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Somewhere Else
Rosa Roshkin is five years old when her family are murdered in a pogrom and she is forced to leave behind everything she knows with only a suitcase of clothes and her father’s violin.
Somewhere Else is an epic generational novel about womanhood and Judaeo-Scottish experience across two World Wars, the creation of Israel and the fall of the Berlin Wall. A novel which explores today’s most difficult and urgent questions, not least of which: how to find identity in displacement.
Somewhere Else is an epic generational novel about womanhood and Judaeo-Scottish experience across two World Wars, the creation of Israel and the fall of the Berlin Wall. A novel which explores today’s most difficult and urgent questions, not least of which: how to find identity in displacement.
360 pages, Paperback
First published September 6, 2024
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894 people want to read
About the author
Jenni Daiches
10 books7 followersJenni Daiches is the name under which literary historian Jenni Calder writes novels and poetry.
She was born in the USA, educated in the US and England, and has lived and worked in Scotland since 1971. She worked at the National Museum of Scotland in various capacities from 1978 to 2001. Both before and since she has worked as a freelance writer and lecturer.
She was born in the USA, educated in the US and England, and has lived and worked in Scotland since 1971. She worked at the National Museum of Scotland in various capacities from 1978 to 2001. Both before and since she has worked as a freelance writer and lecturer.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
March 22, 2025
A 3.5 methinks. A slow, gently paced novel about the way that displacement, trauma, and war, but also love, community, and connection can reverberate across generations. The back end felt rushed but also simultaneously too long, and so lost some gravity for me. Not perfect, but pleasant to listen to, and a well produced audiobook
March 4, 2025
Longlisted for the 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction
Longlisted for the 2025 Republic of Consciousness Prize, UK & Ireland, for small presses
Her mother plays the violin. Sometimes she plays music that sounds a little like the Scottish reels and jigs she has heard. But it is not the same, and when she is in the street and the notes of the violin drift out through an open window, she wishes her mother would play something else.
Somewhere Else by Jenni Daiches is published by Scotland Street Press, a small, independent publisher of fiction, history, poetry, biography and translation based in Edinburgh. But our size and our independence give us the freedom to champion stories we believe need to be told and voices that need to be heard.
The novel opens in a shtetl in Poland (although part of the Russian Empire) in June 1906, two days after the Białystok pogrom:
Lakhne, 1906
Rosa Roshkin is woken by hoofbeats. It is not the muffled thud of Yakov’s old horse and the creak of the farm cart. She knows what it is. She lies with her eyes wide and waits for the shouts and the screams that follow the horses. When they come, she gets up and goes to the window. She has been forbidden to go to the window, but that is what she does.
Rosa, soon to turn five, is taken first to relatives in Vilna, and then in 1908, via London to be adopted by a childless couple in Edinburgh, both of Jewish origin although only her new mother is religious.
The novel then presents a sweeping panorama of Rosa's life and that of her extended family (including 4 further generations) over the next 90+ years.
The novel ends in 2001, on her 100th birthday, and Rosa herself is still living in the same house at 19 Morningfield Crescent where she was taken in 1908, but her family, and the narration, roam the globe including Mull in Scotland, Civil War Spain, North Africa during Rommel's campaign, the aftermath of the Belsen-Belsen camp, New York, Nova Scotia, Dublin, Kenya and Palestine and the nascent state of Israel.
Rosa herself becomes in turn Rosa Roshkin (her birth family), Rosa Solomon (her adopted family), Rosa Mackintosh (from the son of the Scottish family at 17 Morningfield Crescent) and Rosa Kransinski (a Polish army captain she meets in Edinburgh and later marries).
And this is her daughter Esther who had children with two men - a Palestinian she met in Palestine, their lives separated by the UN partition of the country, and a boatman from the north of Scotland:
Do you remember when Callum took us to the Bass Rock and we weren’t able to land?’ Esther asks Yossi.
He nods. ‘That’s where it all began,’ she continues. ‘Two very different seas.’
Yossi and Sarah do not understand at first.
Esther smiles. ‘Your fathers. The Sea of Galilee and the North Sea. Listening to the cicadas in the warm dark and quiet water of Tiberias and the howl of the east wind and the screaming gulls of North Berwick. Two very different men.’
World affairs form a backdrop to the novel, sometimes impinging on the lives of the characters directly (such as those lost in both World Wars) and at other times just distant echoes of past trauma (Oscar her 2nd husband):
In the summer of 1953 demonstrators in Poland protest against Stalin’s grip on their country. Many are killed, but after the death of Josef Djugashvili, the man who became Stalin, and after Nikita Khrushchev’s succession Soviet tanks are withdrawn from Poland, some reforms follow. For a while Oskar talks of making a visit to Kraków.
My rating for this reflects my personal taste - epic generational historical-fiction isn't my preferred genre - but this is well executed and gives a fascinating insight into the Judaeo-Scottish community from which the author herself draws her origins and inspiration.
The judges' citation
“A family saga which manages to be both intimate and epic, this novel travels seamlessly across countries, cultures and characters. It is beautifully structured and deeply moving, gradually revealing how trauma is met by resilience across the decades.”
The publisher
Scotland Street Press is a small, independent publisher of fiction, history, poetry, biography and translation based in Edinburgh. But our size and our independence give us the freedom to champion stories we believe need to be told and voices that need to be heard.
Longlisted for the 2025 Republic of Consciousness Prize, UK & Ireland, for small presses
Her mother plays the violin. Sometimes she plays music that sounds a little like the Scottish reels and jigs she has heard. But it is not the same, and when she is in the street and the notes of the violin drift out through an open window, she wishes her mother would play something else.
Somewhere Else by Jenni Daiches is published by Scotland Street Press, a small, independent publisher of fiction, history, poetry, biography and translation based in Edinburgh. But our size and our independence give us the freedom to champion stories we believe need to be told and voices that need to be heard.
The novel opens in a shtetl in Poland (although part of the Russian Empire) in June 1906, two days after the Białystok pogrom:
Lakhne, 1906
Rosa Roshkin is woken by hoofbeats. It is not the muffled thud of Yakov’s old horse and the creak of the farm cart. She knows what it is. She lies with her eyes wide and waits for the shouts and the screams that follow the horses. When they come, she gets up and goes to the window. She has been forbidden to go to the window, but that is what she does.
Rosa, soon to turn five, is taken first to relatives in Vilna, and then in 1908, via London to be adopted by a childless couple in Edinburgh, both of Jewish origin although only her new mother is religious.
The novel then presents a sweeping panorama of Rosa's life and that of her extended family (including 4 further generations) over the next 90+ years.
