve Smart, the author of a best-selling series of biographical reconstructions, thinks Amber is a student with whom her husband, Michael, is sleeping. Michael, an English professor, knows only that her car broke down. Daughter Astrid, age twelve, thinks sheś her motherś friend. Son Magnus, age seventeen, thinks sheś an angel. As Amber insinuates herself into the family, the questions of who she is and how sheś come to be there drop away. Instead, dazzled by her seeming exoticism, the Smarts begin to examine the accidents of their lives through the searing lens of Amberś perceptions. When Eve finally banishes her from the cottage, Amber disappears from their sight, but not--they discover when they return home to London--from their profoundly altered lives.

Whitbread Novel Award, 2005 ; Man Booker Prize for Fiction, 2005 finalist.