Publication Date: Out now!!!
Formats: Hardback & Ebook
Price: Hb £22.90/ Ebook £6.00
Publisher: Quercus
I would like to say a huge thank you to Quercus for inviting me to take part on this wonderful, moving book’s tour, I would also like to say thank you for allowing me to read and review a physical copy. I would like to say a huge thank you to the creative talent, Linda Green, for creating such a heartbreaking, heartfelt tale of two families both different and yet the same but coming from different sides of a political divide which we have seen since brexit first came to our attention. And how two children from both families fall in love regardless of what their families think about that is it too late to heal the breach? Well let’s find out more from the blurb.
Two families divided by hate.
A love that will not die.
Sylvia and Donna travel on the same train to work each day but have never spoken. Their families are on different sides of the bitter brexit divide, although the tensions and arguments at home give them much in common.
What they don’t know is that their eldest children, Rachid and Jodie, are about to meet for the first time and fall in love. Aware that neither family will approve, the teenagers vow to keep their romance a secret.
But as Sylvie’s family feel increasingly unwelcome in England, a desire for a better life threatens Rachid and Jodie’s relationship. Can their love unite their families – or will it end in tragedy?
As soon as I read the first page I was hooked and spell bound. It’s not a gripper nor is it thriller, but it gently makes you aware of feelings and issues and surrounding tensions that can build up to heated arguments and differences which lead to many people more often than not being hurt, and usually it’s those who try to help or stop things from escalating that get tragically hurt. This does focus on a lot of issues such as the Brexit divide, especially in the North where communities are afraid of an increasing number (in their eyes) of “foreigners” and in this book one family is on the brexit side whilst the other family are starting to feel unwelcome in a place that used to feel home but now feels threatening.
Even though these two families have more in common than they think, the arguments of who goes where, and who’s having trouble at school, are offset by the the mothers who try to keep the family together and to try and keep the peace between neighbours. It’s only when one of their own start to feel romantically involved with each other that things start to heat up and tensions rise.
I loved Rachid and Jodie, and how their relationship is both sweet and young and full of hope, even though they both come from different backgrounds and views they don’t care about the differences because all they see and know is what makes them similar and also what they love about each other. I found it hard to see Jodie’s family and especially the younger brother fall into the hands of far right groups and the slippery slope that leads to and how the father doesn’t see it that way, though Jodie feels her mum should do more and is disappointed with her, she doesn’t see that all her mum is trying to do is what is best and that’s to keep the peace.
Rachid on the other hand seems to have it all a mother and father both working and distinguished in their careers and yet there are cracks beneath the surface and which the father and son constantly use words to injure each other and again the mother is trying to keep her family together. This shows the tensions in families and yet also the backdrop to what is going on and how it might play out.
I don’t want to spoil anymore of the story only that it’s just brilliant and moving and that ending had me in tears. This is one book that will never leave my mind and one that I think everyone should read.
Ratings: 5 🌟s with a large ☕️ and a large 🍰
Author’s Blurb:
Linda Green
is the bestselling author of ten novels, which have sold more than 1.4 million copies and been translated into 12 languages. Her latest novel, One Moment, was a Radio 2 Book Club pick and her previous novel, The Last Thing She Told Me, was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick. Linda has lived in West Yorkshire since 2001 but was born in North London in 1970 and brought up in Hertfordshire. She wrote her first novella, the Time Machine, aged nine, but unfortunately the pony-based time travel thriller genre never took off. Linda joined her local newspaper, the Enfield Gazette, as a trainee reporter at eighteen. During a ten year career in regional journalism, she worked as a reporter on the Birmingham Daily News, news editor on the Birmingham Metro News and Chief Feature Writer on the Coventry Evening Telegraph, winning Highly Commended in the Feature Writer of the Year category of the 1997 Press Gazette Regional Press Awards. By 1998 she left her staff job to write her first novel and work as a freelance journalist. She has written for The Guardian, The Independent on Sunday, The Times Educational Supplement, The Big Issue, Wanderlust and Community Care Magazine. After more than a hundred rejections from agents (and more rewrites than she cares to remember) she finally obtained a two-book deal with Headline Review in 2006.
Her first novel I Did a Bad Thing was published in paperback in October 2007 and made the top thirty official fiction bestsellers list. 10 Reasons Not to Fall in Love was published in paperback in March 2009 and reached no 22 in the official fiction bestseller charts. Both novels were also long-listed for the RNA Romantic Novel of the Year Award. They were followed by Things I Wish I’d Known, which was a top thirty paperback bestseller and And Then It Happened, which was a top forty bestseller in paperback and has sold more than 100,000 ebooks. After five years with Headline, she left to join Quercus in 2011. Her fifth novel The Mummyfesto, published in 2013, told the story of three women who set up a new political party and stand in the general election and was featured on Radio Four’s Woman’s Hour. Her sixth novel The Marriage Mender was published in August 2014. Linda’s first psychological thriller, While My Eyes Were Closed was published in ebook in January 2016 and paperback in May 2016 and has gone on to sell more than 450,000 copies across all editions. Her eighth novel, After I’ve Gone, has sold more than 100,000 copies. The Last Thing She Told Me was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick and has sold more than 175,000 copies. In a previous life she enjoyed travelling and has trekked after wild orang-utans in Borneo, been to the edge of the Arctic Circle to see polar bears and as far south as Tierra del Fuego to photograph penguins. She also has a keen interest in politics and has appeared on Newsnight, Radio 5 Live, Radio Four’s Woman’s Hour and BBC News. She particularly enjoyed taking former PM David Cameron to task on Leadership Question Time in 2015. Linda lives in West Yorkshire with her husband and son.
I hope you have enjoyed this journey into love in all forms and how fear and hate may cause people to lose their way, there is still hope that out of devastating loss, love and forgiveness can change how we think about others and that maybe we all are looking for someone to really see us. If you are wanting a copy, you can find this book in Waterstones, any independent store, and of course on Amazon. I will leave you now to say Happy Reading and see you soon!!!
Zoe's Book Nook 