Cover Image: The Island Home

The Island Home

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Lorna has led a small but safe life since she fled her childhood home on the Isle of Kip over twenty years ago. But now she, and daughter Ella, must return to the Island leaving behind the anonymity of London for the place where everyone knows her history…or at least they think they do.
 
Alice may live on a tiny island, but her life is full. Surrounded by a wonderful community and nature at its most glorious. But with the arrival or Lorna, her husbands estranged sister, their family might finally be able to mend itself…and maybe the island too.
 
Is it possible to start over when you return to where it all began?
 
 
I should start by saying this is the first novel I have read by Libby Page, but it certainly won’t be the last. I was pleased to find similarities in her writing style to some of my favourite storytellers, such as Heidi Swain and Sarah Morgan. Like those, her prose was filled not only with charming characters but also delightful descriptions that had me daydreaming of hopping aboard a ferry and heading for the Hebrides!
 
Told from two POV; that of Lorna who dislikes the island and Alice who loves it. Both were endearing protagonists in their own, but very different, ways. I think this was an effective method for this story as it clearly portrayed how a person’s memories and experiences can create their perspective of something, in this case a place.
 
Whilst this novel is an easy and wholesome read, Page has woven some darker themes such as alcoholism, child abuse and terminal illness into the narrative. These matters were dealt with tact and apt gravitas, without the overall feel-good factor of the book being lost.
 
I thoroughly enjoyed my first foray into Page’s work and being swept up in this pleasingly predictable plot-line for a few days. A sweet story of forging friendships, repairing family ties and finding home - not just in a place, but in people.

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I really enjoyed reading The Island Home. It took me a little while to get in to it but it is a lovely, heartwarming story about family, forgiveness, love and community.
You really get a feel for how close everyone is in the community on the Isle of Kip. It’s told from Alice and Lornas point of view and it’s interesting to see the situation through Alice’s eyes. I think all of the characters are great in this book and I love how the bond between the family grows as time goes on.
I would really have liked to have read more from Jack’s point of view as it was sad but good to see him finally realise that some of his memories and the things he was told by his parents weren’t true.
This wasn’t a book that completely blew me away but I loved the plot and found the more I read it the more I wanted to keep reading.

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I loved The Lido and The 24-Hour Cafe, and The Island Home has all the warmth of both.
Libby Page does character really well and even though she introduces her reader to a fair few, you get to know them really quickly and enjoy spending time with them. Her setting of the Scottish Island feels like a character in itself.

The Island Home is a hug of a book with beautiful descriptions of the island and an uplifting and moving storyline.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orion for the opportunity to read this early copy.

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Lorna's world is small but safe. She loves her daughter, and the two of them is all that matters. But after nearly twenty years, she and Ella are suddenly leaving London for the Isle of Kip, the tiny remote Scottish island where Lorna grew up. Alice's world is tiny but full. So with two decades, hundreds of miles and a lifetime's worth of secrets between Lorna and the island, can coming home mean starting again?

This book was wholesome and heartbreaking in equal measure! The author manages to find the right balance of being a book that can hug you one moment and then slap you with reality the next. There are parts of this book that are difficult to read, subject wise, but it almost feels like you need to suffer the bad to truly appreciate the good.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

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CW: Domestic abuse, child abuse/neglect, miscarriage, cancer, runaways

The Island Home is the first of Libby Page’s books that I have read, and while it was a quick read, there are a number of things about it that just missed the mark for me.

This novel tells the story of Lorna and Jack, two siblings long separated who meet again for their parents’ funeral. The book is separated into two narrators: Lorna, and Jack’s wife, Alice. Sadly, both are in first-person and neither voice is distinctive enough to separate them. I really struggled with who was narrating at times, because they sound so similar.

Equally, I felt very ambushed by the amount of characters, their names, descriptions, and relationships, at the start of the novel. There’s simply too many and too much information is dumped onto the reader, especially during the opening scenes on the Island of Kip. I felt drained by the amount of information and two-dimensional characters, and often didn’t really click as to who was who, given I felt that most of them were interchangeable.

