Here's an author who knows how to make an impact with a novel's opening. We meet 12 year old Keg on horseback on a beach in bad weather searching for her younger brother. There's a timelessness in the powerful, atmospheric writing. It's the 1980s in North East England but time and location do remain vague throughout.
Keg grows into Keely and she is one half of the couple searching for the true love in the title. The other is Finn, both are outsiders who have experienced abandonment and gnawing loneliness. Keely finds her escape through alcohol and her love of reading, Finn through finding objects in the river and later music.
It takes over half the book for them to meet but before then we have two extremely strong sections which tell Keely's story and then Finn's. The early days of their relationship maintains the high standard of story-telling. I felt that the last third of the book followed more predictable plot-lines which didn't grab me the way in which what had gone before had but perhaps it was age and responsibility that made these complex characters lose their spark but I missed the tone, the drive and vibrancy of the first two-thirds.
This still ends up a strong, emotional, sensitive and thoughtful second novel for this British author. I need to seek out his debut "My Name Is Yip" (2022) which made it onto a number of awards shortlists. This certainly has the potential to do the same.
True Love was published on 4th July 2024 by Doubleday Books. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.
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