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The Colours
Ellen sees the world differently from everyone else, but living in a tiny town in the north-east of England, in a world on the cusp of war, no one has time for an orphaned girl who seems a little strange. When she is taken in to look after a rich, elderly widow all seems to be going better, despite the musty curtains and her aging employer completely out of touch with the world. But pregnancy out of wedlock spoils all this, and Ellen is unable to cope. How will Jack, her son, survive - alone in the world as his mother was? Can they eventually find their way back to each other?
- GenresHistorical Fiction
384 pages, Hardcover
First published April 4, 2020
3 people are currently reading
62 people want to read
About the author
Juliet Bates
25 books3 followersJuliet Bates was born in the north-east of England. After studying art and art history, she has worked as a lecturer in art schools in the UK and now in France. The Colours is Juliet's second novel; her debut, The Missing, was published by Linen Press in 2009, and her short stories have appeared in British and Canadian journals and magazines.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
June 23, 2020
Rating: 3.5 stars
Ellen Pearson is twelve when her father dies. An elder brother, Henry, and a skeptical aunt as her only family, she is sent off to live in a convent for a few years. Still a child, Ellen barely has the language to articulate her grief when she is shoved into a world of strict mores that teach her to live only half a life. The rigid and cold atmosphere of the convent looks white to Ellen who sees objects, people, even hours of the day as colours. So midnight is orange, and the friend she makes at work later on, Mrs. Beadie, resembles the colour of stewed prunes, and her son, her beloved son, Jacky, is serene blue.
It’s no secret how the world treats those whose ways are unusual, how any departure from the norm is looked upon. After Ellen conceives a child out of wedlock, things quickly begin to deteriorate for her. She meets the fate reserved for the deviant. Jacky is left under the care of his uncle, Henry, a man preoccupied with the battles between the pull of his conservative faith and the thrust of his natural disposition. A tirade of memories that continually surface with a rush of guilt as his only companion, Jacky’s life reverberates with the echoes of his loneliness even when he is in relationships.
Much goes on in this book in terms of the setting and the time frame over which it slowly unfurls. Juliet Bates alternates between Ellen and Jacky’s point of views, the mother-son dynamic being her focal concern. The pace of the book is meditative such that it lulls you into an unsettling calm. There’s no sense of haste in the story, it’s almost as if Bates mirrors the painful void of her characters’ lives in the prose.
This was the kind of novel I don’t usually pick up. It’s perfect for those who revel in the quiet, lingering details, who celebrate the stories of those who don’t fit into this straitjacketed world.
Ellen Pearson is twelve when her father dies. An elder brother, Henry, and a skeptical aunt as her only family, she is sent off to live in a convent for a few years. Still a child, Ellen barely has the language to articulate her grief when she is shoved into a world of strict mores that teach her to live only half a life. The rigid and cold atmosphere of the convent looks white to Ellen who sees objects, people, even hours of the day as colours. So midnight is orange, and the friend she makes at work later on, Mrs. Beadie, resembles the colour of stewed prunes, and her son, her beloved son, Jacky, is serene blue.
It’s no secret how the world treats those whose ways are unusual, how any departure from the norm is looked upon. After Ellen conceives a child out of wedlock, things quickly begin to deteriorate for her. She meets the fate reserved for the deviant. Jacky is left under the care of his uncle, Henry, a man preoccupied with the battles between the pull of his conservative faith and the thrust of his natural disposition. A tirade of memories that continually surface with a rush of guilt as his only companion, Jacky’s life reverberates with the echoes of his loneliness even when he is in relationships.
Much goes on in this book in terms of the setting and the time frame over which it slowly unfurls. Juliet Bates alternates between Ellen and Jacky’s point of views, the mother-son dynamic being her focal concern. The pace of the book is meditative such that it lulls you into an unsettling calm. There’s no sense of haste in the story, it’s almost as if Bates mirrors the painful void of her characters’ lives in the prose.
This was the kind of novel I don’t usually pick up. It’s perfect for those who revel in the quiet, lingering details, who celebrate the stories of those who don’t fit into this straitjacketed world.
