Never a Cloud

By: Jo Brunini

Narrated by: Molly Secours

Never a Cloud is a big old-fashioned, contemporary, social novel narrated by Violet Grey, an eccentric, out-of-the-ordinary loner, living on the coast of Maine. The deeply emotional love story of a complicated family in an enchanted place. A winter gathering at Margot Reid’s family home, Otyrburn, but this year is different, her oldest friend Owen and she will restore the walled garden. The party is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of the mysterious Ava Kerouac, Violet’s daughter and Margot’s half-sister—whom Margot has never met.

Violet’s voice—contemplative, melancholy, and occasionally sardonic—introduces each chapter, as the novel skips between Scotland, New York City, and Venice, and Margot’s husband, George Lowell, a director at the Metropolitan Museum is embroiled in an art world scandal. Within a web of secret loyalties and undeclared truths, three women redefine success on their own terms, and figure out who they really want to be.

©2022 Jo Brunini (P)2025 Jo Brunini

Critic reviews

"The novel often feels like the film Gosford Park populated by readers of the London Review of Books . . . They discuss art, meaning, creativity, and ethics as they make decisions about infidelity, relationships, and careers. Small decisions lead to surprising results as the book's concluding chapters follow up with the group years and decades later . . . Brunini's prose is often evocative . . ."-Kirkus Reviews

"Heartfelt, entertaining, and hauntingly beautiful . . . a must-read novel."-Pacific Book Review (starred review)