Emma is looking forward to Christmas, she likes to craft, make do and mend and be eco concious. Her husband, Chris from an intolerant, god fearing background is in a different league. He is fixated with survival, stockpiling food, standing with sandwich board outside the town hall steps in the relentless rain. Their house built on a drained lake outside of town in the countryside is in danger of flooding. The final straw comes when he buys rabbits to breed for food and expects Emma and their sons to look after and kill the animals. His mother with her quiet quasi religious but judging ways arrives for Christmas. Things come to ahead as they prepare for their Christmas Eve family party and await the arrival of Chris's sister and brother in law and children.

I found this book a bit difficut at first, but stuck with it. After a few chapters I fell into the quiet rhythm of the narrative. It is incredibly well observed, the death of love by a thousand little domestic cuts. A man going quietly off the rails and dragging his family along for the ride. The urge to just keep going and pretend all is okay for the children. It has flashes of dark humour and I grew to really like Emma and could fully understand her actions. A Christmas from hell!

Chris and Emma's marriage is in trouble, each trying to find the best way to deal with difficult situations. As Chris starts to lose his business - gardening and lawn maintenance - due to the ravages of climate change, drought and flooding, so he spirals into despair.
this is an eloquent novel with a cast of convincing characters.
well worth a read.

I really took against Chris from the outset. Climate change concerns and action are very important but his methods and attitude made me want to punch him in the face and found it hard to believe that Emma would put up with life in the mouldy bungalow with intermittent power issues as well as him.
However, the clever writing showed how her love for him and their joint past and future made it impossible for her to leave.
A wealth of emotions are described, from Chris's extreme anxiety to Emma's downtrodden reticence and Janet's fundamentalist cheerfulness and unwavering belief in her son and the book leaves you wondering about the future of the world if we don't all try to make those small changes that mount up.
Shortly after finishing the book we were plunged into social distancing followed quickly by lock down due to the pandemic corona virus and the surreal nature of our current situation made Chris's voice resonate further with me (although I would probably still punch him for the way he treats his family!)

I found this earthy and though-provoking novel a thoroughly gripping read. It is the near future and the climate is in a bad way, with no clear seasons, just never-ending rain. Chris and Emma live in a damp and mouldering bungalow near Martin Mere, Lancashire. This sounds grim but the characters are so vivid and engaging – infuriating climate-doomer Chris is a character who both maddens and saddens. His long-suffering wife Emma secretly holds the family together by earning money for a decent Christmas by sewing at night, escaping from Chris’s snoring. A real star for me was Chris’s Christian fundamentalist mother, Janet. It’s a darkly funny book and Janet’ sanctimonious (but ultimately selfish) claptrap made me laugh out loud. Some passages are hilarious, some are beautifully well written, others are quietly but intensely dramatic. Carys Bray is a very clever writer and there are masses of ideas here about all our futures in the presciently widespread unemployment, inadequate housing, and fears for children’s unknown futures. What is especially well drawn is the anxiety this provokes, in Chris’s fevered mind as expressed in the meaning of the book’s title. My only reservation is that after loving ‘A Song for Issy Bradley’ as one of the finest novels of recent years, this galley felt rather uneven. But overall this is a novel that deserves to be a bestseller for its sharp depiction of modern hopes and fears, its touches of surreal madness, and depiction of laugh out loud human foibles.

I really enjoyed this book although it took me a little while to settle to the style of the author and the subject matter.
The story unfolds gradually throughout the book and is told with insight into the different characters within. The family is complex and the father's difficulty shines through from the outset. However the other characters unfold more gradually. It is only when the topic underlying the thoughts of the father - i.e. climate change become more debatable that the other characters show their strengths..
I would thoroughly recommend this as a good read and well worth the time given to it. Thoroughly enjoyable and thought provoking book but the overriding message is one of family and how they come together,
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I read this during the first week of the Covid-19 lockdown and I am not sure that is the best place to be when reading about a man who is fixated by the end of the world. The husband's doom and gloom and his deep seated climate change based worries are set against a background of continuous rainfall, His angst slowly drives his wife round the twist and she is driven to desperate measures.

There is an interesting comparison between the grandparent's religious beliefs and the son's climate change beliefs, and the effects of these beliefs on their nearest and dearest. The family dynamics were well developed and I felt much sympathy for the wife who tried so hard to balance the demands of her husband, children and mother-in-law.