The novel ends in 2001, on her 100th birthday, and Rosa herself is still living in the same house at 19 Morningfield Crescent where she was taken in 1908, but her family, and the narration, roam the globe including Mull in Scotland, Civil War Spain, North Africa during Rommel's campaign, the aftermath of the Belsen-Belsen camp, New York, Nova Scotia, Dublin, Kenya and Palestine and the nascent state of Israel.
Rosa herself becomes in turn Rosa Roshkin (her birth family), Rosa Solomon (her adopted family), Rosa Mackintosh (from the son of the Scottish family at 17 Morningfield Crescent) and Rosa Kransinski (a Polish army captain she meets in Edinburgh and later marries).
And this is her daughter Esther who had children with two men - a Palestinian she met in Palestine, their lives separated by the UN partition of the country, and a boatman from the north of Scotland:
Do you remember when Callum took us to the Bass Rock and we weren’t able to land?’ Esther asks Yossi.
He nods. ‘That’s where it all began,’ she continues. ‘Two very different seas.’
Yossi and Sarah do not understand at first.
Esther smiles. ‘Your fathers. The Sea of Galilee and the North Sea. Listening to the cicadas in the warm dark and quiet water of Tiberias and the howl of the east wind and the screaming gulls of North Berwick. Two very different men.’
World affairs form a backdrop to the novel, sometimes impinging on the lives of the characters directly (such as those lost in both World Wars) and at other times just distant echoes of past trauma (Oscar her 2nd husband):
In the summer of 1953 demonstrators in Poland protest against Stalin’s grip on their country. Many are killed, but after the death of Josef Djugashvili, the man who became Stalin, and after Nikita Khrushchev’s succession Soviet tanks are withdrawn from Poland, some reforms follow. For a while Oskar talks of making a visit to Kraków.
My rating for this reflects my personal taste - epic generational historical-fiction isn't my preferred genre - but this is well executed and gives a fascinating insight into the Judaeo-Scottish community from which the author herself draws her origins and inspiration.
The judges' citation
“A family saga which manages to be both intimate and epic, this novel travels seamlessly across countries, cultures and characters. It is beautifully structured and deeply moving, gradually revealing how trauma is met by resilience across the decades.”
The publisher
Scotland Street Press is a small, independent publisher of fiction, history, poetry, biography and translation based in Edinburgh. But our size and our independence give us the freedom to champion stories we believe need to be told and voices that need to be heard.
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March 8, 2025This is pretty poorly written. A historical fiction where characters speak with the wisdom of hindsight, but without any intelligence of the situations other than this foresight.
Rosa looked at the letter from Esther and wondered about the French stamp... Literally two sentences later. Rosa noted the French stamp and opened the letter... Next sentence... Hi mum, I bet you're wondering about the French stamp. Does anybody want to have a guess at where Esther is? No wonder this book feels so much longer than it is. I gave up on this book before the uncle/brother turned up, but he will and he won't be what they imagined, we know because he's mentioned constantly without any context. Foreshadowing and foretelling are not the same thing.
DNF this book at the founding of Israel.
Rosa looked at the letter from Esther and wondered about the French stamp... Literally two sentences later. Rosa noted the French stamp and opened the letter... Next sentence... Hi mum, I bet you're wondering about the French stamp. Does anybody want to have a guess at where Esther is? No wonder this book feels so much longer than it is. I gave up on this book before the uncle/brother turned up, but he will and he won't be what they imagined, we know because he's mentioned constantly without any context. Foreshadowing and foretelling are not the same thing.
DNF this book at the founding of Israel.
April 9, 2025
I had high hopes for this one which were unrealized. When I was a graduate student in Edinburgh, I got to know its Jewish community a bit, and met (and read the memoir of) the author’s father, David Daiches, a fascinating and wise man. I was hoping that this book would give me insight into that small close knit community that was at once both very Jewish and very Scottish.
But actually, this book doesn’t take place in the Edinburgh Jewish community at all and isn’t even very Jewish, apart from the opening scenes and a few passing references to Shabbat candles.
What it is is an incredibly sprawling family saga over 4 or 5 (to be honest I lost count) generations, tracing an extended family (the progeny of one Jewish woman and her Scottish lover, plus his brother and wife) as they march through 20th century history with some detours out of Scotland to Kenya, Israel, Canada and Bergen Belsen. It’s interesting base material but the family becomes so extensive with so many nieces and nephews and great nephews and great great grandchildren that at some point you can no longer really get invested in any of the characters. The emotions stay rather buttoned up and you don’t really feel like you get to know anyone that well.
There were also some editing glitches. Overall, a good effort but ended up reading a bit too much like a family tree and not emotionally gripping.
But actually, this book doesn’t take place in the Edinburgh Jewish community at all and isn’t even very Jewish, apart from the opening scenes and a few passing references to Shabbat candles.
What it is is an incredibly sprawling family saga over 4 or 5 (to be honest I lost count) generations, tracing an extended family (the progeny of one Jewish woman and her Scottish lover, plus his brother and wife) as they march through 20th century history with some detours out of Scotland to Kenya, Israel, Canada and Bergen Belsen. It’s interesting base material but the family becomes so extensive with so many nieces and nephews and great nephews and great great grandchildren that at some point you can no longer really get invested in any of the characters. The emotions stay rather buttoned up and you don’t really feel like you get to know anyone that well.
There were also some editing glitches. Overall, a good effort but ended up reading a bit too much like a family tree and not emotionally gripping.
March 16, 2025
In a Polish shtetl in 1901, a young Jewish girl, Rosa is born. When her village is destroyed in a pogrom, she finds herself sent to Edinburgh, to a loving, childless couple. There she grows, along with the two boys who live next door, the Mackintoshes. She has a child who also grows alongside the Mackintosh children who also have children and on history moves through 2 world wars, politicians, tragedies and history. For 100 years the two families intertwine, becoming poets and archeologists, musicians and teachers bound together by one young child sent across a continent.
I liked the second half of this book more than the first which felt long and slow. Daiches does well to portray this large cast of characters as humans who you want to do well and be happy. The two families are always centred in the story, history goes on around them but we never lose sight of their core humanity. Quietly powerful.
I liked the second half of this book more than the first which felt long and slow. Daiches does well to portray this large cast of characters as humans who you want to do well and be happy. The two families are always centred in the story, history goes on around them but we never lose sight of their core humanity. Quietly powerful.
May 10, 2025
A well written family saga spanning several generations from pogrom in a shtetl in Poland in 1906 to the beginning of Scottish Parliament and first talks of independence in late 90s early 2000s. Gentle, intelligent, old-fashioned in a good way albeit a little predictable and a little slow at times. I quite liked it actually.
