Cover Image: Homecoming

Homecoming

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I absolutely adored Nightingale point so when I saw this on Net Galley I knew I wanted it! Let me start by saying I really enjoyed this book. I have seen a few reviews now that say its not as good as Nightingale Point and I don't think that's fair, this is a different type of story from Luan and so cannot be compared.

The story is told in dual narrative between Yvonne, the adult who knows the full history of what happened and Kiama, a young man who is trying to come to terms with what happened to him as a child. It also flicks between the past and present. I really enjoyed this character case study of Yvonne and Kiama. I started off really feeling for Yvonne's character and the cruel twist of fate she was dealt but as the book progressed I began to feel that she was a rather selfish where as I loved Kiama more with every page!

I felt the build up was brilliant but the actual event was a bit lacking, I wanted more about how Kiama felt and reacted and how the other characters reacted, especially Emma's parents. Overall another great book from this author and look forward to seeing where she takes us next.

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I'm going to struggle with this review because having finally finished Homecoming by Luan Goldie I feel bewildered by this novel. I nearly stopped reading at several points, mostly because I found the characters and dialogue implausible, but having never abandoned an ARC from NetGalley, I was determined to finish this one.

Homecoming is described as 'a profound and moving story about love, family and friendship' and other reviewers refer to a love triangle, but I found very little love between the characters, even when the author states explicitly that they love each other. Why were Emma and Yvonne best friends? They only seemed to irritate each other. Every single night out depicted ends in one of them stropping off or ruining it for the other. Their dialogue is peppered with barbs and passive aggression. And as the tenuous love triangle (not really a love triangle given that one of the corners refers to another corner as Dickhead throughout) unfolds, it becomes apparent that Yvonne really doesn't care about Emma at all. Or at least not in the selfless way that best friends normally care for each other.

My other growing irritation with Homecoming was with the choice of tense and perspective. I assumed the flashbacks were written in present tense to add intense, heart-stopping suspense to the heavily foreshadowed dramatic climax, but actually when that came it felt oddly pedestrian and everyday. I'm not even sure it would make the papers. Past tense would, I think, have been more effective for all of these chapters. Meanwhile the present tense and close third person perspective of the present day narrative is oddly lacking in intimacy - we never get quite inside the characters' heads. Kiama's voice in particular I felt would have worked better in first person so I could inhabit the alien mind of an eighteen year old male. The dialogue somehow didn't help - I couldn't hear him in my head. I could just about hear Yvonne but she always sounded deadpan and lacklustre, which wasn't much fun.

Finally, and I'm sorry this sounds like a litany of complaints, I've been to Kenya and the scenes set there didn't carry me back on a wave of nostalgia. I'm sure the author knows Kenya as there are some revealing details in the sparse descriptions but I feel she could have been more generous with her evocation - allowing the sights, smells, sounds etc to leap from the page rather than smother them in deadpan dialogue.

On the upside! The first chapter hooked me in and I thought was well written - the third person with Yvonne's perspective and present tense works perfectly here. And actually the final chapter was also good; I finally began to believe in the central love story. It was everything in between that I struggled with, and I really am sorry because I know how much work goes in to writing a novel. But I think some tense and perspective switches, more convincing dialogue and a bit more evocation of Kenya would have made all the difference.

I know other reviewers have really enjoyed Homecoming though, and my views are of course entirely subjective.

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This story spans the first 20 years of this century in which we are drawn into the lives of Emma and Yvonne who become inseparable whilst at University and who, unknown to each other, share the same man - l.ewis. As the women move on in life they lose touch for a few years and then it is Lewis who again is the catalyst to them getting back in touch. But Yvonne has a secret she cannot share. However, there is now a 4th character to be considered and this is Kiama. He wants to go back to Kenya where he was born and find his family. How he and Lewis fit into the backstory of Emma and Yvonne, explains much of the friction and heartbreak the women have faced in their lives. This is a novel that delves into why true friendship requires honesty and how, concealment can lead to tragedy and heartbreak. Luan Goldie creates characters that draw the reader in and to many of us, Yvonne's actions are therefore like holding up a mirror. How much would you tell a friend, and when?

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Alternating between London and Kenya the story spans the years 2001 to 2020.
An interesting plot that starts from Yvonne and Emma meeting at university and how decisions they made then have affected so many people.
The writing somewhat static and I was increasing annoyed by the scenes set in 2020 which are now out of date and out of step with social distancing, lack of flights and all the other restrictions that Covid-19 has ushered in.

