The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell

A powerful, mesmerizing story about the dangers of being an independent women in England in the thirties. Esme and her older sister Kitty lived their childhood days in colonial India. They return to Scotland when it comes time to get a bit of education and, more importantly, a husband of the right kind. Kitty is ready to play the role but Esme finds the entire game playing foolish. But none of that is the darker part of their destructive story. Sixty years later Iris, a young independent woman herself, receives a message that she is the only living relative of Esme, who is about to be released after 60 years in a mental institution. Secrets are unravelled in a tale told backward and forward in time - part of it in the Alzheimer's ramblings of Kitty. I couldn't put it down.