You know that it is nearly Christmas when every Thursday has a deluge of new release books out and you can’t swing a cat for all of the authors and personalities popping up on the radio promoting their new book! In the last few weeks one of the big releases was Forever Home by our favourite Irishman, Graham Norton. If you like his radio or television shows I think you’ll really like the novels that Graham writes set in contemporary Ireland. They have a black comedy element to them that makes for compulsive reading. When he makes fun out of ordinarily taboo subjects you can’t help but laugh.
Carol is a school teacher in a small town in county Cork in the south of Ireland. A divorced mother of a grown up son, she’d given up on the idea of finding love again when she meets Declan. He’s a fair bit older than her and there is much gossip in the town as to why his first wife vanished years ago leaving him alone with two small children. As time passes Carol begins to realise that Declan’s health is deteriorating fast and that early onset dementia is setting in. His cold and unforgiving grown up children put him in a nursing home and sell the family home to fund it (and a hot tub!). Carol finds herself out of a home and having to move back in with her own parents. After the house is sold there is a shocking secret waiting to be discovered.
Beautifully observed, Forever Home is quite a dark comedy that feels like it could only take place in Ireland! All of the characters just leap off the page at you and it does feel like are right there in the small Cork village with Moira Crottie and all her family. I’m reserving the window seat in the coffee shop so that I can keep up with all the goings on down there!
Supplied by Net Galley and Hodder & Stoughton in exchange for an honest review.
UK Publication date: 29 September 2022. 368 pages.
Categories: 4 Stars Book Review
angelnet69
Prolific reader, enthusiastic theatre and movie-goer and ex-Olivier Awards judge who spent twenty years working in the music industry in London. Sharing my house with a gorgeous cockapoo called Harry who has taken over completely.
I love sharing my favourite books with friends - nearly always spoiler-free as I hate reading a synopsis of the whole book in other reviews.
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