I really enjoyed this author‘s first novel all The Stranding and so when this one arrived on NetGalley UK I requested it and it went straight to the top of my to be read list
This novel takes the interesting approach in looking at a large family and it satellite members over a long period of time by focusing primarily on the time they spend on their holidays. We meet members of the family on their holidays over our whopping hundred year period between the 1920s and present time.
There are lots of characters in this novel as it’s a multigenerational and I have to admit to getting a bit lost at some point a family tree might have been helpful
The scene where the two old friends meet whilst walking in the Camino Way I found unbearably poignant . How often have you thought of someone and they ring or you see them in the tube or bus this section had exactly that feeling
I think one of the things that’s the author does very well is describing pure emotions so that you as the reader feel them too
The author covers some difficult subjects within the novel, including attitudes towards legitimacy and legitimacy and how this is varied over time she does this subtly and memorably
There’s no doubt this book is likely to sell well it’s perfect summer holiday read I read it in my garden and yearned to be by the seaside
I loved the standing so much that I doubted any subsequent novel would quite stand up to it. This book is good but not to my view as good as the stranding.
I read a copy of the novel on that UK the book is published in the UK on the 3rd of July 2025 by Bonnier books UK
This review will appear on NetGalley UK , StoryGraph, Goodreads and my book blog bionicSarahSbooks.wordpress.com
It will also appear on Amazon, UK and Waterstones

Family saga and perfect summer read - a little slow for me but maybe have read too many of this genre of late. Loely prose

I read this in two sittings and enjoyed this family drama which unfolds over decades as we join them on their time away.

I loved the idea that we only really saw them on holiday and there was such a strong sense of character and the importance of family.

The development of the family over decades is really Interesting and they draw you into their stories and allow you to see their inner thoughts and feelings across multiple characters which I found engaging. I really appreciated the writing around the characters, you felt that you knew them. There are some darker themes which were dealt with very well.

The sense of time is very well done from the 1930s forward and I was immersed in this family and their lives and it gave such a sense of nostalgia as the family members took on their new adventures, yet still held some traditions.

It is a wonderful book driven by a family of characters whose lives change and developed over time which hooks you into the stor yine very quickly.
A really enjoyable read.

The Smith family are at the seaside. For young Margaret, this is her first getaway and so exciting, but it brings mixed emotions for her parents - especially her mother Elizabeth. Over the years, the Smith family grows. Each generation is altered by their own getaways as love, loss, pain, pleasure, and secrets take their toll...

Having read Sawyer's incredible last book, This Family, which takes place over a single day, I knew how beautifully she can capture the shifting dynamics within a family, particularly when it comes to the fall out when secrets are revealed.

In this gorgeous follow-up story, Sawyer ups her game by spreading out the saga of her literary family over a whopping time span from the 1920s to the 2020s, with a whole new twist on the domestic drama angle by only dropping in on them during significant family holidays and getaways in each decade. This is a really interesting way to tell their story, as you find yourself catching up on the events of intervening years solely through their interactions when they are away from home - ostensibly having a good time on the surface, but each musing on their own secrets and heartache.

As the points of view switch back and forth between the characters, starting with the small set-up of Margaret and her parents, and widening to incorporate sons, daughters, and their romantic partners down through the generations, these moments are curiously enough to tell a detailed account of their history, love stories, triumphs and tragedies. You find your heartstrings getting a good work out as they reach relationship milestones, and work through the ripples of their revelations in time. There are big waves and small, but Sawyer manages to give each of them equal power, which is very impressive.

This is one of those books that meanders and comes full circle, working its way under your skin in the process. There is a lot of sadness in these pages, especially when it comes to generational trauma, but there are also hopeful and tender moments that deeply touch your heart. Once again, Sawyer proves that she can get to the crux of knotty family dynamics, and explore the complexities of love, loss coming of age, break-ups and reconciliations with a deft touch. I loved it.

Another gorgeous book by Kate Sawyer. This follows a family over generations on their holidays, giving us snippets of their lives. The author really drew me in and the characters are human and flawed but loveable.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for a free copy in exchange for an honest review

Not a lot to say about this really. It didn’t wow or amaze me but neither did it make me unhappy to be reading it. Probably one I might class as a holiday read and as I’m on a permanent retirement holiday I suppose it was fine.

