Tag: HF Reading Challenge

Book Review – Love Lane by Patrick Gale

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About the Book

When veteran Canadian wheat farmer, Harry Cane is obliged to sell up and sail home to an England transformed by two world wars, his arrival triggers unwelcome self-examination for the family he abandoned, and for whom he has never been more than a distant myth.

His daughter feels duty bound to take him in but is riven with doubt and ambushed by a long buried anger she has never before expressed. Harry’s effect on the next generation is less predictable, and enables his granddaughter to deal with an unspeakable trauma, while her gentle husband feels seen for who he truly is.

Can Harry stay and make a new life before it’s too late, or will he find himself cast out again, punished for having witnessed and understood too much?

Format: Hardcover (304 pages) Publisher: Tinder Press
Publication date: 26th March 2026 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

A Place Called Winter has stayed with me despite the fact I read it nearly ten years ago now. Love Lane is described as not so much a sequel to A Place Called Winter as ‘an adjacent novel’, able to be enjoyed by readers who have not read the earlier book. I also think you could still enjoy A Place Called Winter even after reading Love Lane because it will fill in gaps in Harry’s early life only briefly mentioned in this book.

Love Lane picks up Harry’s story several decades on from A Place Called Winter. His life in Canada has not turned out how he – and I suspect many readers – might have wanted. The passion that once fuelled a relationship has flickered and died. Yet the nature of that relationship has left him vulnerable and as a result he has no option but to sell his farm for much less than it is worth. The arrival of a letter from England from his daughter Phyllis (known as Betty) offers an opportunity to reconnect with the family he left behind all those years ago.

Rather than describe events solely through Harry’s eyes, the story unfolds from the perspective of four members of his family: Betty, his son-in-law Terry, his grand-daughter Pip and her husband Mike. This works briiliantly because it enables us to see the things that other characters don’t, the things they choose to – or have to – hide. The latter is particularly the case for Terry whose role as Prison Governor means he has to witness things no one would willingly choose to see but the details of which he cannot share with anyone.

Although not always centre stage, Harry is a constant presence. Indeed a key element of the book is how his family react to his arrival, to this person who’s connected to them by blood or marriage but at the same time is a stranger, not to mention a person quite different from what they had expected. This is especially the case for Betty. Harry’s quiet contribution is his way of sensing others’ troubles and seeing beyond the face they present to others. After all, he know what it is to keep secrets, to have to hide parts of yourself from the outside world.

The author writes with real compassion for his characters, revealing to us their hopes and fears, their doubts and disappointments, and the difficult choices that confront all of us from time to time, including the things we must relinquish for those we love. Some of these are heartbreaking. For me there is a fine line between poignancy and sentimentality but the author manages to navigate this perfectly. There is emotion but it’s there for a purpose because it originates from genuine human feelings.

The book captures the peripatectic nature of working for the Prison Service, moving from one Governor’s residence to another with the burden of organising a new household every time falling on Betty. I also loved the social history aspect of the book, brought home through little details such as Betty’s recommended food for teething babies or Pip being expected to account for each item of daily household expenditure.

A talented musician as well as an author, in an interview for The Cusp magazine Patrick revealed that while writing A Place Called Winter he listened to a lot of Shostakovich’s String Quartets whereas Love Lane was written to the accompaniment of Sibelius, perhaps because of its sense of ‘haunting introspection’. He reflects, “Love Lane is an adagio. It’s not slow, but it has a sort of thread of sadness running through it.” I think that analogy is spot on. So sit back and enjoy the beautiful melody that is Love Lane.

In three words: Tender, insightful, poignant
Try something similar: A Thousand Moons by Sebastian Barry

About the Author

Patrick Gale was born on the Isle of Wight. He spent his infancy at Wandsworth Prison, which his father governed, then grew up in Winchester before going to Oxford University. He now lives on a farm near Land’s End.

One of this country’s best-loved novelists, his most recent works are the Costa-shortlisted A Place Called Winter and the Sunday Times top ten bestseller, Take Nothing With You and Mother’s Boy. His original BBC television drama, Man in an Orange Shirt, won an International Emmy Award for Best Movie/Miniseries.

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Book Review – The River Days of Rosie Crow by Rebecca Stonehill @StairwellBooks

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About the Book

Two women’s lives interweave in the wilds of rural Norfolk, separated by almost two hundred years but bound by their inability to conform to society’s expectations and love of storytelling.

