What a brilliant read.
From the first page you are sucked into the world of Fiji and sevens rugby.
It leaves you with a wonderful feel of Fiji as a country and the people who live there.
Superb.

I love watching rugby. I watched it with my Dad when I was little, in bars at Uni, and now I try to teach my kids what’s going on for the 10 minutes their attention is held! My experience has taught me that there are 3 almost universal rules to being a rugby fan;

• The commentators are almost always biased against your team
• In 15-a-side everyone loves watching the Barbarians (an international charity invitation team who play carefree entertaining rugby) and
• In 7-a-side rugby everyone’s first or second team is Fiji.

At the 2016 Rio Olympics, 7-a-side rugby debuted and in the final Fiji beat Great Britain with a sublime display of entertaining, flowing and ruthless rugby. This book tells the journey of Englishman Ben Ryan who receives an unexpected tweet, goes through an unorthodox interview process and then coaches this wonderful team to 2 World Sevens Series and finally Fiji’s first Olympic medal.

This book is fascinating. Whether you are interested in rugby, the country of Fiji, Ryan’s philosophy of coaching or how a team which everyone loved watching went from mercurial to world-beaters, you will love this book. Even if you don’t like rugby I challenge you not to be inspired by the journey that you read about, the friendships, the highs and lows, and challenges overcome.

We follow Ben Ryan and his squad through personal hardships, injuries, family tragedies. We see trust grow, being repaid by some yet broken by others. We see reflections of the differences in culture, Ben learning what inspires these players from a Fijian culture, initially alien to him, to perform and train while he reflects on the many differences with the England squad he coached previously. We learn how rugby inspires the country of Fiji and how after the awful events of Cyclone Winston, which bought devastation to the Islands, the 7’s team carried a nation’s hopes into the world’s biggest sporting arena.

I have never understood how authors writing about real events can engender so much emotion into what the reader already knows to be true, but reading about the Olympic final is so wonderfully joyful you feel you have to share it.

Am I going to run out and buy a Fijian 7’s jersey – maybe! Am I going to tell everyone I know who likes rugby, or reads leadership books or sports books about THIS book? YES! Am I going to tell anyone who stands next to me at the coffee machine that they should read this book? YES! Do I think you should go on this journey too? I think you know! A remarkable story, wonderfully told and bound to bring a smile to many people.

5 Stars.

I chose to read and review an eARC of Sevens Heaven.

An utterly compelling and thoroughly engaging tome that illustrates perfectly the brilliance of Ben Ryan and the mystique and excellence of Fiji and its rugby history and legacy. Probably the most enjoyable book written on rugby.

A very enjoyable book on how Fiji won their first Olympic medal. Being on the other side of the world, you hadn't really known about the struggles they faced to put out that fantastic team.