I did like the island setting once Lorna and her daughter Ella arrived on Kip, and started to explore — Lorna to re-discover her childhood home, and Ella to discover it for the first time. There were moments when I wanted more from the setting, however, and couldn’t help but draw comparisons to Anita Shreve’s masterful Body Surfing (which I vastly prefer).

There was a lot of repetitive language and also some turns of phrase that I didn’t appreciate — for instance, the “chubby coffee-coloured cheeks” of one of the babies. BIPOC ask writers not to compare their skin tones to food, because it reinforces the idea of Black and Brown bodies being a commodity, equal to food, and yet here we have it used again. I also noticed a few editorial errors, such as when Alice says of Lorna, “I turn and lead this anxious stranger, my husband’s brother and my daughter’s aunt, into my home.” — this should surely be “my husband’s sister”?! I can’t believe that wasn’t caught in proofing.

Overall I felt that this novel was very contrived and predictable, even given the content warnings I’ve given above, and I didn’t feel that some of the heavier subject matter was handled that well. The plot itself didn’t seem to have much charge and you could see the ending from a mile away, which is a shame because I really liked the premise of this book, but sadly it didn’t live up to the hype.

I received an e-ARC from the publisher, Orion, through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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I loved the 24-hour Cafe book by Libby Page and I was pleased to receive an early preview copy of this book to review.
Lorna is returning home to the Isle of Kip, a tiny Scottish Island for the first time in years. She left in a hurry, not telling anyone the reason for this. When she returns she has to face up to her past and try to reunite with her family.
I always love to read books set in Scotland, it is a favourite location of mine. The Island of Kip is a good setting for this book.
There are a lot of characters in this book,but it was easy to follow. This book focuses on forgiveness and hope from the community and friendships.. It is heart-warming and poignant in places but also happy feel-good read. I really enjoyed reading it.
Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for my ARC.

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A lovely, feelgood story set on a remote but beautiful Scottish island. An easy read, and good escapism for an afternoon of armchair travel.

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My thanks go to NetGalley for an eARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

It is hard to know where to start with this novel's faults. But if they are all added together the net result is this: it is stupefyingly boring. I cannot remember the last time I read a novel where from less than a third in I could see exactly where it was headed but was almost crying from the effort that it took to get to the end.

Firstly, there is too much going on, of which little is dealt with very well. The primary plot concerns an abusive childhood, but this is watered down by other faffing around with a romance, a character with cancer, the disappearance of two teenagers and myriad other bits and pieces. Someone should have told Libby Page to pick a side and stay there.

Its second fault is that there are too many characters. There are endless passages where every Tom, Dick and Harry from the island turns up for some shindig and another, or a yoga class (yes one of the characters is a yoga teacher, of course they are...), and they all get a little turn, including a dog and a baby. It is exhausting and totally unnecessary. I didn't care about the main characters; I cared about Uncle Tom Cobley and all even less.

As the novel ground on, the catastrophic structure of the novel was laid bare. Page chooses to have alternate chapters told from the first-person viewpoints of Lorna and then her sister-in-law Alice. This is such a failure that I cannot believe that the novel's editor didn't insist that this changed to third-person. The two women's voices are identical and the characters so unrelentingly tedious that as the novel dragged its carcass further onwards I had to keep checking who was speaking.

And, dear lord, the emotion. This novel is awash with tears (used 82 times), misty eyes (used 216 times. Yes, eyes are mentioned 216 times, that's not a typo) and if I never hear about someone hugging (76 times) someone else for the rest of my life it will be too soon.

The style of this novel is that of a creative writing assignment two-finger typed for a GCSE. There are tick-list descriptions every time we meet yet another new character (softy curling hair, twinkling eyes, blue jumper blah, blah, blah). In a similar vein there is a lot of telling here, and very little showing. A clunky metaphor about an estranged brother and sister re-building a drystone wall has the tiny amount of life it might have strangled out of it with a cack-handed explanation. Trust your readers; some of them have an IQ that gets into triple figures.

Libby Page on social media seems like a very nice person, but I am sorry I cannot write a good review of this novel. I am astonished that books like this even get past an agent, leave alone get into the hands of an editor.

Having said this I do not entirely resent the length of time that it took me to read this clunker. I have now come to the realisation that I need to stop wasting my time reading novels like this, the only thing I get out of them is the start of a stomach ulcer.

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I loved both of Libby’s previous novels, The Lido and The 24 hour cafe, and was hoping for another great read. I have not been disappointed. This title has gone on my ‘Best reads of 2021’ list and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
The characters and the Island of Kip are so we’ll described that you wish you were there with your new friends.
Libby Page draws you gently into a world of everyday life with its associated problems and celebrations.. She makes you question your own lifestyle and describes events with such poignancy that I advise tissues at the ready.
Even when I wasn’t reading the book I found myself thinking about the characters and what they would be doing next.
Thank you for a wonderful read.

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I've just finished reading The Island Home and I've already bought other 2 of Libby Page's books. That's how much I liked it.
Winning point of this book are the characters and their relationships, in addition to the wonderful landscape descriptions.
I felt a kind of connection to Lorna's character and could really feel her emotions, especially those connected her "little brother".
Beautiful read!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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Lorna and her daughter Ella are leaving London for the tiny, remote Scottish Island of Kip, an island Lorna left in a hurry at the age of 18 and to which she did not believe she would ever return.

Can coming home mean starting again?

I went into this book with very high expectations having loved Libby Page's earlier novels.

Well.....

I was not disappointed! The characters are beautifully written and their personalities, flaws and all, draw you in to the story and really make you root for them.

And oh, the descriptions of the Island. Anyone else packing up and moving as soon as they can?

I would most definitely recommend this book!

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A gentle story, perfect for reading on a rainy day. A familiar tale of misunderstandings affecting relationships with a predictable conclusion, but nevertheless a very enjoyable read.

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I loved The Lido for its gentle and uplifting story and I loved The Island Home for the same reasons.
This is the story of Lorna, a single Mum of Ella, living in London and Alice living on the Scottish Island of Kip with Lorna’s brother, Jack, and their daughter, Molly. Lorna has been estranged from her family after running away, but following her parents death she is making her journey home.
What an absolutely lovely read! This is a story that you will feel a part of; a book that you will surrender to. The characters are beautifully drawn, particularly the main females but also Jack who is complex, brooding, unforgiving..There is an extraordinary sense of place. I totally fell in love with Kip, its little beaches, the lighthouse, the salty sea, the ferry providing the vital archery to the mainland. There is such a strong sense of community, about how it feels to be an ‘islander’, about what it takes for that community to work and how easily that community is threatened. The story is carefully paced, switching between the narratives of Alice and Lorna and then in the middle of the story the girls go missing and I couldn’t put my book down…There are some beautifully observed relationships - the unfolding romance between the rather lovely Malachy and Lorna (and you are so rooting for this one to work), between Alice and Jack, between the two girls and between the women and their friend Jean who has a cancer diagnosis and a secret. This is a community which I yearned to be a part of - I would happily pack my bags today and move to Kip.
A gorgeous and uplifting story with a wonderful Island at its heart.
Thank you to Netgalley and to Orion for a copy of this lovely book.

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I was delighted when I was accepted on Netgalley to read this, and then was asked to be on the blog tour. I’ve not read any of Libby’s work before but this one has been on my radar for a while. Thank you to Orion Books for my physical copy and e-arc.

So this book was just so good. I devoured it over a few days, reading pretty much the second half in one go. The book is old from two peoples perspectives: Lorna and Alice. Lorna and her daughter Ella live in London, they don’t have many friends, and no family so to speak. Lornas family all live on the Isle of Kip, and they haven’t spoken in around 20 years since she left. But a bereavement takes her and Ella to Kip for a trip and a funeral. Things are tense as she meets her brother again for the first time in years, meets his wife Alice and their daughter Molly for the first time ever.

The island sounded amazing. It makes me want to pack up and move to a little island myself! The way Libby describes it made it so easy to picture in our mind while reading. The interchanging weather, they sound of the sea, the smell of the salty air. It just sounded beautiful. And the community there, they’re all so friendly, they all know each other and help out with whatever needs to be done! It just sounds ideal doesn’t it.

I loved both of the main characters, Lorna and Alice are so different, but fit together so well. Alice seems very sweet and eager to help out anyone, Lorna sounded quite level headed and knew when to make herself heard. I liked Jack, Lornas brother and Alices husband. The relationship between the siblings was strained, and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen with them, but there were little things throughout that showed the ways they did love each other, memories from being younger.

The book does go into detail of why Lorna left and never kept in touch with anyone, and I wasn’t what I was expecting at all. I will say no more as to not spoil it!

I loved this book, I do hope Libby writes. Sequel as I’d love to know what happens next and how the lives of both families move on.

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I was so happy to get a copy of this book to review, having loved The Lido (haven’t got to The 24-hour Cafe yet - it’s now on my list!), I knew I’d love it & it surpassed my expectations! I laughed, I cried, I fell in love with the characters and the island of Kip, and I was absolutely gutted at the end, I wanted to stay with them and find out what they would all be up to next. I can’t recommend this book highly enough, it stayed with me afterwards and I could have happily gone back to the beginning and started it all over again straight away, which is definitely a good sign!

Thank you to NetGalley and Orion for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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Although I’ve heard really lovely things about Libby Page’s books, her upcoming release was my first foray into her work. However, I can’t wait to devour her others now!

Lorna is returning to Kip, the Scottish island she grew up on, after over 20 years away from it. With her daughter Ella, she is making the journey back and she’s nervous about meeting her brother Jack and the rest of the islanders again. Alice loves her life on Kip, teaching yoga and being a part of the wonderful community but it’s far from stable now. Could Lorna’s arrival shake things up or go some way to paving over the cracks of the past?

Kip is a little paradise. Libby Page describes it so vividly that I couldn’t help but be thoroughly transported. I’ve never been fortunate to visit the remote Scottish islands but Kip is exactly how I’ve always pictured these little gems of natural beauty in the middle of the sea. When I finished the book, I wanted nothing more than to just go back there.

Although she is from the mainland, Alice has fully integrated herself into the island community. I love stories about small communities, particularly full of women, who come together and offer unwavering loyalty and support. I feel like I got to know each and every one of their eccentricities and grew to love them all individually, exactly like Alice does. They became my friends too and I was genuinely so sad to leave them at the end of the book.

When Lorna left Kip as a teenager, she left behind much more than her family, friends and community. Much of Lorna’s arc is about her rediscovering the good things that she left all those years ago. One of those things is her true passion -her art. She perhaps wouldn’t have found this again without the help of the handsome handyman, Mallachy. Lorna and Mallachy naturally gravitate towards each other and he quite literally fills her life with colour again. My heart lifted as I watched their relationship develop and I couldn’t get enough of seeing them spend time together.

As well as reconnecting with Jack and making new connections with Alice, Molly and the islanders, Lorna also reconnects with her childhood best friend Sarah. At first, I was worried that this relationship wouldn’t be able to be saved but there is something about the magic of Kip that caused it to heal. Lorna and Sarah have so much history and it was really lovely to see how that translated into a solid adult friendship. There’s a lot of hope in the book and that might be what gives the whole narrative a wonderful warm glow.

Jack and Alice’s marriage is truly beautiful and I felt so privileged to witness all the little things that keep their spark alive. When Lorna and Ella first arrive on the island, Jack is full of hurt and anger about Lorna’s sudden departure when he was just a young teenager. This was clearly spilling over into his natural demeanour and Alice has always been able to sense that her husband had trust issues and a world of pain inside him. Alice is wise enough to know that patching things up with his sister will lift that weight and this is what leads her to orchestrate the conversations that Lorna and Jack need to have. She could so easily have come across as interfering and a busybody but Alice is nothing but kindness and light. Libby Page does an amazing job of writing genuinely caring and smart women. The abundance of them in The Island Home was definitely one of my favourite aspects of the book.

