Gill Thompson
Reviewed by Helen
This is a story that is heart wrenching, it pulled at my heart so much, it will push a few buttons for some people as we start in London during the blitz and end up in Perth Western Australia, following the journey of a young boy Jack Malloy.
Molly Malloy and her son Jack live in Croydon London, it is World War 2 and they have already lost a husband and father, when a bomb explodes during the day leaving Jack to come home from school to no house and a mother who is missing. Jack is sent to an orphanage Melchet and cared for by the nuns.
Jack is always hopeful that his beautiful mother will come for him, but years pass and they convince Jack that she is gone, and an opportunity to travel to Australia, live on farm ride horses and eat oranges all of the time finds him on a ship to Australia and sent to Boys Town where life is nothing like he was promised. Jack is lucky enough to be taken in by a loving family in Perth the Sullivan family, where he grows to be a young man and lawyer, never forgetting his mother. He becomes a lawyer to search for answers and get some closure on what happened The Sullivan family also take in an Aboriginal girl Rosie as a housemaid and Jack and Rosie form a forbidden friendship.
Back in England Jack’s mother Molly is found wandering with no memory of who she is always feeling like she has lost something, years later slowly Molly’s memory returns and she wants desperately to find her son Jack and with her new husband Reggie they start the search.
This was a compelling story that was hard to put down, what happened to these children should never have happened, the pain and hurt they and their families went through, was heartbreaking, MS Thompson also deals with the stolen generation, there were lots of emotions that I felt reading this one, fabulously written and a debut.
5 stars
Published
March 21st 2019
by Headline Review
