The Outcast | Sadie Jones

To be frank, I picked this book for its cover! It had a couple embracing, not in a bodice ripper kind of way but in a very modest and beautifully photographed way! It conveyed a feeling, and so I grabbed it off the shelf.

And it's a great book, a lovely bitter sweet story well told.

It is set in the 1950's England. Lewis is about 7 when his dad, Gilbert, returns from the war. Until then he's had the sole attention of a doting loving mother. But everything changes when Gilbert takes over the family. He seems cold and overbearing... Tragedy follows, Lewis observes but struggles to interpret his changing world. As he grows up he has contact with other families, who all seem to struggle and have secrets which mark the relationships in the novel.
There is a lot of tension and Sadie Jones tells the story from various perspectives. We sympathise with Lewis as he desperately tries to fit in and find his place. Mostly he feels like an outcast.

In this story there is a lot of tension, emotion, relationships and  suspense. It engages us and is beautifully told.

Small Wars | Sadie Jones

After reading The Outcast by Sadie Jones I couldn’t wait for her second novel to come out. The wait was worth it. She’s a good story teller.

I loved the setting (Cyprus) and the characters. In a way it’s similar to The Information Office by Mark Mills. This story tells the story of a soldier, Hal Treherne, stationed on the island to protect the British colony on Cyprus. His wife watches the slow decline of Hal’s personality as he struggles with the atrocities taking place and his moral decline as he is unable to talk through it and come to terms with the massacres he witnesses. The marriage unravels, they are unable to talk, hiding their pain and their misunderstandings until clara has to retreat with the children.

Although it may sound like a depressing book, it really isn’t. Jones is a very skilled story teller, so we are engaging with the story and the characters, she makes us care about Clara and Hal, and the political situation on the island. It’s a story we can all relate to on some level and it’s beautifully told.