The Boy Between

by Susan Stairs

Mags keeps everything safe in the box. Letters. Postcards. Photographs. Each memento plays a role in the secret story that's always in her thoughts. A story that can't remain hidden forever.
When Orla is handed an envelope by her father, she is perplexed by what she finds - a photograph of her parents, taken the summer she was born. Her heavily expectant mother, unusually, is smiling. Between her parents stands a teenage boy, her mother's arm lovingly around him.
Orla later asks her father about the boy's identity, but he refuses to be drawn. Her mother's mood is low again and he doesn't want her upset. So begins the daughter's investigation, back to the summer of 1983, and the story of a young English boy on holidays in rural Ireland. As the circle closes on a web of tragedy and deceit, the truth that emerges will impact on all their lives.
The Boy Between is an expertly crafted, suspenseful and ultimately hopeful story of family secrets, a fateful summer, and the long-buried events of a distant past.

Genres: Irish Literature

320 pages, Paperback

First published August 6, 2015

About the author

Susan Stairs has lived in Ireland since early childhood. After working in the art business for many years and writing several books around the theme of Irish art, she completed an MA in Creative Writing at University College Dublin in 2009. In the same year,she was one of six writers shortlisted by Richard Ford for the Davy Byrnes Irish Writing Award. She lives in Dublin with her family. The Story of Before is her first novel.

Reviews

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Orla has always known that the second half of the year has always been difficult for her mother, but she doesn't know why. When she is late home for Christmas in 2010 due to the big freeze, her father hands her a photograph. In the picture are Orla's father, her mother (pregnant with Orla) and a young teenage boy with white-blonde curly hair. Orla can't approach her fragile mother about the boy for fear that it would tip her over the edge, and the minute her father hands it over he has second thoughts and clams up. What follows are Orla's efforts to uncover the family mystery and find out who exactly the boy is, what happened, and why exactly her mother is so closed off to the world.

Along with Orla's story, we go back to the year of her birth in every alternate chapter where the story of the boy is slowly revealed.

Sad, beautiful, filled with love and loss - this is a really gorgeous tale about family secrets and how one person's effort to hold everything together may in fact be the one thing that tears them all apart.


I really, really enjoyed this book - I read the majority of it in one sitting. Recommended.

[Helena Wildsmith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did really enjoy this - very well written and it had a fantastic heart-breaking twist! However I think it went on for a bit too long and the suspense the author had built up had started to fizzle out before the end.

[Helen Carolan · Rating 3 out of 5]

an o.k read. not bad but i have read better.struggled with it a bit. so many other books with similar storylines and many done better.

[Davina Keating watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice story but a bit long winded and predictable.

[Marta · Rating 4 out of 5]

A heart wrenching novel that tugs at your heart strings. Loved it. You've got love Tim Swift. Beautiful ending.

[Jeanniehay64 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the setting of this book it transported me to my uncomplicated rural childhood

The story alternates between the past and present.

In the past Mags is pregnant with her daughter Orla and is looking forward to welcoming her sisters son Tim to stay with her family in Ireland for the summer.

Tim finds everything different from his English home , and struggles to fit in with such a different lifestyle.

Fast forward and Orla is disappointed to be missing her traditional family Christmas because of the snowy weather. On eventually returning home she is given a photograph by her father. The photograph is of her father, her mother pregnant with her and a young teenage boy. Her mum has her arm around the boy and is smiling.

Who is the boy? What connection does he have to her family? Orla is determined to find out the answers and she knows she will not be able to question her fragile mother or her father who seems to regret giving her the photograph.

What unfolds is a story of love, loss, sadness, and buried family secrets. I loved how the ending brought hope and healing. A beautifully written book .

[Shannon Crozier · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this. The writing was well placed for the most part with not too much back and forth.
However, I really hated Mags and just couldn't get on with her character and o think that spoilt the ending for me as a just couldn't feel sorry for her. I really likes Tim and that is what kept me reading. The ending was a bit predictable and didn't really live up to the tension that preceded it

[Debra Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really loved this book until the first secret was exposed. Then the writing changed completely and became melodramatic and unbelievable. Such a shame.