June 22, 2020
When her father dies, Ellen and her older brother, Henry, are separated and Ellen is sent to the Sacred Heart convent school. She struggles to conform to its strict regime (echoes of Frost in May by Antonia White) but is rescued by the offer of a role as companion to an elderly, blind widow, Mrs Tibbs, who lives in a large, secluded house. Gradually, Ellen encourages the old lady to focus on the present rather than the past. I was reminded of Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, especially when Ellen and Beadie, the cook/housekeeper, open the shuttered windows of the house to let the light stream in. Ellen becomes Mrs Tibbs’ eyes to the outside world, describing the scenes she can see from the windows.
Ellen has a distinctive vision of the world in which scents, sounds people and even emotions are manifested in colours (the medical term is synesthesia). During her time at the Sacred Heart, weekly confession is “a dull purple” and mass “a deep unpleasant brown”. At night, the whispers of the girls with whom she shares a dormitory are “shaded with a pale pink tint” although the girls themselves are white, “ghost white, like badly painted whitewash with just a hint of colour showing through.” And when she thinks of Beadie it is as “the colour of stewed prunes”.
For Ellen a colour is more than just blue, green and so on. For her, blue can be the blue of a kingfisher’s wing, a jay’s feather or cornflowers; green is the green of a cooking apple, an oily puddle, the leather cover of a book, lichen growing on a wall, the scales on a monkey puzzle tree.
Ellen’s son, Jack, whom the reader first meets as a young boy in 1931, shares some of his mother’s visual sensitivity but in his case this is initially expressed in an awareness of symmetry and perspective. Parted from his mother, who has withdrawn into her own inner world, Jack has only his uncle Henry to guide him through life. Jack secures an apprenticeship in a drawing office which seems to solidify his view of the world as black and white, expressed “in bold horizontals and verticals, in plans and elevations”. He delights in the lines he draws “straight and shining, no smudges or blotches, no multicoloured stains, no random pools of colour”. Later, Jack’s artistic talent expresses itself in less rigid ways.
Religion, in particular Catholicism, lurks in the background of the story and in the slightly creepy figure of the local priest, Father Scullion. Ellen’s brother is a devout Catholic but seems in a perpetual struggle between the teachings of his faith and his natural inclinations. Ellen’s experiences have left her with doubts about the existence of an afterlife. Perhaps, this is all there is, and it’s enough?
Alternating between the points of view of Ellen and Jack, and spanning a period of seventy years, the reader gradually learns of the events which have shaped both their lives, some of which are sad echoes of what has gone before. The book reveals the consequences of breaching societal norms or simply of having an outlook on the world that is different from that of other people.
A slow burn of a book, The Colours is a tender exploration of love, loss and the legacy of the past.
Ellen has a distinctive vision of the world in which scents, sounds people and even emotions are manifested in colours (the medical term is synesthesia). During her time at the Sacred Heart, weekly confession is “a dull purple” and mass “a deep unpleasant brown”. At night, the whispers of the girls with whom she shares a dormitory are “shaded with a pale pink tint” although the girls themselves are white, “ghost white, like badly painted whitewash with just a hint of colour showing through.” And when she thinks of Beadie it is as “the colour of stewed prunes”.
For Ellen a colour is more than just blue, green and so on. For her, blue can be the blue of a kingfisher’s wing, a jay’s feather or cornflowers; green is the green of a cooking apple, an oily puddle, the leather cover of a book, lichen growing on a wall, the scales on a monkey puzzle tree.
Ellen’s son, Jack, whom the reader first meets as a young boy in 1931, shares some of his mother’s visual sensitivity but in his case this is initially expressed in an awareness of symmetry and perspective. Parted from his mother, who has withdrawn into her own inner world, Jack has only his uncle Henry to guide him through life. Jack secures an apprenticeship in a drawing office which seems to solidify his view of the world as black and white, expressed “in bold horizontals and verticals, in plans and elevations”. He delights in the lines he draws “straight and shining, no smudges or blotches, no multicoloured stains, no random pools of colour”. Later, Jack’s artistic talent expresses itself in less rigid ways.
Religion, in particular Catholicism, lurks in the background of the story and in the slightly creepy figure of the local priest, Father Scullion. Ellen’s brother is a devout Catholic but seems in a perpetual struggle between the teachings of his faith and his natural inclinations. Ellen’s experiences have left her with doubts about the existence of an afterlife. Perhaps, this is all there is, and it’s enough?