Lorna fled from an abusive relationship with her parents, which Jack seems to have failed to see for much of his life. Lorna has felt gaslit, worthless and a burden for most of her life because of the way her parents behaved and tried to control her. Delving into Lorna’s past is perhaps the darkest part of this book and I loved how sensitively and honestly it dealt with the subject of a toxic parent-child relationship. It reminded me that we can’t always take what a person presents on the surface at face value. We always need to look for subtle signs of sadness or pain, especially in children or vulnerable people, because the truth won’t always be obvious to an outsider or actually even those who are very close to the people involved.

There are a lot of hopeful philosophical ideas embedded in the book too. The characters deal with grief, heartache, forgiveness and fear and it really is the light and warmth from the island and each other that gets them through it. Just like the story itself, life is full of both light and shade and you can’t really appreciate the good without having to go through the bad. Having this reminder in tough times can be a huge source of hope and strength.

The Island Home is a beautiful story about the complex but resilent nature of family relationships and lifelong friendships. It’s about rediscovering the joys that you’d forgotten, acceptance of the past, celebrating simple lives full of love and realising where you truly belong. I couldn’t stop smiling when I finished it and I know I’ll be thinking about these characters for a while. The perfect, feel-good summer story of the magic of community and love of every kind.

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Really enjoyed this book. Good storyline on relationships, family and healing. Loved the characters especially Lorna and what island community life is like. The setting was lovely and good descriptions. A story full of hope, warmth and finding your place in the world. Would definitely recommend.


The overview:
Lorna's world is small but safe.

She loves her daughter, and the two of them is all that matters. But after nearly twenty years, she and Ella are suddenly leaving London for the Isle of Kip, the tiny remote Scottish island where Lorna grew up.

Alice's world is tiny but full.

She loves the community on Kip, her yoga classes drawing women across the tiny island together. Now Lorna's arrival might help their family finally mend itself - even if forgiveness means returning to the past...

So with two decades, hundreds of miles and a lifetime's worth of secrets between Lorna and the island, can coming home mean starting again?


Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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Lorna Irvine grew up on the small remote island of Kip. When she was 18 she ran away to London and never returned.
She has brought up her daughter, Ella single-handedly and trained as a teacher. Now Ella has connected with her cousin Molly, the daughter of the younger brother Lorna left behind. Ella is desperate to meet the family she has never seen, particularly as she and her.mother have such a small social circle jn the capital.
Lorna is reluctant to return to the island, scared of how she will be received by her brother Jack and his wife Alice but also about the reaction of the older islanders who were friends of her parents.
Libby Page writes relationships so well. I really felt the tension between Lorna and Jack and understood her desire to protect herself from the hurt she fears from the people who stayed on Kip. Will Sarah, the best friend who helped her to escape welcome her or will she reject Lorna?
I thoroughly enjoyed The Island Home. It is a heart warming story of a small community and Lorna's struggle to come to terms with the things that made her run away and turn her back on her family and her struggle to reconnect with them.

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Home is where the heart is, as the saying goes and when we first meet single mother Lorna Irvine and her 13 year old daughter Ella they are embarking on a long journey north to Lorna’s childhood home, the remote Scottish island of Kip. Leaving their flat on the Isle of Dogs and city life behind this isn’t a happy homecoming for deputy head teacher Lorna. Estranged from her brother Jack, Lorna hasn’t set foot on this island for over twenty years, her difficult decision to leave the result of a painful childhood where escape seemed like the only viable option. But now circumstances force her to return and having never met Jack’s wife Alice nor her 14 year old niece Molly now is the time for Lorna to reconnect with her past, her family and maybe rediscover the joys that small island community life can bring. Unsure of the welcome she will receive, not only from her brother and his family but from former friends, will Lorna find the vital missing piece of her heart that will finally make her whole again or will she run straight back to the sanctuary of her insular city life? Libby Page weaves magic into her storytelling, designed to entrance and captivate her readers, spinning a tale in which forgiveness, reconciliation, love, friendship, family and a sense of community take precedence over anything else.

