mancguy

On the surface this story follows a theme covered many times in print, online and on TV. The story of a rich family on holiday somewhere with their kids exploring relationships between family members, breaking out into the real world outside the bubble of a holiday experience may have been explored before, but oh boy this is really special and goes way beyond the run of the mill. Tough challenges through life, the meaning of love, the poetry of The Smiths and - for me the most uplifting element - the unconditional love of surrounding friends and family are all to be found here. Beautiful.

I'm enjoying this gentle story of life in rural Essex. I've read a lot of good stories here and it's good to find variety in location/geography. Langauage is a funny thing and I enjoy encountering differences in the use of English between American authors and those from this side of the Atlantic, but occasionally pick up something different from an author in the UK too - must be more local geography. 'Knickers' is a funny word for me - totally without excitement and inherrently linked in my mind (for not much logical reason) exclusively with women's clothing not mens. Kind of get that it's a slightly comic word to use and it fits well with the narrative here, but it's odd (and indeed interesting) how sometimes we're conditioned to experience different thoughts with the same word. Keep up the good work - looking forward to more.

I enjoyed this story immenseley and was engrosed in life aboard ship. The use of correspondence through letters made me curious and I learned that sailors at the time did indeed write letters home and that the Royal Navy facilitated their passage to and fro - even when ships were on voyages a long way from home it would be possible to send letters sporadically through ports and other Royal Navy ships. Easily in my top reading experiences on GA - the writing is really wonderful. Peter's earlier review sums it up prefectly. What an enjoyable read.

I completely echo RobV’s comments above - he expresses how this story made me feel so well. Really compelling writing and a great ending. The recollection of elements of both main characters in the younger me and my friends made this a tough but authentic read. Great writing and thanks for posting it.

Great ending - left lots to pick up in another story maybe. Anything planned…?

I loved the pitch of writing, pace and level of realism combined with the interesting characters in this story. Really gripping and I’d love to hear more about what followed - maybe family introductions and other life events along the way. Great tension towards the end and well closed out overall. Superb 🙂