Our London Lives

Christine Dwyer Hickey's latest novel is a sweeping epic of a novel, which takes us from the 1970s through the present day. Unlike most epic novels though, Dwyer Hickey's novel is intimate in detail, telling of the loves and lives of two people, Pip and Milly, who stories intertwine and separate through the decades. Her prose is simple, yet beautifully crafted, and one is easily swept up by the narrative, and one comes to care about these characters very quickly. She recreates the periods the novel is set in very well - I could smell the 1970s pub the novel spends much time in - I could see these people and their lives. This is a very fine novel with much to recommend it, especially to readers who enjoy their romantic tales of everyday folk.

I have not read anything by her before, but on the basis of this will be checking out her back catalogue.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC.

Our London Lives - Christine Dwyer Hickey

Get to know the intricate details of Milly and Pip's love story. Will they won't they, what stops them getting together over the years, what in the background of their lives has made them what they are and how they are with each other. Both characters have their own painful traumas they are dealing with that in itself stall their relationship for the future. Get to know the London that they see over 40 years with London itself becoming one of the characters in the novel.

This was a beautifully written novel authentic to the times and the minor characters themselves Max, Dom, Trish and Mrs Oaks were wonderfully portrayed. Myself growing up during the same period of time made the novel even more plausible and believable.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and was rooting for Milly and Pip the whole time. Without giving up the ending though oh my goodness did the author have to leave it like that.

I really enjoyed this book. I was gripped by the story and the characters right from the very beginning and didn’t want to put it down. London itself becomes a character in the book and as a Londoner I really appreciated the way the author evoked the atmosphere, especially the changes over the time that story unfolds. It reminded me a little of the books of Patrick Hamilton but it is less dark, although there are certainly dark moments. The lives of the two main characters, Milly and Philip, are entirely believable and the environment in which they live - pubs, boxing clubs, run down streets - is very authentically brought to life. You can practically smell it. The minor characters are also very well drawn. At the heart of the book is a romantic love story but it’s also about the kindness of strangers which can draw unlikely people into a family of a different sort. Highly recommended.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

This is not your usual love story. If it were, I would not have liked it,
This is more of a character study of two misfits, and the city of London starting from 1979, and beyond.
The characterisation is wonderful, and plot is 3./5. The writing style is not groundbreaking, but does the job.
Everything that comes with the spirit of the city (setting, mood) and the main characters Milly and Pip’s journey in life are exquisite: 5/5. And that is enough.

This is a beautifully written novel following the fortunes of Milly and Pip, two Irish young people in London from the 1970s to the present day.
The novel is very atmospheric, The descriptions of London are so vivid I felt I was there.
A very moving story that stayed with me long after I had finished the book.
Highly recommended.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an arc. All opinions are my own.

Our London Lives tells the story of Milly and Pip, two Irish immigrants in London from the 1970s to today. The book follows their on-and-off relationship over forty years, set against a changing city.

Overall, this is a touching and memorable book, perfect for those who enjoy romantic reads with a touch of realism.

This is a beautifully written epic novel leading the reader up to the present through the 1970s. I quickly became totally rapt by the fate of the characters, Pip and Milly, and though the essence of the novel is romance, this is really a novel about a time and a place, and the relationships between people. I'd be tempted to liken this to the 'kitchen-sink' domestic dramas of the 1960s, and I'd do that as a massive compliment to Dwyer, whose narrative style, though seemingly simple, is so evocative of place and interiority of character. Highly recommended, and my grateful thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher for the ARC.

What a beautiful character driven novel, spanning four decades in the lives of two Irish immigrants, Milly and Pip. They are clearly fragile, vulnerable and slightly broken young people, whom we as readers come to care for from the opening pages .This is a book very much about deep love in its many forms, but please do not expect it to fit comfortably in the romance genre. This is a book about real life, all its warts and all - and there are some tough themes - alcoholism, adoption, child loss, sexual abuse, loneliness, alongside examining London pub life, sense of community and complex familial relationships, which are just some of the elements encompassed in this book.

London stands tall throughout, with its changing faces told with great authenticity, evoking both the eras and landscapes which are acutely drawn. We are also encouraged to consider the socio-economic impact of the gentrification of areas, and the displacement of those people whom called those areas home for pretty much all their lives.

What more can I say - except I absolutely loved every single page of this (apart from perhaps the last few pages - without giving anything away!) and you absolutely must read it.