There’s a wholesomeness to Libby Page’s writing that is both appealing and comforting. Her sense of place is outstanding and I love it when a setting is equally as important as the book’s characters. The minute Lorna and Ella step ashore the author sweeps you away with her vision of this island’s natural beauty. I could smell the salty sea air, feel the wind whipping all around and hear the cry of the gulls as I pictured myself enjoying an afternoon seal spotting or puffin watching. The furthest north I’ve travelled is Inverness in the Scottish highlands but the island of Kip evokes wonderful memories of walks around Findhorn Bay embracing the clean air and actually spotting a seal or two!! I half expected Ben Fogle to make an appearance before remembering that Libby Page is idolising this remote way of life, skimming over the harsher realities of desolate winter months, cut off from the mainland but for the purposes of fiction the island of Kip felt like my dream escape.

This island may be small but my goodness it has a huge heart thanks to the (mostly) wonderful characters who inhabit its shores. Alice, Jack’s wife is automatically super friendly towards Lorna and her daughter Ella, acting as an obvious go between in an attempt to reconcile brother and sister. As the island’s resident yoga teacher she’s well placed to introduce Lorna to her many friends in this tight knit community, some of whom are already familiar to Lorna, such as headmistress Jean and once upon a time best friend Sarah. Ella, unlike her mother who’s taking her time to shrug off visions of her unhappy past, takes to island life like a duck to water embracing the outdoor life with gusto alongside Molly and Olive. All these characters exhibit a kindness and warmth and generosity of spirit accepting these newcomers into their fold without hesitation. From Brenda with her new pup Puff, to Kerstin, Emma, Morag, Tess and Joy and architect/artist Mallachy you’ll find yourself in great company with the author capturing all the highs and lows that accompany lives led within such close proximity to one another.

Despite the resentment and tension that bubbles away between Lorna and Jack, threatening to mar an otherwise idyllic escape from her everyday life, it is one of the few dark clouds on the horizon in this sunny, positive, life affirming storyline. Years of absence have done nothing to distill memories of her childhood years denoted by fear and cruelty but anger, hurt and sadness gradually give way to fonder memories,sealing over the rift in the Irvine family. No man (or woman) is an island as Lorna soon comes to realise. She’s restricted her and Ella’s life to as small as it can possibly be, existing in their own bubble of safety with few people permitted to cross its threshold. Opening her heart and mind to the possibilities of new beginnings, friendships and maybe even love Lorna’s homecoming is like witnessing a rainbow lighting up the sky after a deluge of rain. Reading this novel gave me the greatest of pleasure, connecting me to the outside world in a way only books can accomplish.

I will be recommending The Island Home to anyone who cares to listen! Acting as a soothing balm for the troubled soul, the healing properties of this uplifting, joyous novel are second to none. I can only imagine the stampede of tourists flocking to any far flung Scottish island after reading this book as I myself was mentally planning my own getaway although I’d stop short of immersing myself in the icy cold waters of the Atlantic! See you on the next ferry!

My thanks as always to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read in exchange for an honest review.

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This Book Tells the Story of Lorna who lives in London and has a Teenager daughter Called Ella, its’ just the two of them against the world one day Lorna gets a call to say that she needs to return to the Tiny Remote Scottish Island , The Isle of Kip where Lorna Grew up and left nearly 20 years ago.

Alice lives on the Island of Kip and is Also Lorna Sister In law but has Never met Lorna in Person due to Lorna Leaving the Island of Kip Mysteriously nearly 20 years years ago.

This Book touches on the subject of why Lorna Left so Suddenly , why she hasn’t returned in so long and why her relationship with her Brother Jack is so Damaged due to Lorna Leaving suddenly .

This Book also touches on its not too late to fix things and have fun ,

You will go from crying to laughing reading this book .

Without giving any spoilers away what we learn from this book is why Lorna Left, and about building relationships again will the community and her Brother and sister In Law and Niece

I absolutely loved this book and have already preordered a copy from my local independent bookshop and would recommend everyone reads it.

With thanks to Netgalley & Orion Books for the Arc of this book in exchange for this honest review.

5 out of 5 Stars

Out on 24th June 2021.

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