Part murder ballad, part ghost story, part true crime, All The Places I've Ever Lived takes you on a gripping journey from the small-town murder of a teenage girl in the 1970s to the recent real-life shootings in Whitehaven, West Cumbria. Are the crimes linked? Fifteen-year-old Barry Dyer may have the answers, but when events impact so horrifically on a town and its people, it always pays to tread carefully when revealing the truth... Quirky, disturbing, and haunting, All The Places I've Ever Lived is a moving and tender exploration of a teenage outsider in a small community, as well as being a finely wrought portrayal of the neglected industrial settlements of West Cumbria, where nuclear plants, thermometer factories and chemical works contrast vividly with the desolate beauty of the Lake District. David Peace meets Murakami in award-winning writer David Gaffney's compelling mash up of Twin Peaks weirdness and peri-urban noir.

This is a very strange book to review, least of all because to reveal too much about the story would deny the reader of some of the wonderful elements that this novel manages to cram together. I'd read a couple of the author's short stories before, so I was expecting to get some quality writing; however what did catch me by surprise was the perfect blend of 70's nostalgia, macabre plotting and laugh out loud dialogue. It's bonkers and surreal and yet completely realistic in a dreamlike kind of way. What more can I say other than to urge you to read it? Recommended.

There was much to enjoy here, but I found I couldn't connect with it. I'd read more from this author in the future though.

Not really sure about this book. Just as I seem to be getting into it and understanding the plot, the direction shifts and I found myself back trying to get on track. I don't suppose it's a particularly difficult or complex book to read, rather it is just not my usual genre.

This book is completely bonkers. In a good way, mind. I was never quite sure what was going on, but there was such an amazing sense of time and place, and everything was held together so well that i could just go along with it and enjoy the ride. My favourite moment was, perhaps, the punk band in the pub open mic sessions with all the beardy folkies. Perfect.

A great read and throughly enthralling read. A mixture of past and more current events entwined

I found this book... strange. But in a good way. It's got mass murder, a ghost who isn't really a ghost? time travel and some teen drama as well. When I described it like that, it doesn't sound that great. Honestly? It worked really well. We follow Barry Dyer (although I kept reading it as Danny Dyer oops) after a local attack has taken place on a girl from his school in the 70's. He is a 'tether' to the paranormal in this plot due to the metal discs on his body which only he can see.

At first I struggled to read this book, just because I didn't know what I was going into. I'd completely forgotten the blurb, and I thought 'eh I'll just read it instead of googling it'. Some of the scenes were extremely surreal, and I still have a lot of questions. Maybe I didn't read into the details enough but I still don't know who the murderer is. In a mystery styled book, I normally want to find out a bit more about who the person is. We only really get an insight into Barry and his friends and family, the second story line, if I can call it that, doesn't have much expansion on who people really are.

Another issue I had, which isn't by any means a problem. It might not annoy anyone else, it could just be me. But once you notice something, and you realise it's unnecessary it can get quite annoying. So Barry has a friend called Samantha Fry, and she seems great, yeah, good addition to the story as the coming of age aspect. What bugged me, was that whenever she was mentioned, it was always 'Samantha Fry' it was never just Samantha. I just don't understand why the last name always had to be used.

Petal, the ghost in the story is explained about halfway through by a secondary character. I really liked this explanation because it brought the information needed to the question I, and Barry, had. I also really liked that the time travel didn't enable them to talk to people and move things etc. Because this way was a reasonable way to make it work well.

I would recommend this book, for definite. The only problem's I had were me just being picky about it. The name thing isn't a big deal, and the knowing the killer isn't actually important to the plot. I just personally would have changed it slightly. It's still a great book though.

This book was a little hard to get into at first, but I must admit that I really did enjoy the book. This was quite the story, with plenty of paranormal themes and mystery. This follows teenager Barry Dyer and a ghost (nicknamed Petal) as they travel to the future in an effort to prevent some unknown danger. At the same time, a murder has happened in present time to a local girl and it plays a big role in the overall story. It is definitely an interesting and exhilarating story.