Thank you to Net Galley for an ARC.

Beautifully told tale of Irish diaspora in London : shades of Colm Toibin and Patrick Hamilton

From the cover, the London bar setting, and the natures of the two main characters, not to mention the subtle, clear writing, and the trajectories of their stories, I found myself within the particular melancholy tugs of Patrick Hamilton’s world : Hangover Square, Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky, The Slaves of Solitude. For me, to be REMINDED of Hamilton by my own sense, rather than any publisher blurb, meant it was the quality of the writing which was doing this.

Ditto, to be reminded of Colm Toibin, and this was not just because the central characters (and indeed many others) are Irish, now relocated to London, for various reasons. Dwyer Hickey creates flawed, unique, complex, believable individuals who work their way inside the reader’s heart, and whom the reader cares deeply for, despite all their wrong turns and mistakes, just as Toibin does

This is very very far from being ‘just a romance’ though the central there and not there relationship between Milly and Pip, across 4 decades, is the point.

It is 1979, and Milly, late teens, arrives suddenly in London, alone, homeless and jobless, in circumstances which might be guessed at. This was at a time when general suspicions about Irish people were high, and it was not straightforward to get employment or to rent. Milly is looking for live in employment, and finds it, courtesy of a tip off from an Irish barman, in a Clerkenwell pub.

The clientele of the pub is varied, at all hours. Amongst the regulars are a group of often rowdy young men from a local boxing club. Amongst them is a dreamier, melancholic young Irish man, Pip, beautiful, potentially a rising star in the profession, but with his own interior darkness and secrets. What isn’t so hidden is his heavy drinking. He seems a slightly odd young man to be pursuing a professional career in boxing. His older brother, Dominic is an up-and-coming- or even already come, jazz trumpeter.

Milly, reserved, in many ways an innocent, and unsuited to the rough and tumble of bar work, spots something in Pip, some connection of pain and secrecy.

The third main character in this thoughtful, immersive book is London itself, and the particular area of its settings. Dwyer Hickey tells the story of the prevailing and changing culture and social history through the place as much as through the people living in it.

And – no spoilers, but the ending is stunning, pitch perfect

I am grateful to the publishers and NetGalley for allowing me this wonderful book as an ARC. I didn’t know this author before, but will now be exploring her back catalogue for sure

A beautifully written love story with rich multi layered characters and a vivid London setting. The prose is accomplished and the storyline is bittersweet and poignant. The chemistry between Milly and Pip feels authentic and I was fully invested in their relationship. Such tragic souls, all I wanted was them to find their happy ever after.

I was asked to review this book by NetGalley

The story is told from two characters over 40 years- both Irish living in london in the late 70s. Milly is a barmaid and Pip who is a boxer but with drink problem. Reading this London is too a character as we see the changes of London over the years.

It is dark and gritty at times, but there is a love story running through this book, it is also the kindness of strangers also.

The author writes well and this is real as you feel transported to this time.

A recommende read.

Our London Lives is told from the alternating viewpoints of two Irish immigrants who meet in a central London pub in the 1970s. Milly is a bartender at a traditional city pub, catering for a diverse clientele covering locals, city workers, and most importantly, boxers from a neighbouring club. One of those is Pip, who we first encounter as an ex-convict who has just come out of rehab, in 2017 (the novel’s ‘present day’). Pip’s story is told entirely from the vantage point of that present day, with all the retrospective mix of nostalgia and regret that comes with that sort of angle. By contrast, Milly’s narrative unfolds chronologically, in the moment, through the years from the late 1970s through to, eventually, 2017. In her story there are large leaps and gaps that aren’t immediately filled in, but the two perspectives collide in a richly satisfying (though far from conclusive) ending. 

For both characters, aspects of their past history only emerge slowly through the novel. Both, we eventually learn, have suffered at the hands of others (outside the bounds of the book) and both experience tragedies of sorts in the course of the book itself., though interestingly they take place largely in the gaps rather than the fragments of time we experience directly with them. In Milly’s case, her greatest loss is told in a heartbreaking fashion, in an early chapter which begins by seeming innocuously comic, but ends with a reveal of a trauma from which she’ll never fully recover. 

While the personal tragedies and the will they / won’t they romance between the two central characters are the novel’s emotional heart, there’s also a lot more going on around the edges. As befits a novel with a grand historical sweep of this nature, real-world events are touched on. The thread throughout is of the decline of the version of London in which we first meet Milly, one in which communities still thrive and everyone seems to know everyone else, as developers slowly encroach, initially with a degree of optimism (alongside the evident greed) but one which is firmly shattered by the financial crisis of 2008, at which point Milly is quite literally sleeping with the enemy.
The London that Pip emerges in, of 2017, seems purposefully chosen to highlight the nadir reached by the city following those years of capital-fuelled destruction and subsequent decline. In a section that could have been crass, but is actually handled rather well, Pip finds himself experiencing near-hand the tragedy of the Grenfell fire. At the time, he’s living with his musician brother, in a swish apartment in Notting Hill. His brother has fallen on hard times (like many) and Pip busies himself monetising the property via Airbnb. Their middle class woes are very much overshadowed by the tragedy unfolding just down the road.
It’s a book of many layers. On the surface, the romance is beautifully told - largely through gaps and absences but no less powerful for it. The historical touchpoints are smartly chosen and for the most part subtly deployed in service of the books central themes, rather than crammed in for the sake of it. And underneath it all, there’s a very literary layer of allusion to Eliot’s The Waste Land, which Pip becomes obsessed with while in prison and carries with him throughout.
Overall it’s an exquisitely crafted thing. The initial immersion in the world of historic London back-street pubs had me thinking of the brilliant Patrick Hamilton from the off, but there was something about the rest of the book that (more remarkably) sustained that feeling, even as it moved between locations (away from the essential pub) and into the present day. Dwyer Hickey is a Joyce expert, and that also shines through in the best way, with the book taking the vibes of Dubliners and applying them to modern-day London in a manner I’ve not seen handled quite so effectively before. It’s an easy, compelling read, with a love story with broad appeal at its heart, but it’s also so much more than that.

A really wonderful book, one that will definitely see me reading more of the author’s work, and hopefully one that will be recognised in some of the next year’s major prizes. (9.5/10)

This is a captivating novel that does not only introduce you to two characters who will start to feel like family – Milly and Pip – but to a third character that looms even larger and will not let you go: the extraordinary, multifaceted city of London that is portrayed here over forty of its many years of existence. Just as this wonderful city constantly remakes and reinvents itself, so do Milly, who immigrates here from Ireland at the age of eighteen, and Pip, who tries to make his fortune as a boxer. That the fates of two individuals, who are so brave to take on serious inequalities such as unequal gender treatment and addiction, never quite intertwine as closely as their relationship with London, is perhaps the most poignant aspect of the novel. Other readers have commented on the novel’s overly long design (and at five hundred pages, it is indeed much longer than many other contemporary works) but the patient reader is rewarded with plenty of nuanced insights into how places, chance encounters, and near-encounters shape us as individuals. Thank you, NetGalley and the publishers, for the free ARC granted to me in anticipation of an unbiased book review.

A good old-fashioned story of 'almost' unrequited love told in a modern way in an up-to-date setting, mainly in London.
The characterisation is excellent, the story telling is excellent, the settings are interesting.
For me this was a story of two people who loved each other so much, but dare not commit to that love because of what had happened to them previously.
The story is told generally chronologically with switching between the two characters.
This works for me better than the constant backwards/forwards switching so common in the usual modern novel.
This would be an ideal choice for a film to be made, which with the correct choice of stars to play the characters would be in my opinion a big hit.
Quite a long novel, it took me several sittings to get through, but after each set of chapters, on leaving the book, I was always looking forward to coming back to it.
Many thanks to the author for a brilliant story.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This is a beautifully told story of a love spanning over 40 years and set in London. The two main characters, Milly and Pip, are from Ireland and the tale begins in 1979. I loved this character driven read and it's authenticity of London and the social bias towards the Irish at the time. Part history, part romance and a bit of social culture added to the mix. Although the book is quite a long read, I was definitely gripped until the end, it is one which I would recommend. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

"Our London Lives" by Christine Dwyer Hickey spans several decades, starting in 1979 when we first meet Pip and Milly. Over the decades we see what happens to them. Sometimes they are in touch, sometimes they are not. This is about enduring friendship and lives of those around them. This is a story of the ordinary man and woman but it is fascinating and you just read page after page. I'm hopeful for the ending. I'm in a glass half full kind of mood!

This is one of those delicious immersive novels which saw me both reading late into the night unwilling to leave the story, and putting the book down to wait to finish it because I didn’t want it to be over. I loved the two main characters, Pip and Milly, and it was a pleasure to watch them weave in and out of each other’s lives over the course of 40 years; their stories told in alternating chapters. London is the third main character, its contrasting riches and squalor so much more than a mere backdrop as Christine Dwyer Hickey shows us buildings, architecture, gardens, riverbanks, and squats; the developers who tear down and rebuild, and the people who live, work and visit. This has everything I look for in a novel, incredible writing which draws you in and makes the fictional world real, interesting characters with depth, an insightful look at what it is to be human, and a real sense of jeopardy as these two troubled people navigate poverty, trauma, addiction and hope.

Beginning in the late 70’s Pip and Milly, two young Irish people who have moved to London, meet in a pub. Pip’s a promising boxer with a taste for drink, and Milly is a live in barmaid. There are several well rounded and fascinating characters that surround them through the years – Mrs Oak the pub owner who takes Milly in, Trish, another barmaid, Dom, Pip’s older and more successful musician brother, “… it’s not that he doesn’t love his brother, it’s just that he can’t fucking stand him.” and Dom’s son, Max. Even those on the periphery feel real, their conversations natural and distinct. I bloody adored this.

This is one of the most beautiful books I have read in a long time.
Pip and Milly are such multi-dimensional, gorgeous characters and I loved that they were a lens through which we saw London, and briefly Dublin.
Having lived in London my whole life, I learnt things about the town I'd never have imagined, and feel a newfound love for Farringdon!

I don't realy feel like I can fault this book. I usually feel overwhelmed by a book that's this long, but on this occassion, I felt that the length helped us to feel truly involved in the characters and their narratives, so that by the end I truly mourned the loss of them (and Mrs Oak).
I also thought the ending was particularly clever and really made me feel I knew the characters well enough to feel comfortable with not knowing the conclusion.

I can't wait for more people to read this book and to tell the world to read it. 5 stars.

I loved this London novel, the city seen through the eyes of two young Irish people. Christine Dwyer Hickey shows the changes that happen to a corner of London around Farringdon, centred around the pub where Milly works and Pip is a customer. Their relationship spins them closer and apart as the years move on, and we discover them as people in a wider social landscape. The way the author holds on to, and hints at, details that she later reveals displays some really skilful storytelling. Pip and Milly, flawed and complicated, are the heart of this novel, but every other character has a reality to them, and enriches the compelling narrative. Memorable and poignant.

1979. In the vast and often unforgiving city of London, two Irish outsiders seeking refuge find one another: Milly, a teenage runaway, and Pip, a young boxer full of anger and potential who is beginning to drink it all away.
Over the decades their lives follow different paths, interweaving from time to time, often in one another's sight, always on one another's mind, yet rarely together.

Wow, just wow. What a beautifully written book. Such intricate lives woven together over the years of recent historical events. I just didn’t want it to end it was so good. There is every emotion, failure, success and more in this novel. A candid look at real life.

A searing love letter to love and hope

In this searing novel, Dwyer Hickey asks if a romance can survive two shattered histories, while the world they once knew crumbles around them? Following Irish ex-pats Millie and Pip as they carom around 1980s London and into the late past of 2017, Our London Lives focuses in on the pair, with Millie's story running forward from her first days in London, looking for work and a home, and Pip's in 2017 after years devastated by violence and alcohol. In the intervening time, they near and part, like waves driven by forces greater than either of them, and never quite meet, and meanwhile, the world develops, worsens and changes around them, always in London, a bellwether to their tumultuous lives.

In Millie and Pip, Dwyer Hickey has created characters of such depth and breath that they fill the book on their own, even though the supporting players are just as vital and personified, even if they only appear in one scene throughout. Telling their lives but also the span of modern history in between, this is a saga of a forty year romance that might never get there, and for that potential, I am so glad I've read this book.

Four and a half stars.

Our London Lives by Christine Dwyer Hickey is an engaging and entertaining story of hardship and kindness of love and loss.

Milly leaves Ireland as a young woman and finds herself working in a bar in London where she meets lots of people but one person in particular Philip whom she does not really know but would like to get to know. Philip is a boxer who is dealing with his own issues whilst also trying to look out for Milly.

The story of the lives of these two characters is difficult but poignant, sometimes touching but also frustrating. They each have a network of friends and sometimes family to help them get through life's challenges.

This is such a great story that kept me fully engaged and entertained.