The Saint of Lost Things by Tish Delaney

Lindy Morris is in her 50s living with her Aunt Bell in a miserable bungalow on the edge of her Grandad's farm in Tyrone, Northern Ireland. The stigma of being the child of her mother's liaison with a traveller and the cruelty of her childhood has never left her. But secrets from over 30 years ago come to light and set in motion a trail of events that Lindy could never have anticipated.

Oh my, I found the start of this book grim and extremely challenging. Lindy's Grandad is a hateful character and the everyday cruelty towards the women of the family was hard to read. I'm glad I didn't give up though because the rest of the book becomes a really good story and the writing is superb throughout. Highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

The Saint of Lost Things by Tish Delaney
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Lindy Morris and auntie Bell live on the boggy outskirts of Granda Morris’s farmland in Ballyglen, County Tyrone, as far away from his farmhouse as he could put them. He and uncle Malachi built the flimsy little bungalow as cheaply as possible and filled it with furniture that was only fit for throwing out. Still, in Granda Morris’ opinion, they’re lucky to get even that sure he hates the “wimmin”.

This downtrodden pair live on their nerves, engaged in a polite war, united in hatred, resentment and misery. Why is Lindy the object of so much condemnation and punishment? We learn early on that Lindy is the unfortunate offspring of her unmarried mother and an Irish Traveler father, and for this, her grandparents cannot forgive her. But, there’s much more to this story of woe.

There was a time when Lindy managed to escape the confines of this miserable life. When she turned 18, she obtained a passport and headed to London with her best friend to work as a nursing auxiliary. Lindy expected life to be magical, filled with friends, boozy nights out, and best of all, no nosey neighbours to pass comment back to Granda. But then she ended up back in Ballyglen, and decades later, she’s still there, paying for her perceived sins.

Delaney paints the lives of these women, particularly Lindy’s, in such an evocative way that you can easily imagine you’re living that life. The Morris’s are, to put it mildly, a dysfunctional family, stuck in a time when the head of the family dictated your everyday life, keeping up appearances and the family name in good standing was paramount.

While the pace starts slow, the plot develops quickly into suspense, and hints abound that Lindy’s family story is much more complicated than we (and she) initially thought. The back and forth stories of Lindy in rural Ireland and her time as a nurse in London are evocatively developed as Lindy’s past is slowly revealed.

Despite the rather heavy, depressing storyline, there were amusing moments aplenty to lighten the gloom. The novel was beautifully constructed, exploring the complexity of family dynamics, the Troubles, societal stigmas, mental health and much more.

Delaney is an astute storyteller of considerable talent.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House UK Cornerstone, Hutchinson Heinemann, for this ARC in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

After a bleak and very slow start, I did eventually warm to this story set on a remote farm in Northern Ireland, but never fully engaged with it. Each turn of the page brought more misery and although humorous in parts, it failed to lighten the sheer bleakness of Lindy’s existence as a grown-up (now middle aged) unwanted child existing with her elderly aunt Bel and shunned by her cruel grandfather. A book I appreciated rather than enjoyed.

Almost a misery memoir but there is something compelling about the relationship between Lindy and her Aunt and the cramped lives they are forced to live. It’s hard to imagine, in the present day, that their lives are so governed by the horrible head of the family and I spent a lot of the time wishing Lindy would rebel and stand up for herself. It did have a feel of the early 1900’s not more recent times.

Lindy Morris did manage to escape her miserable life in Ballyglen with mean Granda and the shame of being a travellers daughter. But when her time in London doesn’t work out she has to come home with her tail between her legs. A no good daughter of a flighty mother who has passed on her sinful nature left to live out her days in a flimsy bungalow in the corner of Grandma’s land with only Aunty Bell her mothers twin for company. A small life of irritating routine and judgment means Lindy and Bell are kept in check and away from the excesses of Granda’s temper. Lindy finds out though that secrets can’t be kept forever and once they are out in the open they take on a life of their own.

I loved the description of the small pleasures and the annoyances as Lindy and Bell dance around each other. Lindy is a frustrating character who accepts her lot in life while I longer from her to break away from her dysfunctional family. However it’s Lindy’s flashes of feistiness that carry her through and us too as we share her pain as her life takes on a direction she didn’t expect.

This was a moving but funny book that had you invested in the unfortunate characters from the start. Really well done

This is quite a dark, gloomy story. However, it depicts an era when stigma surrounding childbirth out of wedlock and mental health issues  was the norm, so the content is naturally going to be a little depressing.

The main character, Lindy, is introduced as an unlikeable, awkward character. She is a 50 year old spinster, suffering from poor mental health and prone to self-harm and lives with her elderly aunt in a run-down, remote bungalow. The local community has written her off as a "freaky-deaky".

