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Book Review – Sanctuary by Tom Gaisford

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About the Book

What possesses someone to claim asylum in his own country?

Alex Donovan is a young refugee lawyer in crisis.

Helping desperate clients reach safety is what gives his job meaning. But he now finds himself demoted, signed off sick for stress, and facing redeployment to the firm’s subterranean billing department.

Then there is Amy, the woman he adores. The irresistible junior barrister seems to be drifting away from him.

With little to lose and all to prove, Alex dreams up a madcap plan to restore his honour and secure Amy’s affection.

Format: ebook (331 pages) Publisher: Cinto Press
Publication date: 24th April 2025 Genre: Thriller

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My Review

A human rights lawyer adopting a fake identity to claim asylum in his own country in order to expose flaws and abuses in the system is a neat premise for a book. Confined to a detention centre waiting for his claim to be considered, Alex experiences firsthand what it is like to be an asylum seeker. There’s a lot of fun to be had from his spirited attempts to maintain the identity he’s adopted, although always at the back of your mind is that, at this very moment, there are real people going through this process and for them it’s no fun at all. In fact it could be a matter of life and death.

During the days he spends in the detention centre, Alex discovers some distinctly unsavoury things are going on. His sense of justice means he cannot ignore what he has found and he embarks on a risky mission to expose the truth. It’s also the sort of thing he imagines might impress Amy, a junior barrister he has fallen head over heels in love with despite the fact she’s already in a relationship.

At the beginning of this review I described the plot as ‘a neat premise for a book’, and so it is but perhaps not quite in the way you were expecting. Suddenly the book takes a whole different turn making you reflect on what you’ve just read. It’s a clever sleight of hand although I was a bit disappointed as the earlier section had been so enthralling. However, Alex isn’t done yet with exposing abuses in the immigration and asylum system. More subtle in nature, they’re no less momentous for the people caught up in them.

Alex is a loveable character, quick-witted and passionate about helping people navigate the asylum system even if that means risking his own career. I couldn’t help hoping his adoration for Amy, seemingly doomed from the start, would be rewarded in the end.

Many of Alex’s experiences are clearly informed by the author’s own time as a barrister working in human rights, asylum and immigration law. Although I’m certain the system is not perfect, I’d like to think not every High Court judge is corrupt and the Home Office is not completely an ‘impenetrable cesspit of an institution’ except in the realm of fiction. Having said that Sanctuary is a clever way to make you think about the issue, not only because we need to be reminded from time to time not to look the other way but also because one day we all might need someone like Alex on our side.

I received a digital review copy courtesy of the author.

In three words: Lively, thought-provoking, ingenious

About the Author

Tom Gaisford is a barrister with over ten years’ experience working in human rights, asylum and immigration law, and a freelance contributor to The Independent, The Tablet and openDemocracy. Prior to law, he did a master’s degree in Human Rights and spent a year at Salamanca University, where he studied Spanish literature and translation.

In 2021, Tom stopped practising law and moved with his young family to Guernsey, where he has since completed his first novel, Sanctuary, and begun work on his second. Tom relishes the creative freedom of fiction writing, which he sees as a means of entertaining, of connecting people, and as an alternative form of advocacy. (Photo: Instagram profile/Bio: Goodreads author page)

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Book Review – Words for Patty Jo by Jill Arlene Culiner

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About the Book

A passion for books creates a lasting bond between teenage Patty Jo and David, but small-town prejudice and social differences doom their romance.

After a summer of reading and falling in love, David heads for university, foreign adventure, and a dazzling career; Patty Jo marries slick, over-confident Don Ried.

Yet plans can go horribly wrong. The victim of her violent husband, Patty Jo abandons her home and children to live on the streets of Toronto. David, a high-ranking executive in Paris, is dismayed by the superficiality of corporate success.

Forty years later, Patty Jo and David meet again. Both have defied society; both have fulfilled their dreams. And what if first love was the right one after all, and destiny has the last word?

Format: ebook (260 pages) Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Publication date: 16th March 2026 Genre: Historical fiction

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My Review

Although having the story arc of a romance, Words for Patty Jo is much darker than I was expecting.

The summer love affair between David and Patty Jo has to be conducted in secrecy. David’s family wouldn’t approve of Patty Jo, the girl from the wrong side of town, and Patty Jo won’t – or can’t – disclose to David the cruel reality of her home life. Their life experiences are poles apart. This is illustrated in an excruciating scene in which Patty Jo is invited to dinner at David’s house and is completely out of her depth, patronised by his awful mother and leered at by his father.

I have to say I wasn’t entirely convinced the feelings David and Patty Jo had for each other were so all-consuming that they would have lasted a lifetime had events not intervened. David’s attraction to Patty Jo seemed quite superficial and I got the sense that for Patty Jo it was a dream rather than something rooted in reality. Although David attempts to keep the relationship going once he leaves for university, his letters remain unanswered. Sadly he cannot comprehend, as we do, the reasons for this.

With David gone, Patty Jo’s lack of self-worth leads to her marry salesman Don Ried. It’s a decision that will haunt her because, cruelly, his charming persona is just a facade. I found the descriptions of the violence inflicted on Patty Jo by Don, especially those of a sexual nature, very difficult to read although I appreciate the author was determined not to underplay the reality of abusive relationships. Heartbreakingly, when Patty Jo approaches others for help, she is rebuffed, dismissed or even blamed for not being a good enough wife, as if she has brought the violence on herself.

She takes the only option available to her but it means facing opprobrium, living on the edges of society and having to degrade herself to get through each day. The only thing that keeps her going is an ambition she’s harboured since childhood. It turns out the ability to reinvent yourself, something she has in spades, will be the key that unlocks the door.

You might be thinking at this point, what’s happening with David? The truth is I found myself way more invested in Patty Jo’s story than David’s, a testament to the author’s ability to create such a compelling character as Patty Jo. The trauma of her experiences seemed much more significant than David’s disillusionment with his highflying corporate lifestyle and succession of failed relationships. I admired him for following his heart and his conscience but it didn’t move me in the same way.

Beginning in the summer of 1967 and ending decades later, Words for Patty Jo is the moving story of two people navigating the vicissitudes of life and trying to find where they truly belong.

I received a digital review copy courtesy of the author.

In three words: Gritty, unflinching, emotional

About the Author

Writer, social critical artist, and impenitent teller of tall tales, Jill Arlene Culiner was born in New York and raised in Toronto. She has crossed much of Europe on foot, has lived in a mud house on the Hungarian Plain, in a Bavarian castle, a Turkish cave, a haunted house on the English moors, and beside a Dutch canal. She now resides in a 400-year-old former inn in a French village of no interest where, much to local dismay, she protects spiders, snakes, and weeds.

Observing people everywhere, she eavesdrops on all conversations and delights in any nasty, funny, ridiculous, sad, romantic, or boastful story. And when she can’t uncover salacious gossip, she makes it up.

She has won the Tanenbaum Non-Fiction Prize in Canadian Jewish History, the 2024 Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Memoir, was shortlisted for the Foreward Magazine Prize, and twice for the Page Turner Awards. (Photo: Author website)

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