Alternating between the points of view of Ellen and Jack, and spanning a period of seventy years, the reader gradually learns of the events which have shaped both their lives, some of which are sad echoes of what has gone before. The book reveals the consequences of breaching societal norms or simply of having an outlook on the world that is different from that of other people.
A slow burn of a book, The Colours is a tender exploration of love, loss and the legacy of the past.
April 28, 2020
A beautifully written story which transported me back in time, with lively descriptions allowing me to feel completely submerged in the book. I really couldn’t put it down and hungrily wanted to learn more as the characters developed. The tone and pace works wonderfully well as the story flows at its own gentle pace. I thoroughly loved reading this book and would highly recommend.
June 27, 2020
This book shows a very clever overlap between characters as the time spans between 1912 and 1981. It tells the story of a girl then woman, Ellen and her son Jack, who both have a unique hypersensitivity to colour, sound, views and people’s appearance. Ellen in particular sees and hears colour, smells the particular odour that people give off, is sensitive to the feel of sand, dust and much else. Jack shares some of her sensitivity to colour but both have a fixation with a view over sea to a particular point of land, known locally as the Snook, with a tower. Both are told that they emerged from the area, part of the sand and isolated countryside of the north east of England. This book manages to be both highly detailed as it describes a tree, a sliver of stone and grains of sand caught up in a hem. It also carries through great sweeps of landscape and views, the feelings that are created with the sights and sounds in the immediate environment. A realistic and intense read in many ways, it looks at people’s lives and loves over several decades, as the story alternates between the woman and man. This is an ambitious and complex story of fear and love, the power of the church in one person, the overwhelming obsession with place. I was very pleased to have the opportunity to read and review this wonderful book.
As the book opens the young Ellen is tending to her father, aware of the enormous importance of their surroundings to their lives. He has always told her that they originated from the sand of the Snook, the red sand that gets everywhere and is nearly impossible to remove. As her father dies, leaving Ellen and her brother Henry without a parent, Ellen is sent to a convent, where the treatment is harsh, as a result of the local priest’s intervention. Belatedly, Henry reclaims his sister and takes her to work for Mrs Tibbs, a blind and sad woman who comes to appreciate Ellen’s gift for description. Jack’s conception and birth changes things, as Ellen must consider life as a sole parent. As he grows Jack discovers that he also values the landscape and views of his native area. As war comes, events overtake both Jack and Ellen, he must learn to survive and use his gift, or at least combine his special insight with a means to live.
This is a very special book which celebrates a gift of sensitivity and obsession, an intensely written overview of lives and experiences which span most of a century. It comments on the cruelty of the treatment of women, especially in the name of a version of religion. There is an overwhelming sense of place for both the characters and reader; the vision of the writer is almost three dimensional, as it effectively conveys the tiniest sound and sight which is summoned up in words. It actually quotes George Elliot concerning the noise created by the smallest creature, that “we should die of the roar which lies on the other side of silence”, as it details the impact of the tiniest creature on the lives of Ellen and to a certain amount, of Jack. I recommend this book to those who revel in both careful writing and superb characterisation.
As the book opens the young Ellen is tending to her father, aware of the enormous importance of their surroundings to their lives. He has always told her that they originated from the sand of the Snook, the red sand that gets everywhere and is nearly impossible to remove. As her father dies, leaving Ellen and her brother Henry without a parent, Ellen is sent to a convent, where the treatment is harsh, as a result of the local priest’s intervention. Belatedly, Henry reclaims his sister and takes her to work for Mrs Tibbs, a blind and sad woman who comes to appreciate Ellen’s gift for description. Jack’s conception and birth changes things, as Ellen must consider life as a sole parent. As he grows Jack discovers that he also values the landscape and views of his native area. As war comes, events overtake both Jack and Ellen, he must learn to survive and use his gift, or at least combine his special insight with a means to live.
This is a very special book which celebrates a gift of sensitivity and obsession, an intensely written overview of lives and experiences which span most of a century. It comments on the cruelty of the treatment of women, especially in the name of a version of religion. There is an overwhelming sense of place for both the characters and reader; the vision of the writer is almost three dimensional, as it effectively conveys the tiniest sound and sight which is summoned up in words. It actually quotes George Elliot concerning the noise created by the smallest creature, that “we should die of the roar which lies on the other side of silence”, as it details the impact of the tiniest creature on the lives of Ellen and to a certain amount, of Jack. I recommend this book to those who revel in both careful writing and superb characterisation.