This book was a disaster. The author tried to talk about so many topics, that finally it got all messy and confusing. If only he chose to write and develop one or two topics it could have been a great book. I really tried to like it and forced myself to read it in hopes of getting to a better written part, but I was disappointed and finally at 40% I gave up. I just don't have time to read books, that I don't enjoy.

There are some things I don't understand about this book.

I don't understand the title. Sure, there's an off-handed comment at one point about all the places he lived, but is that really enough to name your book after?

I don't know what peri-urban noir means, which is how the book describes itself. Near urban noir? So suburban noir? I don't understand.

I don't understand the point of anything that happened. Yes, life doesn't have to have a point, ergo neither does fiction, but he flies around on a magical, knock-off Vespa with the ghost of a girl whom his father may have attacked, or his best friend, to the future, where a mass shooting happens which relates somehow to the metal lesions that have appeared all over his body, and there's scuba diving to put garden gnomes in the bottom of lakes, and he might be a Communist spy (we are in the 1970s) or maybe he just has psoriasis, he also might have killed someone, unless he didn't, and someone there's a cousin of his friend named Siobhan who he might have framed for murder in order to save his parents in the future, and the shop girl is stalking his father because his mother gave her shoes from a charity bin twenty years ago, and the ghost girl isn't actually dead, and there's a nuclear plant, and a thermometer factory, and the girl he likes is a lesbian, and all he wants to do is play his folk guitar and not punk, but he plays in a punk show, and this is all too much.

There's this one track where it's quite a compelling story. But then there's this other track where it's just like standing in the ocean and getting hit by a wave, overwhelming, crazy, madness. I stayed up late to read it, and got up early to finish it, but it's still bat-shit crazy no matter how compelling it may be.

All the Places I've Ever Lived by David Gaffney went on sale February 23, 2017.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

For half the book, I thought this would be good. Barry Dyer, a teenage boy in West Cumbria in the late 1970s, finds himself with metallic skin lesions that other people cannot see. A female school colleague has been attacked at the fair and lies dying in hospital. Her ghost (yes, really) visits Barry and together they travel to 2010 where they encounter a sinister diver. There's intrigue and plenty of ideas fizzing around.

Sadly, they don't really go anywhere.

There is plenty of opportunity to explore West Cumbria, including visits to Sellafield and military bases (Barrow seems to have been given a miss); there are lakes and quarries, grim coastlines and desolate harbours. It is a strange part of the world and David Gaffney brings to to life.

But the connections between the 1970s and 2010 are not clear; there seem to be two stories slotted together - one not properly resolved and the other not properly started. It all starts top get a bit surreal and dreamy.

About half way through it starts to become clear this is not going anywhere. By three quarters it is beyond doubt that nothing will be resolved. At this point, the short novel starts to feel very long. The last few chapters are a real slog, reading them from a sense of obligation whilst knowing that there won't be any reward at the end.

David Gaffney has shown real promise, and shown he has real ideas. His challenge in the future will be to land those ideas.

My thanks to Netgalley and Urbane Publishing for providing me with an advance review copy of this novel.

I really did want to like this one. After all who wouldn't be drawn in by the promise of a murder mystery/ghost/time traveling thing? The book actually does diligently serve up all things the menu promised, but the execution leaves the reader wanting. It's even British and still didn't do the trick. Maybe Gaffney tried to cram too much into his story, maybe I'm not the right audience for it. To me it came across jumbled and erratic, confusing and not compelling enough to make the effort of unraveling the narration's serpentine threads. Moreover it had a distinct YA feel to it, which isn't all that surprising having read the description, but there are often stories featuring teenage protagonists that don't come across that way and this one did. Actually the only surprising thing about this book is how disappointing it turned down to be despite both its ostensive potential and not an untalented author. It was the sort of thing where some of the individual ingredients worked quite well at times, but just didn't mash together cohesively enough as a total. Quick enough of a read, but really isn't worth the 4 hours it took. Thanks Netgalley.

This was just utterly terrible. The blurb sounded interesting (so great job there guys!) but honestly I felt duped into reading it.