Thorns

James Lambert is a journalist, but more importantly, a soul-torn survivor of a trip through the Hell of Bosnia during the 1990s, where he watched Katya, the woman he loved, die. Returning to England, mentally crippled, he buys a small sheep farm in a Shropshire village and tucks himself away. The irony of this decision is that he fought his father for most of his youth to avoid becoming a part of their family farm. His main companions are of course the sheep, a couple of dogs and occasionally the bartender at the local pub feeds him a meal and a bit of local gossip. He had a contract for a book on the Bosnian crisis over the last several years, with a nice hefty advance, and he would be getting to work on that - soon.

Personable and even-tempered, James by his mid-thirties has had a number of relationships with women who were for the most part still friends, but Katya, a Sarajevo widow, was the only woman he truly felt that he had loved, that he could face waking up to every day for the rest of his life. Every other woman he had been attracted to had his respect and tenderness, but marriage wasn't something he envisioned with them. And he was fairly sure that included young Kate Patterson, from neighboring Sedge Farm.

The love of Kate's life is a grey gelding named Harry that she has raised from birth and is training for dressage competition. The man her family is pressuring her to marry, Steve Sterling, heir to the county's largest holding which abuts her family's land, is a psycho. Both her father and the Sterling family are holding Harry hostage - she is not allowed to stable her horse at either of their properties until she agrees to marry Steve. She had found a place to stable him but someone got to the owner and she will have to move him again. Probably the only family in the county that knows and speaks to James, Jack Wilson and his daughter Pat, tell her of James' empty barn. When he finds out the pressure Kate in under he offers her a place for Harry - and a spare room for herself, no strings attached, if she so wishes.

What begins as a business deal quickly becomes personal, but just as they are becoming comfortable with one another James receives a letter from Katya's former in-laws and only remaining family - they have, at last, located her grave. They would like him to come back and accompany them to pay their respects. He can't refuse. Kate can't understand.

His book publisher is beginning to get strident about the long-promised manuscript. When they find out James is returning to Bosnia, they agree to grant him a little more time on the book if he will send them articles and information from the country now under United Nations protection. He can't refuse. Again, Kate can't understand.

Can this relationship result in anything but pain? And who will stop Steve Sterling, a very dangerous man who is carrying a big grudge against both James and Kate...

I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, Frances Brand, and publisher BooksGoSocial. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I read this book of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. Love the cover work~!

This story is well told, and the author has a writing style that keeps one reading, but it is definitely not your fairy tale romance..
The story itself is quite a dark one, as the main character James Lambert carries around a lot of sorrow, from his time as a reporter during the Bosnian conflict and the loss of a loved one, Katya, during the Sarajevo siege.
After James loses the love of his life in the former Yugoslavia, he decides to more back to England to a small sheep farm in the county of Shropshire in the welsh marshes, between England and Wales, a beautiful place where he can get away, write a book he's been commission to write about his time in the war, and just reflect on his life.
While here he finds his stride and loves the solitude and beauty of the area, until he meets a young woman, Kate, from a neighboring farm. Kate needs a place to board her horse and brings along with her the possibilities of a new love but also a family dispute between her parents and another wealthy land owner, who thinks he should get what he wants, which is also Kate for his sadistic son Steve, who Kate want nothing to do with, but a secret keeps the families together.
The story reads with a lot of tension, where one is always waiting for something to happen.
James is a character who is very conflicted about what he wants in his life, afraid of commitment and not able to express himself to others. Feeling the pressure from others is something he did not want to take on.
The story also has some explicit, love scenes, which I am sure some may like, but to me if takes away from a story. I would rather leave things to the imagination, as It did not endear me to the character in the way it was used.
The story goes back and forth from Bosnia to his home in England and shows use the conflicting feelings and thoughts James is going through.
I will be interested to see what this author writes next, as I do like her writing style.
I would like to thank NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for the ARC of this book.

This very difficult novel begins with a hard look at James Lambert, a war correspondent recently based in Sarajevo. He's surrounded by death, by ethnic wars, by unimaginable cruelty, by inhumanity. He yearns for a peaceful, easier life, and believes that he has found it in a small holding in the hills and valleys of Shropshire near the Welsh border. He has two dogs, he tends a few sheep. He is under contract to work on his manuscript about Bosnia, but just can't seem to find a way to get started.

One day, a young woman named Kate from a neighboring farm comes to ask if she can board her horse at his farm. He's curious. "Where have you been boarding him? Why do you have to move him?" Questions with only vague and evasive answers. She will do all the feeding and exercising and mucking out necessary for the horse. So he agrees. And with this agreement, becomes embroiled and entangled in a long-standing feud.

The writing in this novel keeps the tension and apprehension and misery and animosity and paranoia at the forefront -- the reader is constantly fearful, not knowing what might happen next. For, in this peaceful village, dwell hatred and horror, violence and cruelty and jealousy and anger, just under the surface.

We are subjected to inside information and gruesome details about the aftermath of the Bosnian skirmishes: the mass graves, the unspeakable detritus of war, the wholesale slaughter of human beings. The Shropshire events are not as overt as the murders in Sarajevo, but every bit as terrifying.

Page after page leads us to the explosive conclusion, a bombshell you won't soon forget.

I read this EARC courtesy of Net Galley and Books Go Social pub date 06/22/19