Who knows how long the current Covid crisis will continue - but perhaps delaying the publication of this book may help its success as I am not sure how much appetite there is for end of the world thinking at the moment.

A timely novel! Very apt at the moment! It describes the pressures a marriage faces in the face of adversity in this crumbling world! Addressing how impossible it is to prepare for disaster! Some funny parts! A thoroughly good read!

Imagine a world where the seas are rising and gradually reclaiming the land as the relentless rain is only relieved by soaring temperatures and parched earth in the brief summer months. Or alternatively, don’t imagine. After all, the world described, incrementally year-on-year, resembles our own and (jumping forwards a decade or so) this is the world Carys Bray writes about in her novel.

Not inclined to futuristic tales myself, I was delighted to find that, whilst the world portrayed is several steps further towards doom, family life, religion, marriage, mental health, fear and love remain true to the present- in a ‘the world may be transforming around us but we essentially remain the same’ sort of way. Truly prescient in these dark days of lock down with people thrown together; out of work and faced with an uncertain future, ‘When the lights go out’ is an arresting, if unsettling, read.

At the centre of the novel, Chris and Emma struggle to come to grips with global warming and dismal future forecast. Out of work, Chris’ mind is in overdrive: preparing for loss of daily ‘luxuries’ like heat, electricity, food, medicine etc. Meanwhile Emma quietly attempts to manage the everyday; concerning herself with managing the controllable aspects of their lives as well as her husband’s declining mental health and their faltering marriage: “Emma stopped eating meat a few years ago, when she first attempted to restrict her worries about the world to things only she could address. She couldn’t unbirth the children, unearth the disposable nappies or unplumb the white goods.” As Bray observes; “Emma is trying to make things better. Chris is preparing for the worst. Between them, she once thought, they might just have it covered.”

As ever, Bray rights with a lightness of touch and endearing humour that strikes a truly believable chord. I found I could sympathise with both Chris and Emma-though HER frustration was most visceral. The individual personalities of their two boys and Chris’ mother, Janet (who is forced to come and stay; “How needy she felt as she spoke; she who had always approached illness like a spider in the corner of a ceiling: ignore it, and it will go away) are similarly well-rounded.
Ultimately though, it is Bray’s skilful use of language and symbolism used to invoke the dismal prospect of endless months of dark skies and drizzly days which is most powerful:
* “Chris drove into town, where oily buses, full to the gills, crawled through puddles, and shoals of pedestrians dived in and out of shops.”
* “The forecasters don’t seem to care about climate, though. They’re too busy outdoing themselves with descriptions : the rain is coming in spates, volleys and torrents; it is falling at a rate of spits and spots, dries and drabs, and cats and dogs.”
* “A bleary bank of cloud lies beached on the building tops, its misty tendrils leaching salt and brine.”

Meanwhile, Bray gives us plenty to focus upon. Equally well-researched in her biblical and ecological references, often her reflections reach off the page and insist we consider our own contributions; “ It is helpful to remember that each moment arrives on the crest of everything that happened before”

My thanks to the author, publisher and netgalley for sharing an advanced copy with me in return for my honest opinion.

So well written that the family just come alive, as does the relentless rain. I despaired for Chris and felt for Emma and they tried to hold the family together, each in a completely different way. Frustrating and times and the never ending rain made it very gloomy at times - not helpful in this time of lockdown!

This book is quite interesting and very timely following the recent storms and floods and the current lock down situation with COVID 19. The story itself is very slow paced and I found myself drifting off at times.

Emma and Chris have two lovely, boisterous boys and have weathered the storms of redundancy, bereavemnet and disappointment. This is a story of two pople who try to find themselves in their ever changing life.

This book tells the story of a troubled marriage, in the context of global warming and rising sea levels. The weather is grindingly rubbish, there's a constant threat of floods, everything is falling apart. Emma Abrams copes by attending to small things - upcycling old fabric, cooking. Her husband, Chris, is prepping for survival.

It's interesting to watch these two viewpoints come together. There's a lack of understanding, a failure to communicate, that leads this marriage to the brink of disaster.

It left lots of questions. How do we cope with this? Do we become an Emma or a Chris? How do we find a place to stand.

There's a great cast of characters. Chris is flawed, desperate, believable. Emma is all of us, overwhelmed, trying to keep going. Chris's wider family - his mum and his sister - are eccentric, strong characters. Well worth a read. Thank you, NetGalley, for letting me read this one.