[Brittany B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slow paced, had trouble getting through it. I didn't expect the ending though and the circumstances that tied the story together.

[Sue Flirty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a heartwarming story loved it

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though I found the beginning a little confusing until I worked out the structure, and the ending a bit rushed, I enjoyed the 90% in the middle.
Secrets are not worth the possible consequences.

[Marie Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book and was taken aback with the twist at the the end, but felt it was drawn out a bit too much.

[Jan Finnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a great story. Couldn’t put it down! Loved the ending.

[Peggy F · Rating 1 out of 5]

es klang gut, aber ich kam überhaupt nicht rein - weggelegt

[Michelle Witcombe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book and it captivated you free the first page. Would read again

[Sara Uckelman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't the story I thought it was going to be reading the blurb on the back. I still think the story I thought it was going to be would be a very good one, but even with certain expectations antecedently in place, the story that it actually was was very, very good. I got it from the library on Saturday, started reading it that afternoon, and then read it for about 3.5 hours straight Sunday night until I finished it. The chapters were finely crafted with cliff-hangers that at almost every point made you think something other than what actually happened was going to happen. There were a number of underlying mysteries, none of which were solved in the way I thought they would be. And, amazingly, despite the "tragedy and deceit" promised on the back blurb, it really did turn out to be a happy ending, and didn't have any of the "thriller" aspects that I thought it might (spoiler: No one was murdered).

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this family saga set in Ireland in 1983 and the present day. Heavy snow means Orla is late getting home for Christmas with her parents, Mags and PJ, and when she eventually arrives her mother is more withdrawn than usual and takes it badly when she suggests she may be leaving Ireland to work in America. But as she leaves her father slips her a photograph which features Mags (pregnant with Orla), PJ and an unknown teenage boy. But when she tries to find out more about the mysterious boy, PJ has a change of heart and refuses to tell her anything. As Orla pursues her own enquiries in the present day, the reader is treated to 'flashbacks' to 1983 when a teenage boy travels to Ireland to stay with his aunt...... A totally engrossing story with some great twists and turns - 9/10.

[Rena Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written. Couldn't put it down at points. Definitely what it says on the cover :a powerfully moving story that stays with the reader long after the last page has been read.

Reminds us why the truth is so important and when cultures bury the truth to keep up appearances, lives can be turned upside down.

Left me feeling warm and like the world was mended.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Boy Between is a fantastic read, fast paced and, like Susan Stairs' first book, contains a mounting tension and mystery that leads to a final satisfying climax. Compared to classic narrative in The Story of Before, Stairs uses two viewpoints/timelines - the revelations in the present day balanced carefully with the ominous rumblings in the past.

Like The Story of Before, the sense of place and time is wonderfully realised - rural Ireland of the 1970s feels tangible. Stairs has always been excellent at capturing the tensions between children and teen groups - one of the great strengths of her writing.

Well edited clean prose with a strong narrative drive make it a engrossing read. I found with each sitting, it was harder and harder to put the book down.

[Cynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the beginning the book has an eerie feeling to it, you know something bad has happened. As the story evolves, different scenarios kept forming in my head (I did guess one part of the story). The events wee not as sinister as you are led to believe, which was not a bad thing, and the ending was fitting. Things were resolve and I was left with hope.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this one. Once I got going it was a struggle putting it down :) although I did figure out some of it before it announced it which was a little sad. Although I do enjoy being right about the plot too :D

[Catherine Colman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read about Irish family life & taboo topics

[Lea Porter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book however the ending seemed rushed

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is fantastic.
I am wanting to give 5 but I feel in places it dragged a little.

[Elaine Robertson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good enough.

[Collette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mysterious, but you know there are only a few options for what will happen!

[Marcia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book, it was really gripping and emotional. You always want to know what happens next and I couldn't put it down. Would definitely recommend this!! Beautiful story..