Had this on my wish list for ages and found it today on the charity book table, at the Co-op, for a 50p donation. What a lucky find!

This book was shortlisted for The Man Booker and The Orange Prize and well deserved to be. It was a sort of back to front book where part 1 begins in 1947, part 2 in 1944 and part 3 in 1941 but the story never reverts forward to present day again. In some respects I was disappointed with that because part 1 lacked a nice tidy ending but it was interesting to see how all the chapters connected up. The unanswered questions in part 1 are sort of revealed in parts 3 and 4 as you go backwards in time.

You really got a perception of how things must have been like during the war as the bombs rained over London. It made me think also of how things were like for my mum as she was an ambulance driver in the ATS during the latter period of the war. I assume she would have driven around the East End of London as that's where she lived. I wish I'd asked her more about it when she was alive!

Picked up after so many people talked about it at the meet. Started it today and really enjoying it so far

I really enjoyed this. The characters all felt very real to me and I really felt like I wanted to learn more about them so the idea of stepping back in time gave a new insight to their motivations in the previous section.

I'm taking it to the Salcey Forest meet today for the bookswap

I won this book during a game of steal or reveal - I'm very much looking forward to reading it!