As the story unfolds, however,  we learn that Lindy is a victim of her background and has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The illegitimate child of a young mother from  a strict catholic background, and with an absent father who is, shock horror, a traveller, she is shunned and neglected by her family. She is also a girl, so considered worthless by her grandfather, who desperately wants a male heir to inherit his land.

The lack of love and her non-existent self confidence lead to unfortunate life choices and after a taste of freedom in London as a student nurse she ends up back at "home" again.

This is an intriging story as despite everything she has been through Lindy retains some control over her life, in her quirky, indivdual way. I was gunning for her through to the end!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book.

The Saint of Lost Things is a beautifully written story of love and loss yet Tish Delaney manages to keep us uplifted while rooting for Lindy to escape. To escape her dreary existence with a selfish spinster aunt, and from the Clinic where Lindy sometimes needs to go after an "episode". Despite her setbacks, having to return from London to dreary, pebbled dashed Northern Ireland as a young adult to suffering through the mental and physical abuse of her granite jawed grandfather that thwarted her childhood and most of her adult life. Totally un putdownable, The Saint of Lost Things is a triumph of the soul.

The Saint of All Lost Things is a beautifully written story about Lindy and her life. It is so well written I felt I was living her life rather than reading it. We live through her joy, her sadness, her fear, her anxiety.
Lindy lost her Mammy when she was young and was left in an unloving home. She dreams about running away and living on her own, making her own decisions. She finally does, but it doesn’t last very long.
The way the story is written it urges you to keep reading as you’re so invested in Lindy’s life that you need to know what happens next. I felt all of her anxieties and fears, but I also felt her excitement and happiness.
When I requested this book I was looking for a change, this book is not my typical genre to read. The book was then sent to me and I was in a different mindset. I nearly didn’t read it. I am so glad I did. If you’re looking for a story that keeps you interested, that keeps you wondering “What next?”, this is it. You will not be disappointed.

I loved everything about this book: the story (a family mystery), the writing (absolutely beautiful), the pace (both a slow burn and a page turner), the characters (mostly women, all complex and fascinating), the setting and narrative structure (present day Northern Ireland and flashbacks of 80s London). It's one of those I couldn't put down, yet made myself read as slow as possible because I didn't want it to end.

50something Lindy Morris has been resented by her family and cast aside her entire life for her unforgivable ‘flaws’: she was born out of wedlock, and the daughter of an Irish traveller. From her miserable childhood, and other events revealed later in the book, Lindy has developed both a few mental health issues and a solid sense of humour, which makes her a deliciously unreliable narrator through which Delaney explores the complexity of family dynamics, the Troubles and the weight of religion - particularly on women.

While the book starts slow, the plot quickly develops suspense and hints that Lindy’s family story is much more complicated than we (and she) initially thought. I loved the back and forth stories of Lindy in rural N. Ireland and her time as a nurse in London, loaded with clues that only become apparent as Lindy’s past is slowly revealed. Delaney has a knack for making the various settings feel incredibly familiar, whether it’s the wild beauty of the surrounding forest or the local women who call in weekly for oppressive gossip.

Despite the heavy themes and Lindy's sad past, the book never delves into sordid details - which I really appreciated as a reader who avoids heavy trauma books. Instead the story finds humour in the most unexpected moments and revolves around fully realised characters. I especially loved the complicated dynamics between Lindy and her aunt Bell; their evolving relationship is portrayed in a nuanced, really beautiful way, and without getting into spoilers the final chapters made my heart swell.

Huge thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy; I can't wait to get my own hard copy to re-read and lend to friends.

This was a slow burning and depressing read that did a really good job and showing how bleak the lives of the characters were in the book. An enjoyable read but I would have preferred a slightly faster pace.

A difficult book to review with a cast of mainly unlikeable characters. Lindy and her aunt Bell have been banished to a tiny cottage by her grandfather for whom all women are on the whole a waste of space unless of course they produce a male heir. I’m not sure I’ve met a character as ‘evil’ as Granda Morris and was initially couldn’t understand how Lindy let so much happen to her. The book deals with their everyday life but also the history of how Lindy ended up in this position. The writing and description in this book is at times beautiful especially as it deals with the small things and pleasures of life and it is not without humour to lighten an otherwise dark subject. A book about loss and grief, mothers and their children, prejudice but also friendship with a mystery at its heart. I found the start of the book rather slow especially when I really couldn’t see where the story was going but the end of the book had me captivated. Thank you NetGalley , the publisher and the author for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC in return for a honest review.

What a sad, bleak life Lindy leads in her dreary house in Donegal. As her secrets are slowly uncovered, the ripples and repercussions spread outwards to engulf her small circle of family and friends. Lindy doesn’t like herself - which is no wonder given her upbringing - and uses humour to deal with her shortcomings. This book is darkly humorous and brave, laying bare the hidden misogyny and religious tensions of Ireland in the 1980s. Strangely uplifting at the end, you are left wondering how Lindy will fare and what her future holds. I found this quite a difficult read, overall. .