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With thanks to Netgalley and HQ stories at Harper Collin for a digital copy of this book. I greatly enjoyed this novel, settling into the read right from the start. The narrative switches between the present and the past building up a story of the friendship between Emma and Yvonne which started at university. Emma and Yvonne both fall in love with the same man, Lewis. After Lewis breaks up with her, Emma finds out that she is carrying his baby and goes on to have a son, Kiama. Unbeknown to Emma, Yvonne and Lewis are in a relationship which neither feels able to tell her about. As the events in the past are interchanged with events in the present, a grown up Kiama asks Yvonne to accompany him on a trip to Kenya in order to process the events of his childhood. There is a lot to like in this book – the characters are well-drawn, the chemistry between Lewis and Yvonne is strongly evoked, and the trip to Kenya is powerfully observed. The tension builds between Kiama and Yvonne as the trip awakens memories and secrets from the past. Emma and Yvonne’s friendship is at the heart of the book and in particular an exploration of how their relationships with the same man impact on life choices and the integrity of their friendship. How you view the life choices and the reaction of other characters to these choices will affect the reader’s enjoyment of the novel. The central dilemma is very thought provoking.

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Amazing book, amazing author, amazing story!!!
We absolutely love Luan Goldie and loved Nightingale Point. This coming of age story about Kiama is such a heartwarming and poignant story.

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An interesting and engaging read, keeping you hanging on to the end re how everything went so wrong amongst these young lives. Student easy living, an unexpected pregnancy, best friends hooking up with the same guy though they didn't realise it at the time. Developing into the consequences of keeping secrets so as to not hurt someones feelings. Showing the importance of being honest from the start, rather than hiding facts that would have saved heartache, had they been told at the time. The book that I read can't have had it's final editing as there were quite a few grammatical errors.

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There’s a slight oddity in Homecoming which, of course the author couldn’t have predicted, but which jars a little, nevertheless. The novel opens in September 2020, presumably to keep it current, but unfortunately feels a little anachronistic because of course, there is no mention of the unprecedented COVID-19 outbreak. It feels a little uncharitable to mention this, but I think the reason why it immediately leapt off the page is that, in every other way, Homecoming feels very grounded in place and time.

The novel unfolds in a flash-back/ flashforward structure, both timelines getting closer and closer to an unspoken tragic event that has impacted the lives of both protagonists. It’s hard to say too much more about the plot, without spoiling it, though having said that the event it hinges on isn’t hard to predict from not very far into the book. That doesn’t necessarily detract from its impact, instead it looms on the horizon and its inevitability lends a certain urgency to the unfolding plot.

It's hard to pigeonhole exactly what type of book Homecoming is – an examination of grief, of friendship, of growing to adulthood in the early 2000s and the late 20-teens, of race, colonialism and white-saviours. Whatever it is, it’s well written and enjoyable. The dual points of view serve the plot well, especially as the two main characters spend a lot of the book hiding things from each other or not discussing how they feel, which does make their inner monologues fairly critical! A minor complaint was that I didn’t really like any of the characters very much, which often is a reflection of rounded, realistic characters, but I do tend to find it impacts on how much I care about them, and therefore how much I enjoy the book.

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Life, love and relationships covering two decades and two countries,
I enjoyed this book and related to the characters especially the teenage Kiama who was searching for answers and reliving memories. The story developed through descriptions of the present and flashbacks of the past, it was entertaining seeing how events played out and the repercussions of decisions made but the moral of the story is that honesty would definitely have been the best policy.
A book that keeps you interested to the end.

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A huge thank you for giving me an advance copy of this amazing book. I read it in two sittings - I was hooked immediately. The story was gripping, the narrative so well-written, with really clearly moulded characters. Kiami was by far my favourite character, the others I felt were trying their best but each could have done a little more. I really loved the ending too. It made me laugh, cry, feel very tense, and overall a really great 5 star read!

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I'm afraid I stopped reading half-way through. I found the writing rather commonplace, some aspects are a bit irritating (like Emma saying 'dude' all the time), and while I liked the character of Kiama, I found it hard to relate to Yvonne somehow. The romance part of it didn't really convince me. I wouldn't go as far as to say it's a bad novel, but I just wasn't hooked and have so many other books to read that I felt like I was losing my time reading a book I knew I wouldn't be impressed with, no matter what the denouement would be.

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I absolutely adored Nightingale Point so as soon as netgalley made this available to request I was there... and I am SO glad I was!

This story flips between past and present and i have to say I enjoyed the past chapters a lot more than the ‘today’ pages but I had serious soft spot for Kiama.

For me I’d have liked possibly a slightly quicker recap of the earlier pages as I felt we spent a lot of time wondering ‘why?’ but overall really enjoyable and I would recommend.

I’ll definitely be reading anything and everything Luan Goldie writes!

