I’ll be honest. I picked up this book planning to skim through it for a short review. Two chapters in, I couldn’t put it down, read it right through and didn’t want it to end. It is described as a children’s book and was shortlisted for a 2018 Costa Award. But it is a book adults will enjoy too.
It follows the lives, loves and friendships of a group of children, some of whom are cousins, from early 1900 to the aftermath of the 1914-18 war. It has humour and heartbreak, misery and mischief, characters who radiate goodwill and good cheer, and others who are chillingly distant – it all makes for a very good read.