March 24, 2025
3.75 stars
March 21, 2025
Family sagas aren’t my thing, but the Scottish setting intruiged me, and as it’s longlist for the women’s prize ánd given the audiobook was available through my audiobook subscription, I figured; why not give it a go?
Unfortunately, I struggled to get through this. Rosa takes centre stage, but every person she meets and every distant family member within this gets their own chapters. And the story goes exactly the way you expect it to, as well. From the moment Rosa mentions her brother you know he’ll show up. From the moment you realise the book centers her, you know it’ll end with her death. Every character introduced follows the same path; they’re born out of another character, then get together with the first person of the opposite sex that they meet, have babies, and the cycle continues. I don’t feel like this book tried to do anything new with the way the story was set up.
It also just didn’t feel realistic. World events pass the characters by and they’re always outraged for it, as if every person who’s faced discrimination in some way would be looking out for others who face it as well. I’m not too convinced about the characters caring for Gaza, or racism in the US, for instance. That’s also the case because we never see any of the characters truly care about any of this, beyond ‘they turned on the tv and saw what happened and were shocked’. Everyone lives for ages, too. Rosa turns 100 and is a great-great-grandmother, Esther is 82… this is all a bit too convenient (and these people grew up in Scottish cities too!). Rosa is also surprisingly open about her experience in Poland, despite so many people historically not really daring to share their stories. I mean, she barely shared them with her husband as well. She also keeps mentioning William, but I never felt she loved him - she was 16 and never expressed an interest until that night- so having him brought up constantly felt so unnecessary. If anything, I was just annoyed every woman in this book had ambitions and threw them overboard for a man.
There’s so many characters who we all only get to know vaguely. I guess the central theme is ‘war is bad’ but because of how indifferent everyone seems to be beyond ‘oh look what’s on the news’, I’m not sure this really came across. The author really tried to put music in there as another red thread, but this line was so thin it might as well have been left out entirely. Ultimately, this would’ve had to be really good to convince me to appreciate the genre, and I just don’t think it was.
Unfortunately, I struggled to get through this. Rosa takes centre stage, but every person she meets and every distant family member within this gets their own chapters. And the story goes exactly the way you expect it to, as well. From the moment Rosa mentions her brother you know he’ll show up. From the moment you realise the book centers her, you know it’ll end with her death. Every character introduced follows the same path; they’re born out of another character, then get together with the first person of the opposite sex that they meet, have babies, and the cycle continues. I don’t feel like this book tried to do anything new with the way the story was set up.
It also just didn’t feel realistic. World events pass the characters by and they’re always outraged for it, as if every person who’s faced discrimination in some way would be looking out for others who face it as well. I’m not too convinced about the characters caring for Gaza, or racism in the US, for instance. That’s also the case because we never see any of the characters truly care about any of this, beyond ‘they turned on the tv and saw what happened and were shocked’. Everyone lives for ages, too. Rosa turns 100 and is a great-great-grandmother, Esther is 82… this is all a bit too convenient (and these people grew up in Scottish cities too!). Rosa is also surprisingly open about her experience in Poland, despite so many people historically not really daring to share their stories. I mean, she barely shared them with her husband as well. She also keeps mentioning William, but I never felt she loved him - she was 16 and never expressed an interest until that night- so having him brought up constantly felt so unnecessary. If anything, I was just annoyed every woman in this book had ambitions and threw them overboard for a man.
There’s so many characters who we all only get to know vaguely. I guess the central theme is ‘war is bad’ but because of how indifferent everyone seems to be beyond ‘oh look what’s on the news’, I’m not sure this really came across. The author really tried to put music in there as another red thread, but this line was so thin it might as well have been left out entirely. Ultimately, this would’ve had to be really good to convince me to appreciate the genre, and I just don’t think it was.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 2, 2025
This book made the longlist for both the 2025 Republic of Consciousness UK & IR and Women's Prize.
It is both a family saga and historical fiction. Rosa Roshkin lives a very long life, 1901 to 2001. Rosa is Jewish. She was born in Poland, After most of her immediate family was killed in a pogrom, she is raised by a Jewish couple in Edinburgh, Scotland and lives in the house in which she dies. She has a daughter - Esther - with the boy next door - William Mackintosh - who is killed in WWI. William's brother Rory, a journalist, is killed when embedded with the Scottish troops during WWII. His wife Muriel is Rosa closest friend but dies many years before Rosa. Rory and Muriel's children - William, Blake, and Janet, along with Esther are third generation to play in this saga, and Esther's children - Yossi, Sarah - play the biggest roles in the fourth generation, with Blakes's children having minor mentions. And there is fifth and sixth generation that make appearances.
100 years covers a lot of history. The creation of Isreal stands out, in addition to the world wars and the devolution of Scotland (a new bit of history for me). Much is presented through one or more family members being present and experiencing rather directly, as well as through those who experience it indirectly but directly in that they lose someone close as a result.
Rosa is the glue that holds this ever-broadening family together, although it is doubtful that she thinks this. Rosa, like many others, has a missing part. She is quite aware of it. There are quite a few characters with missing parts that are not part of the family, such as Paval, although he wants to hold onto Esther as the mother he has lost. Dov, Rosa's brother and concentration camp survivor, probably most demonstrates this, but he is far from the only one. Rosa seems to connect the most with grandson Yossi, whose father, an Arab doctor who disappears physically from the story when Israel is formed. The bond between them is strong.
I liked how the author put a focus on women's issues - woman's suffrage movement in Scotland, birth control, loss of job-worthiness post WWII - but without highlighting them.
One last thought -- if you were a fan of the TV series This Is Us you will be jolted by the last scene in the book and perhaps see, in retrospect, other connections.
It is both a family saga and historical fiction. Rosa Roshkin lives a very long life, 1901 to 2001. Rosa is Jewish. She was born in Poland, After most of her immediate family was killed in a pogrom, she is raised by a Jewish couple in Edinburgh, Scotland and lives in the house in which she dies. She has a daughter - Esther - with the boy next door - William Mackintosh - who is killed in WWI. William's brother Rory, a journalist, is killed when embedded with the Scottish troops during WWII. His wife Muriel is Rosa closest friend but dies many years before Rosa. Rory and Muriel's children - William, Blake, and Janet, along with Esther are third generation to play in this saga, and Esther's children - Yossi, Sarah - play the biggest roles in the fourth generation, with Blakes's children having minor mentions. And there is fifth and sixth generation that make appearances.