Rosie Crow is spirited, illiterate and deeply connected to the land. She believes the river communicates with her, but rural poverty and superstition set her up as scapegoat for her village’s discontent. What Rosie cannot know is the impact her life will have on a grief-stricken woman many years later…

Format: Paperback (256 pages) Publisher: Stairwell Books
Publication date: 30th March 2026 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

I really enjoyed the author’s previous novel The Secret Life of Alfred Nightingale (read my review here) so I was delighted when Rebecca got in touch to let me know about her latest novel.

I often struggle with dual timeline historical novels finding I much prefer the one set in the past to that set in the present day; the latter even sometimes feeling like an add-on. No such fears here because I thought the ratio between the two was perfectly judged with Rosie’s story, set in the 1820s, taking up the majority of the book and the connections between the two storylines feeling meaningful and unforced.

Rosie and her father live in poverty, her father scraping a living from weaving cloth on a hand loom. It’s backbreaking work and a dying trade due to increasing mechanisation. Rosie can scarcely remember her mother who died when she was young. Instead it was Old Clara, a woman skilled in herbal remedies, who brought Rosie up and who understands her unique connection with the natural world, in particular the River Mermaid. It’s where Rosie spends much of her time, listening to the stories the river tells her that in turn inspire her own stories. But this, along with her stature and striking features, mark her out as different. And Old Clara knows what it’s like to be viewed with suspicion because you don’t conform. As she explains to Rosie, ‘Folks are scared of different. People that en’t the same as them.’ Rural life is becoming harder as a result of the enclosure of common land by farmers. No wonder that people look to find scapegoats for their woes giving rise to a shocking event that will mark Rosie for the rest of her life.

Not everyone views Rosie with suspicion or fear. In Caleb, a young blacksmith, Rosie finds a steadfast and loyal friend. He’s someone with whom she can share her stories and who accepts her for who she is. I found their relationship moving but also heartbreaking.

Equally moving is the companionship that develops between Rose and her best friend’s great uncle George, a still sprightly eighty-six-year-old who, we discover, has experienced his own share of personal tragedy. George gently encourages Rose to unpack the trauma of a relationship breakdown that has left her feeling rootless and with a low sense of self-worth.

Stories and storytelling are themes that permeate the book. There’s a wonderful scene in which Rosie is given a glimpse of the power of books to enthrall. It fuels her own passion for reading. And what a revelation it is to discover there is such a thing as an ‘authoress’, legitimising in a way her own compulsion to create and share stories.

The book has many delightful touches such as each chapter heading being the name of a wildflower, reflecting their use in one of Old Clara’s herbal remedies or evoking a memory of a life event. And there are many clever elements to the progression of the two storylines. For example, Rosie’s story moves from rural Norfolk to the hustle and bustle of London whilst Rose’s moves in the exact opposite direction. The companionship of animals becomes important to both women – Rosie with her cat Jup and Rose with George’s dog Max. For Rosie writing stories is a compulsion but it’s only the idea of telling her story that reawakens Rose’s interest in writing. Oh, and there’s a brilliant literary ‘Easter egg’ towards the end of the book.

The River Days of Rosie Crow is an enchanting novel about storytelling and the healing properties of the natural world.

I received a proof copy courtesy of Stairwell Books.

In three words: Engaging, poignant, compelling

About the Author

As a little girl, Rebecca avidly subscribed to the Puffin Club magazine. She once decided to enter a competition in which children were asked to write a story about a zany family. She didn’t have to think too hard about it; she penned a thinly veiled fictional tale about her own family and won. The following year she read Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh and from that moment on, knew she had to be a writer. She hung out of trees, hid beneath beds and in dark, musty cupboards spying on family and friends and scribbling notes about them all.

Fast forward twenty years and that burning desire to be an author was but a distant dream. But then something happened which was to change her life: she had a terrible skiing accident, shattering her left heel bone to smithereens. Finding herself in a wheelchair, she was told she may never walk again and in the face of that terrifying prospect, poured all her energies into that long-forgotten dream. She started to write her first novel and found she couldn’t stop. So she didn’t.

Rebecca is out of her wheelchair and has had three novels published, a non fiction books as well as many short stories, poems and non-fiction articles. Her next book, The River Days of Rosie Crow, will be published by Stairwell Books in March 2026. She lives in Norfolk with her husband and three teenage children where she runs creative writing workshops for kids and young people, reads like a woman possessed, swims in rivers (whatever the season), works in the family allotment, seeks out stunning spots to go walking, struggles in the mornings, plays the piano, cooks up a storm in the kitchen and practises yoga and meditation. She can’t do any balancing poses on her left foot, but reckons that’s a small price to pay for being reunited with her greatest love of writing. (Photo/bio: Author website)

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