Getting Away
By Kate Sawyer

I love a book with an interesting structure and the idea to follow one family over several generations through their summer holidays is very interesting, especially as a summer read.

Sawyer maps the evolution of holidaymaking from the perspective of a British working class family, from day trips to the likes of Bognor or Skegness in the 1930s, the Butlins holiday camp of the 1960s, the costa package tours of the 70s and beyond into the more individualised holidays we seek today.

There's plenty to get nostalgic about as she also places each chapter firmly in it's own time as food and fashion change so do social norms and expectations. So much so, that at times the narrative becomes bogged down in lists that are bent into sentences, rather like those Ladybird early readers.

The family members are clearly presented and distinct, however I would have loved a family tree to refer to, because I kept mixing up Rob and Joe and forgetting who Caroline was to them, and then when their children were born, I kept mixing up Betty and Maggie. I think their stories were too narrow, too staccato to stick. An important detail might emerge midway into the new time period and I feel the author made me work to keep all the stories straight, rather like only tuning in on random days to a long running soap.

Very interesting premise, but the structure acts less as a framework and more like a cage. Entertaining as a study of the habits of the British tourist, but probably not memorable as a family saga.

Publication Date:3rd July 2025
Thanks to #Netgalley for the ARC

This book was beautifully written and reflective, but slow pacing and flat characters hold it back sadly.

I saw a review for this book in a magazine and thought it was one I’d enjoy, thanks to net galley nd the publishers for letting me have n advance copy. I did thoroughly enjoy it. It’s quite unusual in that it follows a family each decade starting in the 1939s right up to 2020s on their summer holidays or day trips to the beach. There are lots of secrets which gradually unfold . The way the author reveals the secrets is very clever and it’s really well written. I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

Kate Sawyer’s Getting Away is an elegantly written, emotionally resonant novel that explores the ups and downs and intricate layers of the English Smith family over multiple generations from the 1930s to the present day. It’s an immersive read, at once both intimate and expansive. I loved it.

Told through a series of vignettes of family holidays, it’s a novel that quietly draws you in with its lyrical prose and flawed yet sympathetic characters, all of whom feel relatable and eminently human.

It’s a challenging structure for an author to pull off, as although the timeline is sequential, the fact that it is broken up requires readers to to play catchup with each new chapter. I thought I would find this frustrating, but Sawyer managed to hold my interest throughout, each ‘holiday’ revealing a critical development in the family’s unfolding history. I also enjoyed how the format allowed for insight into the way social attitudes and expectations changed over the decades.

What truly elevated Getting Away for me, though, was its emotional authenticity. I quickly found myself invested in the characters and their often messy but ultimately redemptive journeys. Their interactions are beautifully observed and felt natural, honest and believable.

The poignancy of the ending took me surprise, bringing the story full circle and leaving me slightly teary. A richly rewarding read that will delight fans of writers like Ann Patchett and Coco Mellors.

Book Review – Getting Away
by Kate Sawyer
Getting Away is a beautiful and emotional story about four generations of one family and their holidays through the decades. Each chapter focuses on different characters and moments in time, but all are connected by the theme of “getting away” not just physically, but emotionally too. I loved how the book showed how holidays can be a time to escape, reflect, or even face truths.
Kate Sawyer’s writing is smart and moving. Even without exact dates, I always knew where we were in the timeline. She made me care deeply about the characters and their lives. There are secrets, love, loss, and family drama , everything that makes a good family saga. It did get hard to keep track of all the characters, but that’s a small thing compared to how powerful the story is.
It’s a great , thoughtful read , perfect for summer. I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time.

This book has such an original and unique premise. It follows the Smith family on their summer holiday over several decades, starting in the 1930s and ending in the present day (pre covid)
The destinations change as the family grows and changes. Love stories begin and end. The holiday locations get more lavish over time along with changes both socially and culturally.
Kate Sawyer writes realistic and believable characters that are easy to identify with. I enjoyed watching the complex family change as each chapter often focuses on a new family member and we get a different snapshot of their lives.The book leaves you to fill in the gaps between the years.

Family secrets are revealed as well as marriages, divorces, new loves, births and deaths along the way.

This is my first book by Kate Sawyer but I'm looking forward to reading her previous two novels (The Stranding and This Family) which are on my tbr.
This was an enjoyable family saga and would make a great holiday read!

I have loved Kate's previous two novels and Getting away is her best yet. I felt like I was breathing the same air as the characters. I have pre ordered my own physical copy as I can't wait to read this again.

Getting Away is a summer must read! From the 1930s to present, the story follows a family and their holidays over the years. With a wide cast of characters and spanning generations, it is an ambitious plot and I think fair to say that Kate Sawyer’s books get better and better! At first I was concerned that revisiting a family and their holidays might become repetitive but each chapter focuses on a different character or couple although the characters are usually on a break together. The only thing that stopped it being a 5 star read for me was due to the number of characters, I found myself wishing for a character list or family tree that I could refer back to potentially with their ages at first appearance in the story.

This was a very pleasing read. A word of caution though, you will require a family tree/understanding of genealogy to remember the names and relations of all the people. However, once you get your head around that - this book was entertaining and enlightening. Using family holidays as the means to show familial relationships and how they alter over the years, decades and generations coupled with the ever-changing types of family holidays - from day outs to the beach by train, to the growing market of package holidays booked on Ceefax, to the globe-trotting gap years of the grandchildren.

Indebted to the work of David Nicholls, yet Sawyer has crafted a work that is original yet familiar, comforting but challenging and by the end the reader would have developed a lump in their throat. Delicately handled with poise and guile

With each new book Kate Sawyer is climbing the ranks of my favourite authors. Getting Away was an absolute delight - similar themes to her previous, The Family, with an even larger cast of characters and spanning decades in such a clever, unique way. Getting Away recalls just the right moments in the family's lives, and I loved imagining what was happening in the gaps in time just as much as joining them on holidays. The characters were so loveable, and relatable. It was a real treat to watch the children grow up too! If you love calming stories of family tension, richly drawn observations on life, love and ageing, then I could not recommend Getting Away more highly.

oh i do just adore the premise of this book. we follow a family over generations and time for their family holidays. we are told so much of this families life and all that comes with that for this often complex set of family members. and yes, we are told of them via their holidays, wherever they go, however long they last.
holidays can be an escape. they can be a time to be together and forget the burdens or try to forget. people can stop the troubles of home or at east put them on the back burner. but what happens when they go home. life continues, so we still keep seeing the circumstances of this group lives even if we only see the results and lives and changes from the vantage point of their holidays.
i love how dates arent exactly given or how long has passed. but Kate must be one hell of a writer because i was right there every step of the way and it was perfect to follow and understand where we once again would meet our characters.
Kate writing is so smart and she made me feel close to this family and like i really knew them or at least very much wanted to get to know there stories all the more as i continued to read. i cared for them, cared about them, cared about how they were going to end up.
this family and this story touched my heart and was so pitter patter on my emotions. i will remember and cherish this book long after ive finished which i felt i did far to quickly because of how much i loved it. i wanted at points to try restrict myself to a page at a time so i could keep it with me for longer.

I really liked this book which follows 5 generations of a family through the decades by taking a snapshot of them every few years via their holidays. It starts with the family barely able to scrape together enough money for a daytrip to the beach in the 1920s and carries right on to just pre-covid and the chance to travel all around the world.

There are family secrets in each generation and although we only see these via the holiday times it is just enough to feel a connection to all of the characters and to believe in their growth and actions.

This family saga is perfect for immersing yourself in for a few hours. With an expansive cast of characters and patterns that repeat and evolve with each generation, this novel is a very satisfying look at the challenges of love, sex and children. Through this family, we see changing relationships between men and women, parents and children, and stories of love that is lost, found again, and endures.

Where other novelists have written family sagas over a whole series of novels, Sawyer deftly moves us through the years: she often uses concise and intense vignettes which are really masterful, conveying so much in so few words. It is a joy to read.

A family history of the Smith family, 4 generations - teenage pregnancies, family secrets, abusive marriages, lasting love - their history holds it all. Well written characters, easy to relate to. A really enjoyable read .