I actually don't know what to say about this one.
In parts I struggled due to how slow it was.
It was also depressing, but I'm good with that.
There were times I had to go back and try figure out what EXACTLY was meant by something, and times near the beginning that I had no idea where the set up was going.
So it was never a relaxing read.
For all that, it was an interesting one.
I'm a bit torn on how much I liked it though.

Very well written story about the sad life if Lindy and her Auntie Bell who live with thei monstrous granda Morris in an old farmhouse in Tyrone. Quite a depressing read at times but does give the reader an insight into life where religion dominated every day life in the 1960's.

The book is well written and the plot is well engaging but it progresses too slow for me to focus and a bit depression to read. Otherwise, it's a very promising book.

3.5 rounded down.

In a meagre bungalow on the edge of a bog in Carnsore, West Tyrone, Northern Ireland, Aunt Bell and Lindy, who describes herself as a fully grown coward, are confined there by Granda Morris for which Bell blames Lindy. They live on their nerves, engaged in a polite war, united in hatred, resentment and misery. Granda is hateful, harsh, as mean as a snake and fast on his feet and quick with his fist for 90. Lindy plots her escape, she tried it once but that failed for a very particular reason. Why is Lindy the object of so much condemnation and punishment?

Despite the unmitigated misery of her life, the tone which Lindy uses to tell her story and that of her mother is often darkly wry and at times, genuinely funny with some wonderful turns of phase. It's full of well portrayed characters who you can picture with their pursed lip judgements. There's a good air of mystery surrounding Babs, Lindy's mother and there are huge and well concealed secrets which emerge a bit at a time. Part of the story backtracks to London in 1984 when Lindy esacpes Northern Ireland to work as a nurse and the excitement and joy of the escape contrasts sharply with the starkness of her life.

The first half is not a happy tale and you do question why Lindy and Bell put up with so much especially Lindy who is punished for things that are none of her doing although few stand up for her. The second half is much better and the pace is quicker and I really enjoy the ending.

However, it's clearly not a joyful tale and I think it feels too long and would probably have been much more powerful if shorter in length. There is absolutely no doubt though that Tish Delaney is a writer of considerable talent.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to the publishers for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

*3.5 stars*

“I had dreams once, but never for anything as extravagant as happiness. Still, Auntie Bell and me have fresh cream cakes every Saturday. They're sweet enough to take the edge off. I hope they're enough to get me through being outed as a fraud. Turns out, I'm more my missing mother's daughter than anyone first suspected”.

Lindy Morris and auntie Bell live on the outskirts of Granda Morris’s farmland in Ballyglen, Ireland, as far away from his own farmhouse as he could put them. He and uncle Malachi built the flimsy little bungalow as cheaply as possible, and filled it with nasty old furniture that was only fit to be thrown out, but Granda Morris says they’re lucky to get even that as he “hates the bloody fucking women”!

There was a time when Lindy managed to escape the confines of her miserable life, when she was training to be a nurse in London. There were friends and boozy nights out, moonlit walks beside the mighty Thames, the lights reflecting on the water, making it all look quite magical. But then she ended up back in Ballyglen, and decades later she’s still there.

Tish Delaney presents the minutiae of small lives in such an evocative way, that you can actually imagine you’re living that life. The Morris’s are a completely dysfunctional family, and this was a time (and a place) when the head of the family dictated your everyday life, particularly so for the women of the family, who weren’t allowed an opinion, they literally had no voice, and were way down in the pecking order.

I have to admit to feeling irritated by fact that Lindy returned to her life of misery and constraints, although of course this is my view looking at it from a different period in history, and coloured by the very opposite way in which I was raised myself. I have to accept the fact that this was just how it was in rural Ireland at that particular time - this was the norm. A man could be as cruel and as brutal as he wished, and no one ever questioned it! Though it’s quite a sad and depressing storyline, it did have some amusing moments to lighten the gloom, and was extremely well written.

Not a misery memoir, but it comes close, saved by a gritty humour and lots of twists. Where did humanity go wrong when the child is blamed for the sins of the parent? This is the Ireland of war and religion, of women who are saints or sinners, of small town gossip and miserable weather. The patriarchal monster who blights the lives of the ‘wimmin’ in his, is granda Morris, raging war on useless women and waiting for a male heir, which it is too late for. Lindy and her aunt are holed up together in isolated mutual discontent, looking back on loss and at the mercy of their tormentor.
I found this a compelling story, the language at once gritty but funny, the characters are a wonderful list of the typical and unexpected, as the plot takes the reader back and forth in the Lindy story. Well worth sticking with.

I found this a difficult book to review as it’s so well written, however I personally found it a bit of a depressing read and in parts it was a bit too lengthy. Just not a book for me.