Every Door Opens Up Another Surprise

The views expressed in this review are those of the review's author and not necessarily those of Selfishgenie Publishing.
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Neither Selfishgenie Publishing nor the author of this review have been provided with a free copy of the book being reviewed, nor has any payment or other inducement been offered for the review.

One thing I like about some authors is their reliability; picking up their book and knowing that I’m going to be in safe hands when it comes to the story telling. It doesn’t matter what the genre, the author’s name is their guarantee that I’m going to enjoy the book, no matter what.
 
And so it is with Graham Norton and this, his third novel, “Forever Home”.
 
I won’t spend a lot of time discussing writing style and story telling competence, because that has already been covered in my reviews of Norton’s previous books. Please take it as read that he is a competent writer and an excellent story teller.
 
What I will talk about, however, is his affinity for location and characters.
 
Graham Norton’s books are set in County Cork in the south of the Republic of Ireland, which is where he grew up and still lives for part of the year. His understanding of the ruggedness of the countryside and the sort of people it breeds is critical to the story in so many ways.
 
When Graham Norton describes a character, you get the feeling that he is intimately acquainted with them. No detail about them is too small to escape his notice. But mainly he writes about these people with great affection. Even the characters you aren’t supposed to like come across mainly as being flawed, rather than being bad.
 
The start of this book makes you think that the story is a cosy domestic drama. A relationship is coming to an end, not because anyone wants it to, but because it has to. What follows, you are led to believe, is the characters dealing with the fall-out from that ending.
 
But then the story takes an unexpected dark twist and you realise that the story you thought you were reading isn’t the story at all.
 
So, what did I think I was reading to begin with?
 
Teacher Carol Crottie, previously married and with a grown up son she hardly ever sees, falls in love with the parent of one of her pupils. After a while she moves in with him and everything seems to be going well.
 
But it isn’t. Carol’s new love, Declan Barry, is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Carol gives up work to look after him him, but an accident leaves her with a broken leg and unable to care for Declan. He is moved into a care home while Carol’s leg mends.

And then Declan’s children intervene.
 
Declan has two children of his own. Abandoned by their mother, Joan, Sally and Killian were in their teens when Carol met Declan. The relationship between Carol and the siblings was never good and now they use an enduring power of attorney, set up by Declan without Carol’s knowledge, to put Declan into permanent care.
 
Not only that, they put Declan's house on the market, selling the roof from over her head. While that is bad news for Carol in terms of losing her home, she also knows that Declan never wanted the house to be sold. He had made that wish quite clear to everyone, including his children.
 
But Carol hasn’t got a leg to stand on legally so, in middle age, she is forced to move back into her parents’ home; a move that is far from welcome by anyone.
 
But Carol’s father, Dave, is a successful businessman and hatches a plan to purchase Declan's house so that she can move back into it. Knowing the siblings would never sell to carol, he plans to do it through one of his companies. Carol doesn’t like the idea, but by the time she can object the deposit has been paid and her parents are unwilling to throw that money down the drain. So, the house purchase goes ahead.
 
And that is the point at which things start to get very dark, and I realised that the story I was reading wasn’t the real story.
 
I won’t spoil the book for you by telling you any more of the plot. But even after Norton introduced that twist I still wasn’t reading the story I thought I was, because no sooner had I thought I’d worked out what was going on, than there was another twist and I found I didn’t really have a clue.
 
So, this is a story that keeps you guessing throughout.
 
Despite its darkness and the misery of Carol's situation there is some humour in this book, most of which comes from Carol’s mother Moira. I strongly suspect Moira is based on a real person.
 
Ok, if the book is that good, why only 4 Stars?
 
This is a personal thing, but I don’t like it when characters who have a big impact on a story are sprung on you late in the book. To prevent a spoiler, I can’t tell you who they are or what they have to do with the story, but I would have liked to have been able to take them into consideration while I was trying to work out what was going on. Just a casual mention of them, with a couple of vague clues that they may have more than a walk-on part to play, was all that was needed.
 
But, as I said, that’s a personal thing and other readers may not be bothered by it.
 
But I do wholeheartedly recommend this book if you like cosy family dramas with a dark edge to them, because that is exactly what you will get here.
 
To find out more about “Forever Home” by Graham Norton, click the link below.

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Graham Norton - Forever Home

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