July 16, 2020
The Colours begins in 1982 before whisking you further back in time to between 1912 and 1916 where Ellen starts to tell her story. The book alternates the protagonists of the story, through the years between Ellen and Jack.
The colours are vibrant and illustrative and you can almost see the salty water of the sea and the blood from her poor dad and the solomn black of a funeral. Colour is used well to portray emotions, that swirl around, capturing readers. It portrays synesthesia vivdly. Writers are often observant and take things in, but this is a whole different point of view of the places this book is set in, to how things like a train sound. You'll never see a knife or a train or colours in the same way again.
Ellen travels to the Convent of The Sacred Heart - Roman Catholic Home for Orphans and Necessitous Females, where she learns the rules and meets the nuns and Father Scullion and the first world war breaks out and the familiar changes, but for Ellen, she doesn't receive too much attention as everyone is busy getting prepared. The chat between religion and the feelings against the backdrop of being on the cusp of war is interesting.
Ellen sees colours differently from other people, more vibrantly and sometimes textured, sometimes they are people. She also has a love of a Monkey Puzzle Tree and books.
Ellen also discovers she is pregnant with an illigitamate child. The descriptions of the baby growing inside her are animated.
1931-40 is when Jack takes over and he's not too fond of school and his mother has been taken to The Winterfield County Asylum and a glimpse into the place. The Second World War breaks out and there is well-written contrast between what went before the radio announcement by Chamberlain and after, all the while, the philisophical thread of religion, spirituality, life and death weaves skillfully through. Life certainly moves onto the end of the war and it's realistic with people ageing and their predicaments being different.
People age and die during Ellen's time too and along with Beadie, there are some really tender, heartfelt moments of care to someone who is deceased.
Jack 1956-61 brings love and some great opportunities about his art are on the horizon.
In 1981, you can see what becomes of Jack and Ellie, now they've somewhat aged. It's a more subdued chapter, in their autumn years and brings the book to a strong end.
I do recommend this very original book, especially if you enjoy Kate Atkinson's books.
The colours are vibrant and illustrative and you can almost see the salty water of the sea and the blood from her poor dad and the solomn black of a funeral. Colour is used well to portray emotions, that swirl around, capturing readers. It portrays synesthesia vivdly. Writers are often observant and take things in, but this is a whole different point of view of the places this book is set in, to how things like a train sound. You'll never see a knife or a train or colours in the same way again.
Ellen travels to the Convent of The Sacred Heart - Roman Catholic Home for Orphans and Necessitous Females, where she learns the rules and meets the nuns and Father Scullion and the first world war breaks out and the familiar changes, but for Ellen, she doesn't receive too much attention as everyone is busy getting prepared. The chat between religion and the feelings against the backdrop of being on the cusp of war is interesting.
Ellen sees colours differently from other people, more vibrantly and sometimes textured, sometimes they are people. She also has a love of a Monkey Puzzle Tree and books.
Ellen also discovers she is pregnant with an illigitamate child. The descriptions of the baby growing inside her are animated.
1931-40 is when Jack takes over and he's not too fond of school and his mother has been taken to The Winterfield County Asylum and a glimpse into the place. The Second World War breaks out and there is well-written contrast between what went before the radio announcement by Chamberlain and after, all the while, the philisophical thread of religion, spirituality, life and death weaves skillfully through. Life certainly moves onto the end of the war and it's realistic with people ageing and their predicaments being different.
People age and die during Ellen's time too and along with Beadie, there are some really tender, heartfelt moments of care to someone who is deceased.
Jack 1956-61 brings love and some great opportunities about his art are on the horizon.
In 1981, you can see what becomes of Jack and Ellie, now they've somewhat aged. It's a more subdued chapter, in their autumn years and brings the book to a strong end.
I do recommend this very original book, especially if you enjoy Kate Atkinson's books.
June 16, 2020
Told through the eyes of Ellen and her son Jack, the narrative of this beautifully written novel moves between timelines and points of view to tell the story of one family over the course of almost seventy years.
The Pearson family goes through a lot in this book. Loss, abandonment and mental illness are addressed in an authentic and heart-rending manner and we see Ellen and Jack both go through life-changing trauma at a young age - Ellen becoming an orphan and being sent to a convent and Jack being left with a stepfather he doesn’t get on with after his mother is sent to an asylum - and see the ripple effect of these issues. The reminder of how stigmatised and poorly treated mental illness stood out in particular to me and left me feeling very thankful for the advancements that have been made, however imperfect they may be.