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Set between two countries - Kenya and England - and across two decades - up to present day - Luan Goldie's novel revolves around four main characters:

Yvonne (now in her 40s), was best friends with Emma at university and reminisces about their time together before her friend returned- with her new unplanned baby - to Kenya. The child, Kiama, is left motherless at the age of 8 when Emma dies and so comes back to England to live with his father, Lewis. Yvonne and Lewis have their own shared history which contributes to feelings of guilt and shame; these feed the veil that blurs the time around Kiama's conception and later her death. Emotions which are rekindled when Kiama decides he wants to relocate to Kenya to find out more about his mother and asks for Yvonne's help.

The relationship between Kiama and his father is heartening and believable, as is Emma and Yvonne's friendship - though we only encounter Emma in flashback form. The narrative switches between Kiama and Yvonne and between time periods too, all of which is artfully handled by the author.

Unfortunately, overall I found this a slow read. Much of the narrative felt laboured and deliberate as Goldie attempted to fine-tune each scene. Too often I experienced the desire to take out my teacher's red pen and cross out large sections of the text; to remove the explicit and leave more up to the reader. For example;
" Kiama joins the small line at the counter, he dives for his phone, not content to wait and waste the moment. Yvonne knows she's in the minority of people without such a habit, without the need for continuous entertainment."
The dialogue too is clunky and, on occasion, glaringly obvious in it's attempts to back-fill the plot or inform the reader rather than portray how the character's would naturally communicate with one another;
"But Kiama's beautiful name. You know it means-"
"Of course I know, Light of life. But most name meanings sound poetic when you look them up."

Nevertheless, my thanks to Netgally, the publisher and author for sharing an advanced copy of this book with me.

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Written across two decades and spanning two countries, the UK and Kenya, Homecoming is a moving story of love, friendship, family, deceit and betrayal. How three people are tied together in the present by one person who touched all their lives at some point in the past.

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This is the story of friendship between Emma and Yvonne who meet as students with the added interest of a love triangle with Lewis. Emma comes from a relatively wealthy background, her parents live in Kenya and enjoy a pleasant lifestyle. Shortly before she is to graduate, Emma discovers she is pregnant and gives birth to a boy who she names Kiama which means Light of Life. When Kiama is a little boy, Emma returns to Kenya but she sadly dies when Kiama is eight. He returns to the UK and goes to live with his father. Now ages eighteen he wants to return to Kenya with Yvonne’s help, he wants to find out more about his mother and her death with a view to overcoming the grief he still feels. The story is told in alternating perspectives by Yvonne and Kiama and the storyline goes from 2020 back to 2001 which works well.

I like the friendship between Yvonne and Emma which feels real and the dynamics of the love triangle is good too and the impact it has on the friendship. Kiama is a really good character, his teenage angst, mood swings, his confusion and grief about his mother is well depicted. Kiama's relationship with Lewis is lovely and a pleasure to read. Lewis and Emma are likeable characters but connecting with Yvonne proves more challenging and she is difficult to figure out. That’s not to say that’s not an interesting angle and her guilt is conveyed clearly. I like the element of mystery surrounding what happens to Emma and when that’s revealed it does come as a shock and I think more could have been made of this. The ending is good, it’s satisfying and wraps events up neatly.

However, unfortunately I find the pace to be frequently slow, there’s a lot of detail which doesn’t seem necessary, for example, some dialogue which gets in the way of more interesting developments. The sections set in Kenya lack some colour which would have added an extra dimension to Kiama’s search.

Overall, there are many positives. Friendship, love between the adults and love for a child comes across very strongly and is a feel good factor. However, a quicker pace would have made it a more enticing read for me.

With thanks to NetGalley and HQ Stories for the arc.

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A sincere thank you to the publisher, author and Netgalley for providing me with an ebook copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This is not my usual genre, I’m more into crime/thriller books and even psychological thrillers too so I am extremely pleased and grateful to them for opening up my mind to something totally different.

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Loved this. Got into all the characters from the beginning and enjoyed following their individual journeys., slightly predictable towards the end but still an enjoyable read and well written. Swaps between Uk and Kenya with ease

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I have to be honest I could not get into this book at all, I'm sorry Netgalley I gave it perhaps 5 chapters and gave up.

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I enjoyed ‘Homecoming’ byLuan Goldie but I Did feel that we should have found out earlier in the book how Emma had died as I didn’t feel as much sympathy with the characters throughout that I perhaps should have done.

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This is a tale of a complicated love triangle with Kiama - the son of two of the people - at its heart. Set in England and in Kenya the story jumps back and forward from the 1990s to the present day. Luan Goldie has done an excellent job of creating believable characters and you are swept along, curious to find out exactly what happened one tragic day in Kenya. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will definitely look for more works by this author.

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