How It All Began by Penelope Lively

A 70-something named Charlotte is mugged on a London street. It seems inconsequential to anyone except Charlotte. whose hip is injured. But it sets off a whole chain of seemingly unrelated events--marriages failing, fortunes being lost, new careers starting. We're all more connected than we realize. That is the premise of the very clever How It All Began by Penelope Lively. Charlotte has to recuperate at her daughter Rose's house. Rose works for Henry, a retired academic, who has a niece Marion, an interior designer who is having an affair with Jeremy, whose wife Stella is a little high strung. And on and on it goes with the characters' lives interweaving and their actions often unintentionally impacting each other.