As well as being the title of the book, colour is a theme that runs through the heart of this novel. Ellen has synesthesia, which means everything she sees and hears has a colour, while Jack is an artist, which combined with the lyrical and descriptive prose make this an evocative read which enables you to see the world through the narrators’ eyes.
I enjoyed this novel but did find it felt a bit slow at times. I think that part of this was because I found Ellen to be a more engaging character who I instantly connected with, while I struggled to connect with Jack. It picked up about half way through and I was enjoying his sections more.
Wonderfully written and elegant, The Colours is a moving story about family, loss and healing.
The Pearson family goes through a lot in this book. Loss, abandonment and mental illness are addressed in an authentic and heart-rending manner and we see Ellen and Jack both go through life-changing trauma at a young age - Ellen becoming an orphan and being sent to a convent and Jack being left with a stepfather he doesn’t get on with after his mother is sent to an asylum - and see the ripple effect of these issues. The reminder of how stigmatised and poorly treated mental illness stood out in particular to me and left me feeling very thankful for the advancements that have been made, however imperfect they may be.
As well as being the title of the book, colour is a theme that runs through the heart of this novel. Ellen has synesthesia, which means everything she sees and hears has a colour, while Jack is an artist, which combined with the lyrical and descriptive prose make this an evocative read which enables you to see the world through the narrators’ eyes.
I enjoyed this novel but did find it felt a bit slow at times. I think that part of this was because I found Ellen to be a more engaging character who I instantly connected with, while I struggled to connect with Jack. It picked up about half way through and I was enjoying his sections more.
Wonderfully written and elegant, The Colours is a moving story about family, loss and healing.
December 21, 2020
It was while reading Amy Sillman’s brilliant essay, “On Color,” that I was brought back to Juliet Bates’ new novel, “The Colours.” Sillman, a painter, writes, ““So how do you use color?” people ask me all the time. An impossible question, as though I were to know something about time, sex, sound, scent, heat, touch, emotions, how color performs like sex in language. Color is something that I can only describe, which lives in memory and sensation of the skin, the feelings of touch and handling itself.”
These are exactly the parameters that structure Bates’ novel and into which she introduces, describes, and names colour. Every object, situation, the very space between two people, is imbued with and defined by colour. What at first appears as a literary conceit, quickly becomes an essential perceptual phenomenon. This is a novel that describes, in part, the awakening of an artist. Through the persistent use of colour and the language of colour, we are drawn into the way that an artist perceives the world. The book describes how a mother’s madness and synesthesia are thrust on and received by the son.
The author brings her experience as a visual artist and professor in an art school to bear. The Colours is a rare novel that actually and aptly handles the difficult task of describing the artistic process and the specifics of an artist's way of seeing the world.
I thoroughly enjoyed this well-written Bildungsroman and enjoyed how it remained with me,
colouring my thoughts, even months after having finished it.
These are exactly the parameters that structure Bates’ novel and into which she introduces, describes, and names colour. Every object, situation, the very space between two people, is imbued with and defined by colour. What at first appears as a literary conceit, quickly becomes an essential perceptual phenomenon. This is a novel that describes, in part, the awakening of an artist. Through the persistent use of colour and the language of colour, we are drawn into the way that an artist perceives the world. The book describes how a mother’s madness and synesthesia are thrust on and received by the son.
The author brings her experience as a visual artist and professor in an art school to bear. The Colours is a rare novel that actually and aptly handles the difficult task of describing the artistic process and the specifics of an artist's way of seeing the world.
I thoroughly enjoyed this well-written Bildungsroman and enjoyed how it remained with me,
colouring my thoughts, even months after having finished it.
January 31, 2022
I feel like the concept was good but the delivery failed to engage. Ellen's chapters were at least somewhat interesting, but I couldn't connect to Jack's side of the story at all - he just mooches around being selfish and flitting from interchangeable characters and never emotionally engages with any of them. Every time we had to go back to Jack's sections I groaned.
