I love Kit de Waals writing. I'm not a big fan of short stories but I make an exception for Kit de Waal. She writes with such feeling I always feel like I know the characters personally. The stories bring out all your emotions from happy to heartbreaking. I highly recommend this book. Thank you NetGalley and Kit de Waal for the opportunity to read this amazing book.

This is an eclectic mix of short stories from the very talented Kit de Waal. Some are extremely short but they are thoughtful, incisive and encompass a whole range of human emotions. There’s a poignancy in quite a few stories which is very touching, for example, one story shows how a partner leaving can render you so low that you lose yourself entirely. There’s Sylvia on the bus to Leighton Buzzard to meet a solicitor to arrange a divorce whose random thoughts of a love gone sour made me smile but also sense how much she has lost. There’s a released prisoner whose only thought is a longing for his son, one story shows a brutal side of human nature, there’s a search for identity, disappointments in love, loneliness and so on. Quite a few look at the various ways that people grieve and respond to loss, one character questions the existence of God as she has lost so much, there’s sacrifice for the love of another but what unites them all is how beautifully they are written. They touch your heart and move you, some made me pause and reflect and I’m still thinking about one or two now. I really like that the group of stories ended with Big Tom Fallon’s wedding speech where he speaks of what he has lost but how much he has gained through the friendship of Paulie and the love of Marie, that is a beautiful way to end this wonderful experience.

I'm not really a fan of short stories but when they have been written by Kit De Waal, I was intrigued. The stories all differ in length. The stories are about characters you will have already met if you've read Kit's previous books. There's always something special about the characters Kit writes about. The stories cover: grief, loss and happiness. They are beautifully written in Kit's own style. I would like to thank NetGalley, Penguin books UK and the author Kit De Waal for my ARC in exchange for an honest review. #SupportingCast #NetGalley #amreading