100 years covers a lot of history. The creation of Isreal stands out, in addition to the world wars and the devolution of Scotland (a new bit of history for me). Much is presented through one or more family members being present and experiencing rather directly, as well as through those who experience it indirectly but directly in that they lose someone close as a result.
Rosa is the glue that holds this ever-broadening family together, although it is doubtful that she thinks this. Rosa, like many others, has a missing part. She is quite aware of it. There are quite a few characters with missing parts that are not part of the family, such as Paval, although he wants to hold onto Esther as the mother he has lost. Dov, Rosa's brother and concentration camp survivor, probably most demonstrates this, but he is far from the only one. Rosa seems to connect the most with grandson Yossi, whose father, an Arab doctor who disappears physically from the story when Israel is formed. The bond between them is strong.
I liked how the author put a focus on women's issues - woman's suffrage movement in Scotland, birth control, loss of job-worthiness post WWII - but without highlighting them.
One last thought -- if you were a fan of the TV series This Is Us you will be jolted by the last scene in the book and perhaps see, in retrospect, other connections.
March 25, 2025
Rosa Roshkin, a five year old girl, survives a progrom in her little polish town, and since her relatives are poor and can't care for her, she is given to adoption to a jewish couple from Scotland, Dr Max and his wife Nora. She is deeply loved by her new parents, and her wonderful new father inspires her wish to become a doctor like him. Her neighbour William, a volunteer soldier in WWI, falls in love with Rosa, and they spend one night together before he dies - which leads to a pregnancy. Both their parents invent a secret wedding to give Rosa and her daughter Esther respectability - but the dream of becoming a doctor is gone now.
Esther grows up to become one, though, and she is among the volunteers who take care of the jews in concentration camps during the aftermath of WWII, where she finds her mother's brother from her birth family. Esther then travels to Israel to live in a Kibbuz, where she falls in love with a palestinian doctor. Due to the unrest in the country, they get separated, never to meet again, but Esther soon finds herself pregnant. She returns home to Edinborough with her newborn son Jossi.
The years go by. Through Rosas eyes and those of heir family and neighbour's family, all political upheavals happening are seen and processed - until Rosa, short after her 100th birthday, closes her eyes for the last time to dream of her birth family.
***
A good book, but not a great one. I am in deep awe of the wonderful overview of history as seen through ordinary people's eyes with which the reader is presented. I also found the ever-growing ensemble of family members of the two neighbour houses in Scotland a very interesting setting. But I must say I was overwhelmed toward the end, I just could not find it in me to care for the 700th great-grandson of so-and-so. Also, I prefer to go deeper into a character instead of staying on the surface which happened here.
Esther grows up to become one, though, and she is among the volunteers who take care of the jews in concentration camps during the aftermath of WWII, where she finds her mother's brother from her birth family. Esther then travels to Israel to live in a Kibbuz, where she falls in love with a palestinian doctor. Due to the unrest in the country, they get separated, never to meet again, but Esther soon finds herself pregnant. She returns home to Edinborough with her newborn son Jossi.
The years go by. Through Rosas eyes and those of heir family and neighbour's family, all political upheavals happening are seen and processed - until Rosa, short after her 100th birthday, closes her eyes for the last time to dream of her birth family.
***
A good book, but not a great one. I am in deep awe of the wonderful overview of history as seen through ordinary people's eyes with which the reader is presented. I also found the ever-growing ensemble of family members of the two neighbour houses in Scotland a very interesting setting. But I must say I was overwhelmed toward the end, I just could not find it in me to care for the 700th great-grandson of so-and-so. Also, I prefer to go deeper into a character instead of staying on the surface which happened here.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 7, 2025
Rosa Roshkin is 5 years old when her family is murdered in a pogrom. She ends up being adopted by a Jewish couple in Scotland, arriving with nothing but a small suitcase and her late father’s violin.
This story covers Rosa’s family, generation after generation, as they grapple with war, displacement, death and heartbreak, still managing to find pockets of love.
I’m a sucker for multi-generational stories, especially those that involve heavy transitions and finding hope in times of darkness.
I found myself captivated by this story, which showed the impact of major world events on everyday people.
This book was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for fiction and I find myself disappointed that it didn’t make the shortlist. Nonetheless it is a powerful tale and one I would recommend to those who enjoy family sagas.
As always there is a hint of sadness towards the end of each life lived and lost- and that piece I found most compelling of all.
I listened to the audiobook - and enjoyed the narration immensely.
Happy reading 😊
This story covers Rosa’s family, generation after generation, as they grapple with war, displacement, death and heartbreak, still managing to find pockets of love.
I’m a sucker for multi-generational stories, especially those that involve heavy transitions and finding hope in times of darkness.
I found myself captivated by this story, which showed the impact of major world events on everyday people.
This book was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for fiction and I find myself disappointed that it didn’t make the shortlist. Nonetheless it is a powerful tale and one I would recommend to those who enjoy family sagas.
As always there is a hint of sadness towards the end of each life lived and lost- and that piece I found most compelling of all.
I listened to the audiobook - and enjoyed the narration immensely.
Happy reading 😊
May 5, 2025
In 1906, when Rosa Rashkin was five years old, her father and brother are murdered in a pogrom and her mother disappeared. Rosa was hiding under her bed in Lakhne, but she later saw her brother's body lying in the street. By the time she turned six, she was living in Edinburgh with Dr. Max Solomon and his wife Nora, as their adopted daughter; her new name is Rosa Solomon.
In Somewhere Else, author Jenni Daiches follows Rosa’s life and that of her family and close neighbors, William and Rory Mackintosh. Theirs is a simple family story of several generations, but a story that always kept me reading as I wanted to know about them and their families. Through the characters we follow major world events, the big wars, the depression, and the formation of Israel.
Throughout her life, Rosa has a longing, but she does not know what she longs for. In her early childhood she was taken from one home and country to another, with no choice. She might be longing for her birth family, or perhaps her birth name.
By the time of Rosa’s great grandchildren, when she is near a hundred years old, there is less detail about each and I began to lose some interest in them. They were a well educated and traveled people, as they visited America, North Africa, the Mideast and Malta.
Dov tells her, “But I suppose you could say that every country is a nation of somewhere else.” Hence, the title.
Now we wait for Rosa’s life to end and her family to continue scattering.
Somewhere Else, a very solid and satisfying story, was longlisted for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
In Somewhere Else, author Jenni Daiches follows Rosa’s life and that of her family and close neighbors, William and Rory Mackintosh. Theirs is a simple family story of several generations, but a story that always kept me reading as I wanted to know about them and their families. Through the characters we follow major world events, the big wars, the depression, and the formation of Israel.
