legislation or labour availability impinge on management decisions and actions. I found the arguments concerning gender less convincing because, for me, the question remained open of whether the issue of gender had emerged from the data or whether a gendered stance had been taken by the author. Consequently, I was unsure whether the identification of dominant male narratives related to evidence for them in the case study data or their persistence in the existing family business literature. In summary, I found this book accessible, engaging and thoughtprovoking. I think a variety of readers will find the work of value. Research students will benefit from the reflective account of experience in the field. More experienced researchers will be prompted to consider potential avenues for further projects. The issue of inheritance, for example, is not raised overtly until the last few pages of the book, and yet one can imagine that it must be an influencing factor in the personal narratives of at least some of the participants. Those interested in the topic of family business will benefit from the rich accounts of life in the case study firms grounded in the narrative perspective. Narrative-oriented scholars will enjoy engaging with the author’s own narrative account of her project, especially if they reflect on their own role as narratee in interpreting the material