This book has to be one of my favourite reads this year so far. I've enjoyed all of Carys Brays books but When The Lights go Out is definitely my favourite. This story is so topical and the characters so real I feel like I know them. You can see Chris' decline into despair and the effects it's having on his marriage to Emma, his wife. She is doing her bit but she feels as though she's being dragged down too. Then the ending, oh my, I didn't see that coming. This book made me feel every emotion, I would give it more stars if I could.

I highly recommend this book.

Thank you NetGalley and the author for the opportunity to read this amazing book.

A very interesting book about married life and living with mental health issues. This book deals with real relationships and modern day issues. A really good read, opens your eyes to the issues couples can have in this modern world.

A tale for our times, this tackles the impact of climate change on one family as Chris single handedly prepares for an apocalypse, putting his family relationships into peril, as his decisions veer from the reasoned and rational toward the slightly unhinged ( despite the severity of the provocation!) The writing is fabulous, and I found myself dragged along and entangled with the emotions of the story.
Another great read from Carys Bray. Highly recommended, though it might heighten your emotions too. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to Random House UK and NetGalley for an early copy of When the Lights Go Out.

When the Lights Go Out follows Emma and Chris (a married couple) and their sons whilst Chris prepares for an end of days style climate crash and Emma tries to hold the family together. Religion is discussed interestingly through Chris' parents (namely his mother) and Emma's history of protesting work well with the subject matter.

I did really enjoy the correlation between Emma and Chris' relationship and climate change, I thought this was cleverly done but feel that by the end Bray was really making sure you understood this mirroring (would have perhaps been nicer to have a more subtle approach).

This was my first time reading anything by Carys Bray and it is clear from this book that she is a very good writer, her writing is what kept me going with this book. Unfortunately the plot did not hold me and I really had to push through to finish this.

3/5

My goodness, but Carys Bray can write about rain! I could feel the floods rising around me as I read, helped out by the remnants of Storm Dennis outside. This would be an immersive read without the real time weather effects, though, the background of climate change anxiety framing the rapidly widening faultlines in Chris and Emma's marriage. The spiralling crises - personal and global - were so convincing that I did wonder how on earth the ending could be managed. It is, though, in a way that is both convincing and satisfying. A really beautiful read, highly recommended.

Was there a more perfect time to review this book just as storm Ciara hit the UK and images of flooded Britain filled my phone screen?

Yet if you believe this book is only about climate change, in my opinion, you are mistaken. For me, it's much more. Fundamentally, it's about relationships and one thing that Cary Bray writes exceptionally well about is relationships, especially when they break down.

Cracks appear very early on in this book when Emma finds out that her husband is standing at a traffic island with signs highlighting climate issues. Chris only wants to protect his family from what he perceives as the floods and catastrophes that are definitely coming. However, his fears become obsessions and these tip over causing consequences he never anticipated.

The book is set at Christmas which heightens the emotions and the conflict of different family members being thrown together to make the best of things. I particularly liked Dylan and how he managed the interpersonal family relationships.

I found it melancholic and the odd sentence or two pushed me over the edge into tears.

Overall, I think the book is beautifully written and with a sense of hope that prevails at the end.

Having been very impressed a few years ago by Carys Bray’s novel ‘The Museum of You’, I came to this latest one with high expectations and was not disappointed. This story focuses mostly (but by no means entirely, there are many more issues tucked in) on a man struggling to find any joy in his life, fretting about the threat to mankind’s existence and his inability to do anything meaningful about it. We see the effect his increasingly desperate behaviour has on his wife and children, coming to a head on Christmas Eve.

The book is more upbeat than that synopsis would suggest. I already knew Carys Bray to be a superb creator of characters and family dynamics, and her perception and wit are displayed to full effect here. She persuaded me to feel sympathy for everyone involved, even the irritating Rob, though my heart still belonged to Emma.

Wholeheartedly recommended.

I was transfixed by this book and the author's ability to explore interpersonal relationships in such a real, affecting way. This book captures the mundanity of everyday life simply but effectively. There are gripes and grievances amongst spouses and siblings and parents, internal conflicts but tender moments too. Throughout everything a reader is moved by the characters, surprised by them but also able to relate and empathise which takes real talent. I could even understand the life altering paranoia that husband Chris suffers through- with constant barrages of news at our fingertips we all at some point suffer from a degree of climate anxiety. My first read from this author but so enjoyable it won't be the last.