Phyllis lives a conventional life in England in the 70’s. She is almost forty years old, and has a successful husband and two children. Her husband has invited the son of an old acquaintance to dinner, and in a very short time, Phyllis’s life is changed forever. She moves in with the twenty year old “dinner guest,” and renounces her old values and priorities as she takes on new ones.

At first I thought Free Love would be a typical and predictable love story. However, about a third of the way into the novel, there are several twists and turns that make Tessa Hadley’s work a worthwhile read.