Also I feel like the concept of the character having Synesthesia was really underplayed. Ellen is advertised as a kind of outcast on the book's blurb but it doesn't really come up in the plot of the book that much. She barely even talks about it, except to one person who's like, "That's weird, Ellen" and then it just gets dropped. Her brother's sexual identity never gets discussed, the exact reasons for Ellen's psychological breakdown that caused her to act strangely enough to have her committed and Jack just spends the entire book trying to avoid the issue of what went on in his childhood. The book feels like it's constantly just circling the issue and gets very repetitive because of it.
Also I feel like the concept of the character having Synesthesia was really underplayed. Ellen is advertised as a kind of outcast on the book's blurb but it doesn't really come up in the plot of the book that much. She barely even talks about it, except to one person who's like, "That's weird, Ellen" and then it just gets dropped. Her brother's sexual identity never gets discussed, the exact reasons for Ellen's psychological breakdown that caused her to act strangely enough to have her committed and Jack just spends the entire book trying to avoid the issue of what went on in his childhood. The book feels like it's constantly just circling the issue and gets very repetitive because of it.
April 28, 2020
The story follows Ellen Pearson and her artist son Jack, and their lives and stories wind through the story, as the two become separated for 50 years after Ellen is taken away to an asylum (I won't reveal too much here...). Later in life, Jack revisits his old home (the north-east of England is a major character in the story), and as he comes to terms with the events of his and his mother's past, through his art he reclaims his story.
The writing is interesting, very lyrical; it says alot about the style that this is a book that approaches synesthesia, and that Jack is an artist. The writing sort of bleeds into, well, the colours of the story. This is from the beginning 'Da said the Pearson family came out of the sand. He said they were born out of the red clarty sand that sticks to the soles of your boots and the hem of your frock.' For me, it was really a beautiful read.
The writing is interesting, very lyrical; it says alot about the style that this is a book that approaches synesthesia, and that Jack is an artist. The writing sort of bleeds into, well, the colours of the story. This is from the beginning 'Da said the Pearson family came out of the sand. He said they were born out of the red clarty sand that sticks to the soles of your boots and the hem of your frock.' For me, it was really a beautiful read.
April 6, 2022
One the best reads I've had in a while. I recommend this book, although some friends I have recommended it to have found it too sad.
The writing is magical, I want to read more of Juliet Bates. A comment on the cover is "when you see the world differently". This sums it up better than I could.
The writing is magical, I want to read more of Juliet Bates. A comment on the cover is "when you see the world differently". This sums it up better than I could.
August 3, 2020
What a book! Beautifully written, moving and thought provoking with some really outstanding characters. I loved it.
January 26, 2021
An intense and melancholic book that can't be rushed.
May 4, 2024
I liked this book to start with but then it seemed to go on and on in a fairly depressing fashion so I quickly skimmed the last third to find out what happened. A sad story.
September 1, 2020
This was a really lovely book. To main character Ellen, everything - from people to sounds to times of day - has a colour. I really enjoyed reading about her unique way of seeing the world! In The Colours, we follow Ellen right through life from childhood and we also follow her son's journey and the fraught relationship between the two characters. This sounds like it should be too much information but it really wasn't - it was such a comfortable book to read.
There are some Gothic fiction vibes at the beginning, reminiscent of Jane Eyre, when Ellen a young orphaned girl, is taken on to care for a Miss Havisham-style figure in an old run-down house. Later parts of the book, when Ellen is older, reminded me of The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell. And while I know I'm making a lot of comparisons here, this book is also beautifully unique and has its own quiet strength.
I felt a real connection with the North-East seaside town setting; the author's depiction was fantastic. I also loved the colourful (ahem) side cast of characters. But my favourite thing about this book was its wonderful imagery. There were so many lines that I had to read a second time because they were just so striking.
This was a lovely read that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to fans of historical fiction.
There are some Gothic fiction vibes at the beginning, reminiscent of Jane Eyre, when Ellen a young orphaned girl, is taken on to care for a Miss Havisham-style figure in an old run-down house. Later parts of the book, when Ellen is older, reminded me of The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell. And while I know I'm making a lot of comparisons here, this book is also beautifully unique and has its own quiet strength.
I felt a real connection with the North-East seaside town setting; the author's depiction was fantastic. I also loved the colourful (ahem) side cast of characters. But my favourite thing about this book was its wonderful imagery. There were so many lines that I had to read a second time because they were just so striking.
This was a lovely read that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to fans of historical fiction.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews