I didn't expect These Days to move me as much as it did. This book follows the lives and loves of two very differing sisters, Emma and Audrey, over just a few days in 1941. Almost a coming-of-age story, the additional characters, Richard the doctor unable to fully love Audrey, Sylvia, the confident older woman, and the girls' mother who's as brave as she is maternal, they're all interestingly believable characters. Of course their attitudes, beliefs and morals seem terribly old-fashioned now but I can well imagine that's how people in Northern Ireland and throughout Britain thought at the time.
I have to admit I did sometimes struggle with the saltiness of the dialogue and had to check what some of the phrases meant, but actually, this probably added to the readers sense of belief in time and place.
Altogether a very good book, and nothing like the comfortable saga I expected it to be. Thank you Readers First for my copy.
I have to admit I did sometimes struggle with the saltiness of the dialogue and had to check what some of the phrases meant, but actually, this probably added to the readers sense of belief in time and place.
Altogether a very good book, and nothing like the comfortable saga I expected it to be. Thank you Readers First for my copy.