Sainsbury’s Magazine

“Winner of the 2008 Mail on Sunday novel prize, this is a brilliant debut.  Balancing Mary’s story of growing up in the 1950s and 1960s with her son Jake’s experiences of boyhood in the 1980s, it moves between middle-class Hove and the backstreets of Portsmouth.  A compelling portrait of family life, the past returns to bite Mary and Jake with dramatic repercussions.”

Reviewed this month alongside The Red Velvet Turnshoe by Cassandra Clark and Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger.