Here is your guide to the cast of What Alice Forgot: a contemporary suburban family drama shaped by memory loss, marital strain, and the fragile ties between sisters. As Alice wakes to a vanished decade, every relationship is re-tested—marriages, friendships, and the bonds of parenthood—revealing who these characters were, who they became, and who they might be again.
Main Characters
Alice Love
Alice Love is the novel’s anchor: a woman who wakes after a fall believing she’s 29, only to learn she’s 39, a mother of three, and divorcing the husband she remembers adoring. Her amnesia creates a collision between her warm, hopeful younger self and the hyper-competent, judgment-prone “supermum” she became, forcing her to reassess the choices and habits that hardened over a decade. As she relearns her life, she confronts the grief of losing her best friend Gina, the distance from her sister, and the shock of meeting her own children as strangers. Through this rediscovery, Alice becomes a gentler blend of past and present—someone capable of repairing her marriage with Nick, mending her bond with Elisabeth, and mothering Madison, Tom, and Olivia with fresh empathy.
Nick Love
Nick Love is Alice’s estranged husband, a man transformed from tender newlywed to brittle, exhausted co-parent by career pressures, unresolved resentments, and a decade of misfires. The amnesia destabilizes his anger: confronted with the earlier version of Alice he once cherished, he is forced to revisit their origin story and the incremental slights that eroded it. Intensely devoted to his kids yet embittered by custody battles, Nick must choose between staying fortified behind old grievances or risking vulnerability to try again. His evolving openness mirrors Alice’s, and together they reclaim a more mature, steady version of the love that first bound them.
Elisabeth
Elisabeth is Alice’s older sister and fierce on-and-off protector, whose journaled therapy “homework” offers a candid counterpoint to Alice’s lost decade. Years of infertility treatments and miscarriages have left her wry, brittle, and withdrawn, straining a sisterhood once marked by effortless intimacy. Watching Alice forget their rift tempts Elisabeth toward tenderness—yet she must grieve honestly before she can forgive. Her eventual pregnancy and the birth of her daughter, Francesca, soften her edges and re-knit the sisters’ bond, proving that joy can coexist with long-held sorrow.
Supporting Characters
Frannie
Frannie is the honorary grandmother who helped raise Alice and Elisabeth after their father died, steadying the family with practical love and quiet wisdom. Her letters to her late fiancé, Phil, trace a lifetime of devotion and delayed happiness, mirroring the novel’s meditation on memory and second chances. In the present, she opens herself to new companionship with Xavier, modeling resilience and late-in-life joy.
Gina Boyle
Gina Boyle is the dazzling best friend from Alice’s thirties—energetic, loyal, and influential enough to catalyze Alice’s transformation into a sleek, hyper-organized “supermum.” Her accidental death a year before the novel begins is a hidden fault line in Alice’s life, and remembering Gina is essential to understanding who Alice became. Their intense friendship brought vitality and focus, but it also may have intensified the marital drift between Alice and Nick.
Dominick Gordon
Dominick Gordon is the kind, slightly awkward school principal who is dating Alice when the story opens, offering stability without the volatility of her marriage to Nick. A gentle father to his son, Jasper, he stands as a thoughtful alternative future for Alice. Ultimately, their amicable breakup underscores that Dominick is a good man—but not Alice’s person.
Madison Love
Madison Love is Alice and Nick’s eldest child—the once-imagined “Sultana,” now a sharp, sensitive ten-year-old whose anger masks fear and hurt. She channels her intensity into cooking and dramatic flair, testing boundaries to gauge her parents’ solidity. As Alice and Nick find calmer ground, Madison’s defenses lower, revealing the affectionate kid beneath the storm.
Tom Love
Tom Love is the literal-minded, fact-obsessed middle child who acts as the household’s accidental truth serum. His dry, unfiltered observations cut through adult posturing, and his loyalty to both parents makes him an early barometer of détente. Tom’s steadiness becomes a quiet balm during the family’s most fractious moments.
Olivia Love
Olivia Love is the affectionate youngest child whose open-hearted need for togetherness spotlights what the family risks losing. Prone to theatrical sweetness, she softens scenes of conflict and keeps the hope of reconciliation visible. Her simple wish—that Mum and Dad be okay—becomes the story’s emotional refrain.
Minor Characters
- Barb Jones: Alice and Elisabeth’s mother, who remade herself from grieving widow into a vivacious, salsa-dancing partner to Roger; her late-in-life joy echoes the book’s theme of reinvention.
- Roger Love: Nick’s pompous yet devoted father and Barb’s husband; his remarriage helps form the unusual Jones–Love family lattice.
- Ben: Elisabeth’s large, gentle husband, a neon sign designer whose steadiness frays under the strain of infertility and his own complicated history as an adoptee.
- Jane Turner: Alice’s coolly strategic divorce lawyer, embodying the procedural, adversarial side of marital breakdown.
- Kate Harper: A competitive school “Class Mum” and frenemy whose gossip and posturing exemplify suburban social pressure.
- Francesca Rose: Elisabeth and Ben’s daughter, whose birth marks the thaw of Elisabeth’s long-held grief.
- Xavier: Frannie’s new companion, a sign that love and companionship can be reclaimed at any age.
- Jasper: Dominick’s son, an unobtrusive presence who highlights Dominick’s steadiness as a parent.
- Phil: Frannie’s deceased fiancé, the recipient of her letters and a touchstone for the novel’s reflections on enduring love.
Character Relationships & Dynamics
The Jones–Love family forms an intricate, blended web. Barb’s marriage to Roger connects the sisters’ childhood home to Nick’s family, creating an unusual in-law lattice that complicates holidays, loyalties, and conflicts but ultimately expands the circle of care. Frannie sits at the family’s emotional center, modeling grace under grief and offering continuity as generational tides shift.
At the story’s heart is the evolving triad of Alice, Nick, and Elisabeth. Alice and Nick’s marriage moves from infatuation to attrition and then toward hard-won humility, with custody skirmishes and mutual bruising giving way to cautious partnership. Elisabeth’s protective, skeptical stance toward Nick, sharpened by her own bitterness and pain, eases as she witnesses Alice and Nick’s genuine attempts to reconnect; in turn, Alice’s renewed softness helps Elisabeth risk hope again.
Friendship exerts its own gravitational pull. Gina represents a powerful allegiance that shaped Alice’s identity during the “lost decade”—energizing her, yes, but also narrowing her attention in ways that intensified marital strain. In contrast, Dominick offers a low-drama, respectful bond that clarifies rather than clouds Alice’s heart; choosing between these paths crystallizes what kind of life Alice truly wants.
The children mirror the state of the marriage. Madison’s volatile defiance, Tom’s anxious exactitude, and Olivia’s plaintive warmth each register the temperature of the household, spiking during conflict and calming as their parents begin to communicate. Around them, school-gate politics—figures like Kate—apply ambient pressure, while professionals like Jane Turner harden disputes into legal positions that Alice and Nick must learn to move beyond. In the end, this network of bonds—romantic, familial, and communal—reshapes itself as each character chooses tenderness over pride.