16th August 2025

Graham somehow has the ability to output charming, sad, but incredibly readable novels over and over. It's almost annoying how good he turns out to be as a novelist.

This is the story of Frankie, a now elderly Irish lady living in London, as told to her temporary overnigh carer, a young man recently migrated from Ireland. Little by little she opens up and shares more of her life, which alternates between highs and lows.

The highs are amazing, but tinged with the knowledge that this is ultimately a tragedy, and so nothing will last. Despite the sadness though, I kept wanting to keep going and find out what was next for Frankie, and the people she'd picked up along the way.

It's also a story of an ally, starting well outside the LGBT community and joining in from the outside, and given it's set across the past 70 years or so that naturally adds to the sadness and tragedy of the story.

I loved reading this.

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27th May 2023

Graham Norton’s third novel is a quite sad tale from the start about a community whose lives are all damaged by a local tragedy, and how that grows over the following decades.

I’m glad in a way that this book has lived on my shelf for some time, as the are definitely moments where I might have found it harder to read. As it was I raced through it in about three days and found it a really interesting look at lives and history of cultural attitudes.

There are parts of the narrative where we jump back and forth in time quite abruptly, and that did throw me off in places and I needed to reread a few paragraphs to work out what was going on.

But overall another really interesting story from Norton, and an encouragement to read his new novels too.

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16th April 2020

I enjoyed Graham Norton’s first novel, so when I saw this on the bookshelf picked it up. It’s the story of a bereaved daughter who returns to her Irish home to tidy up her mother’s affairs, and in doing so starts to learn more of her own story.

Norton turns out to be an excellent storyteller - painting a picture of the world his characters inhabit, and providing an excellently paced narrative that teases the reader with titbits throughout.

It’s an emotional yet fun journey, and I hope he continues producing novels as I’ll definitely be interested in reading more.

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29th July 2018

This is the first Graham Norton novel that I’ve read, after years of seeing him on the telly, and it was lent to me by a friend after she finished reading it.

The story is set in a typical Irish village, populated by a variety of seemingly ordinary characters (including, conveniently, a police officer) who are living their lives when one day a body is found while some building works are taking place. This of course has the usual effects - dragging more police to the village, casting suspicion on everyone, and dragging up ancient history.

It is ultimately a take on the classic whodunnit with perhaps a little more of a modern understanding and take on the world and particularly the emotional state of those involved, and the story reflects on the changes in attitude over the previous decades in Ireland.

I enjoyed reading it and finding out what would happen. The narrative is light and humorous and I certainly wouldn’t say no to reading more of Norton’s novels in future.

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