The signature style of a Binchy novel is a large cast of often eccentric characters.

Because she chooses to tell the stories of her focal characters one at a time in this novel, readers are given detailed glimpses into their backgrounds and personalities.

Binchy sculpts them with fine features.

Even the more minor characters, however, are painted in a trompe l'oeil style that gives them a three-dimensional quality. Neither Nell Dunne nor her daughter Brigid is a focal character; yet Binchy places them in a scene that reveals much about the state of their souls and underscores the apathy of the household: Mrs. Dunne had her paperback folded back on itself, as she so often had. She gave the impression of someone waiting in an airport rather than being in the center of her own home.

Brigid as usual was eating nothing officially but pulling little bits off...