The Return Home

by Justin Huggler

When Jack, a war correspondent and wayward soul, returns home to Jersey injured from Afghanistan, he turns the lives of the Merryweather family upside down. Ten-year-old Ben and his brother and sister watch helplessly as the lively man they remember struggles to bring himself back from the brink.

Twenty years later, an adult Ben Merryweather himself returns home after a long absence to visit his sick mother. With his own family in turmoil, he is vividly reminded of that fateful winter and realises that he must finally make sense of those months with his uncle Jack to help him decide his future.

Set in an atmospheric Jersey, storm-torn and overshadowed by its Nazi-occupied past, The Return Home is a gripping and evocative tale about the breaking and mending of relationships and about facing one's failures in order to be able to move on.

204 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 6, 2017

About the author

Justin Huggler was born in the Channel Island of Jersey, Great Britain. After graduating from Oxford University, he became a foreign correspondent for The Independent newspaper, and was based in Istanbul, Prague, Jerusalem and Delhi.
He covered the occupation of Iraq from 2003 to 2004, working outside the protection of the Green Zone and military embeds, and reported on the torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, the 2004 Ashoura massacre in Karbala, the bombing of the UN building, and the hostage-taking crisis.
During the 2001 war in Afghanistan, he travelled with the Northern Alliance and covered the fall of Kunduz and Kandahar, and the prisoner revolt at Qala-i Jangi.
He has also covered the second Palestinian Intifada, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, the Nepalese revolution, and the conflicts in Kashmir, Sri Lanka and Macedonia.
He lived in India for eight years, and now lives in London.

Reviews

[Carla · Rating 5 out of 5]

I chose this book for two reasons, firstly because it was mainly set here in Jersey, and secondly because I remember Justin as a young boy, and I am very glad I did.
The story was gripping from the beginning and it was clear the author had experiences which were reflected in the book.
I would highly recommend it.
On a light note, I was pleased the football team mentioned was the Arsenal.