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Love Lane

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What to expect

'Miraculous, mischievous and quietly devastating' Rachel Joyce

'A tender, delicately devastating novel' Sarah Waters

' An engulfing, deeply humane novel about the triumphs and failures of human connection' Marina Kemp

A reunion. A journey. A longing for a place called home...
When veteran Canadian wheat farmer, Harry Cane sails home to an England transformed by two world wars, his arrival triggers unwelcome self-examination for the family he abandoned.

His daughter feels duty bound to take him in but is ambushed by a long buried anger she has never before expressed. Harry's effect on the next generation is less predictable, and enables his granddaughter to deal with an unspeakable trauma, while her gentle husband feels seen for who he truly is.

Can Harry stay and make a new life before it's too late, or will he find himself cast out again, punished for having witnessed and understood too much?

' There is no judgement here, only humanity. A joy and a lesson for our time' Ann Cleeves

'An involving story of reconciliation, secrets and compromises, rich in emotional truth and evocative historical detail' Clare Chambers

'It has the feel of a small-scale epic, filtered through distinct voices, about family and memory, estrangement and homecoming' James Cahill

'He makes you care about the characters - a deep, moving novel' Georgina Moore

Critics Review

With Love Lane, Gale gets right to the secret joys and hidden heartbreaks of ordinary, flawed family life. A tender, delicately devastating novel
Sarah Waters
Miraculous, mischievous and quietly devastating, Love Lane is the irresistible story of five individuals, linked by the past and yet separated by the present. I have just fallen in love with a beautiful book
Rachel Joyce
Five threads of storytelling interweave to form the braid of a novel both poignant and elegiac. A story of missed opportunities and, ultimately, a memorable story of forgiveness
Sarah Winman
Patrick Gale brings his usual compassionate sympathy, impeccable research and elegant style to his powerful new novel. Love Lane is an involving story of reconciliation, secrets and compromises, rich in emotional truth and evocative historical detail
Clare Chambers
I adored this book. Patrick Gale's writing glows with compassion, as does his subtle, unflinching insight into his characters. Love Lane is an engulfing, deeply humane novel about the triumphs and failures of human connection
Marina Kemp
An intimate and closely-observed novel - a family drama full of heart-rending moments illumined by the power of suppressed desire. The characters feel real, knowable and alive. Full of rich detail, this story brings private pasts to light with all of Gale's signature warmth, grace and humanity
Seán Hewitt
I adored this book. Patrick Gale is one of the world's greatest storytellers. All the characters have unspoken truths. Hugely comforting and an absolute joy to read
Joanna Cannon
There is no judgement here, only humanity. A joy and a lesson for our time
Ann Cleeves
Love Lane moved me greatly. The novel has a great sweep, in its story, and in the richness and vividness of each of its character. This is a book about secrets and lies, yet Gale has such an exact and elegant power as a storyteller that the experience of reading the novel is rousing. I think it wonderful
Christos Tsiolkas
He makes you care about the characters who feel real, and you so badly want the world to treat them with the respect, kindness and attention they deserve
Georgina Moore
A wonderfully hypnotic story of ties and bonds that can be outlawed but not broken. Unputdownable
Denise Mina
He brings a musicality and rootedness to his prose along with a seemingly effortless skill of narrative that makes the work both compelling and rich. Crucially, he reminds us that while social mores and even laws may change, bigotry and brutality often lurk just beneath a polite surface. This is a vital tale, beautifully told
Stella Duffy
An extraordinary creation, one of the most atmospheric and subtly realised novels I've read in a long while
James Cahill
Patrick Gale has once again shown us the cracks in the human heart and the bravery of living. He holds decades in paragraphs, years in a sentence, and with perfect economy and discretion allows us to feel how generations face or hide from their foes. This is a beautiful and chiselled novel: prepare to cross the ocean and weep
Tiffany Murray
This is a captivating novel from beginning to end. Beautifully paced, it combines characters that spring immediately to bouncing life, a capacious and compassionate humanity and vividly convincing historical insight. With delicate strands of family story wound expertly into a profoundly involving narrative of passion lost and found, Love Lane traces all the strange and wonderful ways of the heart
Christobel Kent
Nobody is better than Patrick Gale at discovering the extraordinary stories that are hidden in the cracks of ordinary lives, and Love Lane is his finest novel yet: a family history that is full of yearning and as tender as a mother's embrace
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
It's a novel about love in old age, secrecy, a sexless marriage, duty and grief, and parenthood - moving, humane and compelling
Amanda Craig

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