Throughout her life, Rosa has a longing, but she does not know what she longs for. In her early childhood she was taken from one home and country to another, with no choice. She might be longing for her birth family, or perhaps her birth name.
By the time of Rosa’s great grandchildren, when she is near a hundred years old, there is less detail about each and I began to lose some interest in them. They were a well educated and traveled people, as they visited America, North Africa, the Mideast and Malta.
Dov tells her, “But I suppose you could say that every country is a nation of somewhere else.” Hence, the title.
Now we wait for Rosa’s life to end and her family to continue scattering.
Somewhere Else, a very solid and satisfying story, was longlisted for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
November 21, 2024
Loved loved this book and devoured on a train journey. It's a story about Rosa aged 5 who survives a pogrom in Poland and ends up living in Edinburgh in the area where I grew up. The book follows her life and that of her neighbours and all their descendants. Historical events are described sometimes often in depth and sometimes as a scene setter.
A thought provoking story looking at how people survive horrors and how they adjust to a life in a new country but never forget past horrors or family.
An important book to read
A thought provoking story looking at how people survive horrors and how they adjust to a life in a new country but never forget past horrors or family.
An important book to read
March 30, 2025
Family epic, set over 100 years. It felt like I was living through a century... it dragged. I think this book is not meant for me, so I can give credit for the gorgeous descriptions and character development. The historical tidbits did inspire some further research, so useful in highlighting a perspective I was not previously aware of. Audio book narrator did I great job with the source material.
March 20, 2025
I saw this book on the Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist and went into it with high expectations. It’s a genre I’m interested in, a multi generational family saga with a theme of displacement covering several countries. A bit like Pachinko I thought, and so it was initially.
Then the pacing started to change, with huge swathes of time consistently being skipped. No sooner had a character first set eyes on someone than they had got married, or not, and produced a child, or children, in just a paragraph or so. The number of characters was overwhelming and not enough time was spent with any of them.
The concept of displacement was well done though, conveying the repercussions of being ‘somewhere else’ through all the generations.
Then the pacing started to change, with huge swathes of time consistently being skipped. No sooner had a character first set eyes on someone than they had got married, or not, and produced a child, or children, in just a paragraph or so. The number of characters was overwhelming and not enough time was spent with any of them.
The concept of displacement was well done though, conveying the repercussions of being ‘somewhere else’ through all the generations.
April 6, 2025
More of a 3.5, beautiful writing but felt it had too many characters
March 20, 2025
3.5
I have to confess the last quarter or so of this book I often found myself lost with who a new character was/who they were related to. It’s well written and I did enjoy it, but I would have rather it had concentrated on a smaller time period/went into more depth with a couple of generations of the family rather than covering so many so briefly
I have to confess the last quarter or so of this book I often found myself lost with who a new character was/who they were related to. It’s well written and I did enjoy it, but I would have rather it had concentrated on a smaller time period/went into more depth with a couple of generations of the family rather than covering so many so briefly
April 15, 2025
Yet again with historical fiction I learnt so much. Rosa, is just 5 years old when her Jewish family are murdered in Poland. She is adopted by a childless Jewish couple living in Scotland and lives a very different life to the one that she would have lived in Poland but is safe and happy, but she always feels a sense of loss. She had a brother in Berlin and she never knew for sure what happened to her mother.
So much happens in this novel as we follow a number of the friends and family of Rosa - the First and Second World Wars and the creation of Israel (of which I knew nothing about). There are new generations and loss throughout which is incredibly moving. I felt a sense of sadness towards the end as Rosa approaches 100 - the passage of time which can seem to go by in a blink of an eye always leaves me feeling a little sad.
So much happens in this novel as we follow a number of the friends and family of Rosa - the First and Second World Wars and the creation of Israel (of which I knew nothing about). There are new generations and loss throughout which is incredibly moving. I felt a sense of sadness towards the end as Rosa approaches 100 - the passage of time which can seem to go by in a blink of an eye always leaves me feeling a little sad.
March 5, 2025
Longlisted for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction
A better fit I think than for the prize which originally led me to it.
Longlisted for the 2025 Republic of Consciousness Prize for UK and Ireland Small Presses – set up in 2016 to “reward, celebrate and promote literary fiction (explicitly including translated fiction and short story collections) that mainstream publishing was not supporting - work that is innovative, creatively challenging, and a financial risk on behalf of the publisher.”
It is published by Edinburgh based Scotland Street Press “a small, independent publisher of fiction, history, poetry, biography and translation based in Edinburgh… our size and our independence give us the freedom to champion stories we believe need to be told and voices that need to be heard … [we] are brave and take risks by publishing new and unheard voices.”.
They were longlisted for the prize in 2021 for Alhierd Bacharevič’s “Alindarka’s Children” (innovatively translated from Belarusian and Russian into Scots and English by Jim Dingley and Petra Reid) and shortlisted in 2023 for Maxim Znak’s “The Zekameron” (written in prison and translated from Belarusian by Jim and Ella Dingley).
And I have to say that while I thought both fully deserved their listings, this book, an absolutely conventional piece of English fictional writing which combines a multi-generational tale of two intertwined families (as well as a lost family) and which plays out over the historical sweep of 20th Century world events, seems out of place with the prize’s aims.
It opens in 1906 in Russian Poland, with a 5 year old Jewish girl Rosa Roshkin hiding in the middle of a local pogrom, which follows only a few days after the historical Bialystok pogrom – the next day she finds the dead bodies of her beloved father and her younger brother (her older brother Dov is studying in Germany and her mother vanishes in the pogrom) and is sent by the villagers to a maternal aunt in Lithuania and then via an orphan asylum programme to London thence on to Edinburgh in 1908 where she is adopted by Dr and Mrs Solomon, a Jewish couple who live next door to the Mackintosh’s – whose oldest son William and she form a bond. When late in the war William turns 18 and joins up as a pilot, William and Rosa sleep together once, and at the same time news comes of his death Rosa realises she is pregnant – the joint loss (and a joint contrivance of a secret wedding between Rosa and William to give legitimacy to her baby Esther) draws the two families together.
From there we then get the story of the two families across many generations – always drawn together by the neighbouring family homes, even as the generations travel across the world.
And this is accompanied very explicitly and deliberately by key events of the century (particularly but from from exclusively from a Jewish perspective): from the General Strike, to the Wall Street Crash, the Spanish Civil War, World War II, the post war attempts to deal with the concentration camps (Esther going out as a nurse to Bergen Belsen – where she has an unnecessarily unlikely encounter with Dov – although to be fair to the author she thereafter refuses to give this narrative strand a conventional closure), the move of Jewish settlers to Palestine (which again Esther is part of), the wars of 1947-8 (during which Esther herself becomes pregnant via a Palestinian who she then loses contact with – again a strand left deliberately hanging), even the post-independence upheavals in Kenya and much more – through to Scottish devolution (which becomes increasingly central), the rise and fall of Thatcher, the demolition of the Berlin Wall and so on.
The book is easy to read and particularly interesting in its recap of the many traumas of 20th Century history which gives a perspective on those of the present day. However it is neither a genre I particularly enjoy or a particularly outstanding example of the genre (compared to the odd books I sample from it – typically due to their listing for more mainstream literary prizes).
A better fit I think than for the prize which originally led me to it.
'Officially, you're not Jewish at all. Officially, you're only Jewish if your mother is.'
'Mum isn't Jewish.'
No. My mother is Jewish but not my father. Her mother, Grandma Rosa, is Jewish but not her father. He wasn't Jewish. It's complicated.'
'Do we have to be something?'
You can choose not to be something, but even that is being something.'
'I don't want to be Jewish.'
'That's okay. He watched his daughter leave the room, apparently satisfied. He had lied. You can't always choose what you are. You can't escape what is handed down to you. You can't escape what other people think you are.
Longlisted for the 2025 Republic of Consciousness Prize for UK and Ireland Small Presses – set up in 2016 to “reward, celebrate and promote literary fiction (explicitly including translated fiction and short story collections) that mainstream publishing was not supporting - work that is innovative, creatively challenging, and a financial risk on behalf of the publisher.”
It is published by Edinburgh based Scotland Street Press “a small, independent publisher of fiction, history, poetry, biography and translation based in Edinburgh… our size and our independence give us the freedom to champion stories we believe need to be told and voices that need to be heard … [we] are brave and take risks by publishing new and unheard voices.”.
They were longlisted for the prize in 2021 for Alhierd Bacharevič’s “Alindarka’s Children” (innovatively translated from Belarusian and Russian into Scots and English by Jim Dingley and Petra Reid) and shortlisted in 2023 for Maxim Znak’s “The Zekameron” (written in prison and translated from Belarusian by Jim and Ella Dingley).
And I have to say that while I thought both fully deserved their listings, this book, an absolutely conventional piece of English fictional writing which combines a multi-generational tale of two intertwined families (as well as a lost family) and which plays out over the historical sweep of 20th Century world events, seems out of place with the prize’s aims.
It opens in 1906 in Russian Poland, with a 5 year old Jewish girl Rosa Roshkin hiding in the middle of a local pogrom, which follows only a few days after the historical Bialystok pogrom – the next day she finds the dead bodies of her beloved father and her younger brother (her older brother Dov is studying in Germany and her mother vanishes in the pogrom) and is sent by the villagers to a maternal aunt in Lithuania and then via an orphan asylum programme to London thence on to Edinburgh in 1908 where she is adopted by Dr and Mrs Solomon, a Jewish couple who live next door to the Mackintosh’s – whose oldest son William and she form a bond. When late in the war William turns 18 and joins up as a pilot, William and Rosa sleep together once, and at the same time news comes of his death Rosa realises she is pregnant – the joint loss (and a joint contrivance of a secret wedding between Rosa and William to give legitimacy to her baby Esther) draws the two families together.
From there we then get the story of the two families across many generations – always drawn together by the neighbouring family homes, even as the generations travel across the world.
And this is accompanied very explicitly and deliberately by key events of the century (particularly but from from exclusively from a Jewish perspective): from the General Strike, to the Wall Street Crash, the Spanish Civil War, World War II, the post war attempts to deal with the concentration camps (Esther going out as a nurse to Bergen Belsen – where she has an unnecessarily unlikely encounter with Dov – although to be fair to the author she thereafter refuses to give this narrative strand a conventional closure), the move of Jewish settlers to Palestine (which again Esther is part of), the wars of 1947-8 (during which Esther herself becomes pregnant via a Palestinian who she then loses contact with – again a strand left deliberately hanging), even the post-independence upheavals in Kenya and much more – through to Scottish devolution (which becomes increasingly central), the rise and fall of Thatcher, the demolition of the Berlin Wall and so on.
The book is easy to read and particularly interesting in its recap of the many traumas of 20th Century history which gives a perspective on those of the present day. However it is neither a genre I particularly enjoy or a particularly outstanding example of the genre (compared to the odd books I sample from it – typically due to their listing for more mainstream literary prizes).
October 2, 2024
The last words on the final page of Jenni Daiches novel "Somewhere Else" are the first line of a Yiddish song "Partisan Song", written in 1943 and which has become an anthem of holocaust survivors: "Zog nisht keyn mol az du geyst dem letstn veg" or in English "Never say you are walking the final road". That line, indeed the whole song, neatly sums up "Somewhere Else" - an intergenerational novel that covers the entire 20th century.
It opens in 1906, in the Russian-occupied Polish town of Lakhne, where six year old Rosa Roshkin hides under her bed while the rest of her family are murdered by those taking part in an anti-Jewish pogrom. With the help of neighbours and strangers, she escapes, taking with her her favourite doll and her father's violin. In 1908, she is adopted by Dr and Mrs Solomon: a Scottish Jewish couple who live in Morningside, Edinburgh.
As the novel progresses, we discover aspects of the lives of Jews in Scotland, both the ever-present antisemitism as well as the bridges built between different communities. As wars rage, as Rosa becomes a mother and later a grandmother, her one constant is her father's violin which she learns to play and with which she comforts herself by playing both classical and Yiddish melodies. Treated with suspicion by some because of her foreign accent and her Jewishness, she develops close friendships with the sons of her next door neighbour, one of whom becomes her lover. This is just the first of several relationships that cross religious and racial barriers.
For much of Rosa's life home is "somewhere else".
The 20th century - a century marred by almost continuous war, holocausts, racial and religious conflicts and increasing levels of pollution - is here seen through the eyes of initially Rosa and later other members of both her nuclear and extended families, taking in the two world wars, the General Strike and the depression, the Nazi concentration camps, the beginning of the end of the British Empire, the creation of Israel, the fall of the Berlin Wall and much more. Members of Rosa's family experience many of these events first hand, whether as soldiers or journalists or medics.
Yet despite the horrors Rosa and her family members experience, despite the deaths, the poverty, the inequality, the attempted genocides and the never-ending conflicts, "Somewhere Else" is also a story of hope, one in which lovers cross religious and racial lines, creating the possibility of a world where we can celebrate difference rather than treating it with suspicion.
This is a beautifully written novel with strong sympathetically drawn characters who change and grow over time and with a narrative that embraces the whole world.
It opens in 1906, in the Russian-occupied Polish town of Lakhne, where six year old Rosa Roshkin hides under her bed while the rest of her family are murdered by those taking part in an anti-Jewish pogrom. With the help of neighbours and strangers, she escapes, taking with her her favourite doll and her father's violin. In 1908, she is adopted by Dr and Mrs Solomon: a Scottish Jewish couple who live in Morningside, Edinburgh.
As the novel progresses, we discover aspects of the lives of Jews in Scotland, both the ever-present antisemitism as well as the bridges built between different communities. As wars rage, as Rosa becomes a mother and later a grandmother, her one constant is her father's violin which she learns to play and with which she comforts herself by playing both classical and Yiddish melodies. Treated with suspicion by some because of her foreign accent and her Jewishness, she develops close friendships with the sons of her next door neighbour, one of whom becomes her lover. This is just the first of several relationships that cross religious and racial barriers.
For much of Rosa's life home is "somewhere else".
The 20th century - a century marred by almost continuous war, holocausts, racial and religious conflicts and increasing levels of pollution - is here seen through the eyes of initially Rosa and later other members of both her nuclear and extended families, taking in the two world wars, the General Strike and the depression, the Nazi concentration camps, the beginning of the end of the British Empire, the creation of Israel, the fall of the Berlin Wall and much more. Members of Rosa's family experience many of these events first hand, whether as soldiers or journalists or medics.
Yet despite the horrors Rosa and her family members experience, despite the deaths, the poverty, the inequality, the attempted genocides and the never-ending conflicts, "Somewhere Else" is also a story of hope, one in which lovers cross religious and racial lines, creating the possibility of a world where we can celebrate difference rather than treating it with suspicion.
This is a beautifully written novel with strong sympathetically drawn characters who change and grow over time and with a narrative that embraces the whole world.
May 10, 2025
In one sense this is a family saga (or, perhaps more precisely, the story of two closely interlinked families) spanning generations and gradually fanning out as the later generations become ever more prolific. It is gently told in a manner that slightly distances the reader from the characters, yet still allows them to join the families on their journey, whether joyful or heart wrenching, through both time and geography. I found his feeling of simultaneous distance and intimacy one of the most striking features of the novel and it must surely be deliberate in a plotline which revolves around the complexities of displacement and belonging, of loss and maybe never quite finding one's self again.
The narrative is firmly embedded in a believable historical setting, the sections set in Poland, Edinburgh, Israel and the Isle of Mull being particularly vivid. The characters themselves are a little variable in depth. The ones we know most intimately are the main characters introduced in the early stages of the book, when Rosa, the lynch pin of the whole novel, plays the major role. As the book progresses and the number of characters increases generation by generation, it is inevitable that without extending the book to an unsustainable length, we are presented with snapshots of their lives at key moments, rather than being given a more rounded picture. Even so, they are endowed with some psychological depth.
Beyond setting and characterisation, the book has a lot to offer. The reader's attention is drawn to a variety of thought provoking themes. As already mentioned, the plotline encourages the reader to consider the circumstances under which one belongs or is an outsider, but other issues - and diverse ones - are addressed, too, such as the impact of repressive regimes outliving the period of tyranny itself; the complexity of romantic, family and intergenerational relations; the fact that loneliness can exist in the midst of people; and how adverse circumstances may bring if not happiness, at least a level of comfort and contentment.
The story told was not always palatable, but held my attention throughout, even as the encounters with characters towards the end of the book became ever more brief. Although a little frustrating for me as a reader, it occurs to me as I write this that it actually reflects life pretty accurately, since perhaps we often don't know our grandchildren or great grandchildren as well as we know our own offspring?
Overall 4.5 stars
The narrative is firmly embedded in a believable historical setting, the sections set in Poland, Edinburgh, Israel and the Isle of Mull being particularly vivid. The characters themselves are a little variable in depth. The ones we know most intimately are the main characters introduced in the early stages of the book, when Rosa, the lynch pin of the whole novel, plays the major role. As the book progresses and the number of characters increases generation by generation, it is inevitable that without extending the book to an unsustainable length, we are presented with snapshots of their lives at key moments, rather than being given a more rounded picture. Even so, they are endowed with some psychological depth.
Beyond setting and characterisation, the book has a lot to offer. The reader's attention is drawn to a variety of thought provoking themes. As already mentioned, the plotline encourages the reader to consider the circumstances under which one belongs or is an outsider, but other issues - and diverse ones - are addressed, too, such as the impact of repressive regimes outliving the period of tyranny itself; the complexity of romantic, family and intergenerational relations; the fact that loneliness can exist in the midst of people; and how adverse circumstances may bring if not happiness, at least a level of comfort and contentment.
The story told was not always palatable, but held my attention throughout, even as the encounters with characters towards the end of the book became ever more brief. Although a little frustrating for me as a reader, it occurs to me as I write this that it actually reflects life pretty accurately, since perhaps we often don't know our grandchildren or great grandchildren as well as we know our own offspring?
Overall 4.5 stars
May 13, 2025
I really can't put off reviewing this forever, can I? It was a very understated reading experience, Jenni Daiches exploring her central themes with delicacy rather than grand, dramatic moments of plot and yet I found that this book - or rather, Rosa - really wheedled its way into my heart and shed a wee tear at the end. Normally a book that moves me to tears is a sure-fire 5* rating, but I was actually more hovering between a 3 and a 4 for this book.
It was the story one Jewish girl who witnessed unimaginable violence and tragedy as a young child and was displaced by the experience, her Jewish relatives unable to look after her because of the constant thrum of anti-Semitism that touched every aspect of their lives to the point of impossibility. Almost overnight, this young girl was relocated to Scotland to live with her "new" parents who grew to be just as beloved as her birth parents, albeit in a different way. While Rosa grew into her environment, that tragedy that in so many ways marked the start of her life - certainly her life as Rosa Solomon, having been born Rosa Roshkin - was the shadow that shaped it. Born in the late 19th Century, Rosa's life went on to span significant world events and that early violence and murder of her family was a horror that was echoed through it.
Despite the apparent simplicity of this woman who lived in the same house from her first day in Scotland through the her final life, there was a strength and passion that rippled out to those around her particularly in times of desperation on both a global and personal level. Rosa channelled her grief into helping those who were denied a voice, from women seeking sexual health advice to fellow Jews facing the same persecution that had led Rosa to be in a position to extend that help, even with limited means, and you could see the way that Rosa's daughter so determinedly lived by her mother's example. One of my favourite aspects of this novel was the conversations that Rosa shared with her sister-in-law, two women who loved men but whose lives had been altered and haunted by the world wars. They were both women, wives and mothers and their shared experience and understanding really touched me. I felt the weight of love and loss in every conversation between them without it ever needing to be spelled out in the writing.
Ahh, writing this has persuaded me that it was a 4* after all!
It was the story one Jewish girl who witnessed unimaginable violence and tragedy as a young child and was displaced by the experience, her Jewish relatives unable to look after her because of the constant thrum of anti-Semitism that touched every aspect of their lives to the point of impossibility. Almost overnight, this young girl was relocated to Scotland to live with her "new" parents who grew to be just as beloved as her birth parents, albeit in a different way. While Rosa grew into her environment, that tragedy that in so many ways marked the start of her life - certainly her life as Rosa Solomon, having been born Rosa Roshkin - was the shadow that shaped it. Born in the late 19th Century, Rosa's life went on to span significant world events and that early violence and murder of her family was a horror that was echoed through it.
Despite the apparent simplicity of this woman who lived in the same house from her first day in Scotland through the her final life, there was a strength and passion that rippled out to those around her particularly in times of desperation on both a global and personal level. Rosa channelled her grief into helping those who were denied a voice, from women seeking sexual health advice to fellow Jews facing the same persecution that had led Rosa to be in a position to extend that help, even with limited means, and you could see the way that Rosa's daughter so determinedly lived by her mother's example. One of my favourite aspects of this novel was the conversations that Rosa shared with her sister-in-law, two women who loved men but whose lives had been altered and haunted by the world wars. They were both women, wives and mothers and their shared experience and understanding really touched me. I felt the weight of love and loss in every conversation between them without it ever needing to be spelled out in the writing.
Ahh, writing this has persuaded me that it was a 4* after all!
April 29, 2025
I can see why so many readers dislike this book but I enjoy multigenerational, traumatic, epic, female centric stories that include historical events that I do and don’t remember. However, this needed editing and there is too much repetition, for example ‘hair and freckles’ and too many coincidences. I waited ages for the book and the library audible came up first, which is a good listen. I was reminded of ‘life after life’, ‘the glassmaker’ and especially ‘the story of the forest’. Themes include Jewish history, the creation of Israel, Arab/Israeli relations, identity, found and blood families, love, colonialism, Scottish devolution, wars and conflict. The author sees this as a story of displacement and it is based on her own experience and research. Symbols and motifs such as a violin, the sea, boats, trees and beauty are used effectively. The plot often returns to Edinburgh as a home and the RLS book ‘kidnapped’ is also referred to.
April 18, 2025
I read this because it was longlisted for the Women's Prize 2025, and I am so glad I found it. It's a multi-generational family saga following Rosa, a young girl born in Poland who makes her way to Edinburgh to a rich childless couple because she is a 'pretty child'. It then follows Rosa's story until she is in her 90s and is a great great grandmother. It mentions most of the main events of the 20th 6 at a glance. The writing is not particularly noteworthy. It even gets a bit crass at times with a few points repeated, almost like the author forgot she previously mentioned the detail. However, it was captivating, and I really enjoyed (being from Edinburgh) listening to all of the spots they frequented and referenced. It was quiet and I really loved it. 4.5 🌟
July 5, 2025
I loved this. Beautifully and simply written. Survival, war trauma, women’s issues. The life of one woman and her family; she is one of many survivors of Europe’s genocides: war and displacement are constant themes, being the other, making a new life but never quite fitting in, creating a good and meaningful yet unremarkable life, but always her old life and what might have been just under the surface. War and displacement mark all of her family and reoccur throughout: contemporary, and historial, old and new, forgotten, un-remembered, unknown, and current. A very poignant story in this modern timeline in which we are living, when all of these themes surround and affect us all, despite any individual awareness or lack there of.
July 31, 2025
An extraordinary family saga commencing with the pograms against the Jews in Poland 1906 and all the way through to Scotland 2001. This is a story about the displaced and the disconnected, about hanging on to where you came from and to adapting to new environments. Along the way there are the historical landmarks of both World Wars, the founding of Israel and The Great Depression. I note that one reviewer thought the writing was poor. In fact I think this rather misses the point as it is deliberately told in matter of fact fashion rather like a diary which once I realised this made so much sense. With displaced people more numerous than ever, this saga is as relevant today as it was in 1906.
August 15, 2025
To start: I definitely would have benefitted from physically reading this rather than listening to it. There are a lot of characters and sometimes it was a bit rough keeping track of them, which I think wouldn't have happened if I read the digital/physical version. It did impact my enjoyment, so it's reflected in my star rating.
However, this story was lovely. It was funny and happy and heart-breaking. Some parts are so deeply sad and I think that the content is handled very well. I enjoyed the characters and their relationships. I loved how much sisterhood is in this story too. It was also really nice to read a book about Scotland and a Scottish family (whether they were born Scottish or not) and how they were affected by the turbulence and horrors of wartime.
However, this story was lovely. It was funny and happy and heart-breaking. Some parts are so deeply sad and I think that the content is handled very well. I enjoyed the characters and their relationships. I loved how much sisterhood is in this story too. It was also really nice to read a book about Scotland and a Scottish family (whether they were born Scottish or not) and how they were affected by the turbulence and horrors of wartime.
August 17, 2025
I think Jenni was just a bit too ambitious with this novel.
It starts with Rosa, aged 6 and spans approx 100 years. You learn about the different generations coming after Rosa.
However, I feel like it just tried to cover too much. As I started to get into one character’s story, it then swiftly changed to another character. Which meant you never really felt invested in the characters.
By the end, you have been told about so many grand-children, it just felt a bit all over the place.
While Rosa, I think was the most well developed character, and does show that Jenni has a gift for writing. While I gave this a 3 stars, if the book just delved into Rosa’s life, and maybe the next generation or two - it could easily have a higher rating!
It starts with Rosa, aged 6 and spans approx 100 years. You learn about the different generations coming after Rosa.
However, I feel like it just tried to cover too much. As I started to get into one character’s story, it then swiftly changed to another character. Which meant you never really felt invested in the characters.
By the end, you have been told about so many grand-children, it just felt a bit all over the place.
While Rosa, I think was the most well developed character, and does show that Jenni has a gift for writing. While I gave this a 3 stars, if the book just delved into Rosa’s life, and maybe the next generation or two - it could easily have a higher rating!
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