Rosie Harris

Gaynor's father is ambitious for his daughter, and does not want her to marry a manual worker. So he persuades his employee Barri to move away to Cardiff. Gaynor then falls for a good-looking German; her father approves but things start to fall apart. Gaynor eventually moves to Cardiff too and loses touch with her parents.

The novel takes place over more than thirty years during the early part of the 20th century. It works well in historical context, evidently well-researched, and the author is clearly familiar with the places she writes about.

Unfortunately the characterisation is rather shallow, with far too much narrative for my tastes, racing through the years, sometimes, without pausing to get to know the various people. Motives and emotions were attributed to them in ways that felt rather artificial, and meant that I didn't have any emotional reaction to anybody in the book.

The plot was interesting - sufficiently so that I read it at one sitting - but the ending seemed forced and unlikely, albeit satisfactorily tying up various threads.

Worth reading for those who like the social history of the period, but not so much for those who prefer character-driven emotive books.… (mais)

My Booklist review:

How far should a young woman go to take care of a child she accidentally hits with her car? Harris goes a long way to answer this question in her latest, after Stolen Moments (2013). In 1924 Liverpool, when Penny Forshaw sees a ball bounce in front of her windscreen, she is not quite fast enough on the brakes to avoid hitting seven-year-old Kelly Murphy, breaking the child’s leg. What results is a tangled web of good and bad intentions. Penny feels responsible for Kelly, but Penny’s parents and her fiancé, Arnold, say that she owes the girl nothing. Nevertheless, she doggedly tries to provide for the working-class child, which eventually leads to Penny being ousted from her upper-class home and unofficially adopting Kelly. Even Arnold abandons Penny because he says she is ruining his social life. Sticking to her guns, Penny meets with Kelly’s doctor, who champions Penny’s harboring the child. Harris’ fairy tale–like historical novel pits the well-intentioned Penny and Dr. Cash against Penny’s parents and fiancé, and the law, sometimes creating outlandish situations.
— Pat Henshaw… (mais)

Harris’ latest, after A Brighter Dawn (2012), pits a recently assigned police team against a serial killer in an intense slice-of-life British police procedural. When Maureen Flynn’s potential fiancé learns that she was raped as a teen, he is appalled and refuses to marry her. Maureen finally accesses her deeply buried memories and decides that it’s time that her attackers pay for their sins. After the body of a history teacher is found, newly promoted Detective Inspector Ruth Morgan and Detective Sergeant Paddy Hardcastle, who thought he should have gotten Ruth’s job, are assigned the grisly murder. They are frustrated by a lack of clues. That’s because Maureen is a meticulous researcher and a thorough planner. With the second and third murders, the detectives come under the harsh scrutiny of their superiors and the press, while Maureen continues to be very, very careful. Readers will relish the detail and interplay of the characters in Harris’ devilish tale.— Pat Henshaw… (mais)