For my second post of the day I’m delighted to welcome you to my stop on the blog tour for heartwarming family drama These Streets by Luan Goldie. Thank you to HQ for giving me the opportunity to read and review this gorgeous story.
About the book:
Jess is a single mother to two teenage children, and although life can be tough she’s just about keeping things together. But when her landlord asks her to move on, so he can sell the house they’re living in without warning, Jess’s worries take on a whole new meaning. As Jess struggles to regain her footing, cracks begin to appear in other areas of her life, and suddenly she feels she’s failing at everything. Her daughter Hazel is becoming more and more distant, her son Jacob is struggling to find where he fits in the world, and the menacing spectre of Jess’s older brother, someone she cut out of her life years ago, begins to make his presence felt again.
Jess knows she’s the only one who can keep her family together, but how can she keep going when life keeps beating her back?
Set on the streets of East London, These Streets is a searing and powerful novel that explores how we are meant to find our place in a world that is designed for only the privileged to succeed. Beautiful and honest, it is an essential story about living in Britain today.
About the author:
Luan Goldie is a primary school teacher from East London. Her debut novel Nightingale Point was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. She has written several short stories and is the winner of the Costa Short Story Award 2017 for her short story ‘Two Steak Bakes and Two Chelsea Buns’. She was also shortlisted for the London Short Story Prize in 2018 and the Grazia/Orange First Chapter competition in 2012. In 2019 she was shortlisted for the h100 awards in the Publishing and Writing category. Her short stories have appeared in HELLO! magazine, Sunday Express and The Good Journal.
My Review:
These Streets by Luan Goldie is a heartwarming story of family and new beginnings that will warm even the coldest of hearts. Beautifully written, it is a book with larger than life characters who steal your heart from the very first page.
Set on the streets of East London, These Streets tells the story of Jess, single mother to two teenage children who is doing everything she can to keep things together. So when she is suddenly made homeless she’s unsure of which way to turn. As things go from bad to worse and she struggles to get back on her feet, the last thing she needs is for her older brother, who she hasn’t seen for years, to make his presence felt once again.
And then there’s Ben, recently divorced and missing his young daughter who has moved abroad with her mother to begin a new life away from him. Moving back to the place he grew up in was never going to be easy, but even he could never have imagined just how complicated his life was about to become when he befriended the old man who lived across the street…
These Streets is filled to the brim with warmth and humour. With characters you can’t help but fall in love with, including the unforgettable Harold, it is a story that gets to the heart of modern family life. A searingly honest portrayal of life in Britain today, there is much more to this book than at first meets the eye and I thoroughly enjoyed every word of it.
Beautifully written by Luan Goldie, These Streets is very much a story with family at its heart. A tale of family love, loyalty, romance and new beginnings, this is a book that I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend.
Simply gorgeous! I loved it.
These Streets by Luan Goldie is available to purchase now:
Cal Turner Reviews 