Published By: Embla Books
Pages: 304
Released On: 01/12/2024
The past has never left Billy. It’s just been waiting for him to come and find it…
It’s been over thirty years since Billy last called Northern Ireland home. Back then, his secret love for schoolfriend Conor was the only shining light that kept him going during troubled times. That is, until their romance was tragically cut short when Conor disappeared without a trace.
Now a phone call draws Billy back home when his mother falls into a coma. While sorting through old belongings, he stumbles upon an envelope bearing his name. Inside, he finds a mysterious note and a mixtape left by Conor – dated the very day he disappeared in 1989.
But who sent it? Why did his mother keep it hidden? And what really happened to Conor?
As Billy sets off to find the answers to a mystery that’s followed him for years, he soon realises that uncovering the truth about his lost past may come at a high cost. But laying the ghosts of that past to rest might be the only way to finally set himself free…
*****
Let me tell you, after just one book, Neil was one of my most favourite authors. The Vanishing of Margaret Small was one of my all-time most loved books and I was so eager to read his new one, and so I jumped at the chance to read an early copy.
Neil depicts relationships and love so well. Not just romantic love – although there is that – but lost love, new love, long love, friendships, strangers to comrades. It’s just beautiful. And obviously with love, often comes the other side of the coin – grief, hate, and anger, and he depicts them so well too.
His description of grief in this book is beautiful – as it was in Margaret Small. Grief is an incredibly hard thing to vocalise, even if you’ve gone through it, let alone put it on paper in a sensitive and honest way, but he’s managed it. In the literal sense of a bereavement, but also of missing people and regrets, grief for a job, a home, a life, the past, a future.
He makes me long for a time I know nothing about, a time I never experienced for myself. It’s more of a feeling I suppose than an actual tangible date. It’s hard to describe without sounding a bit cuckoo, but hopefully if you read this book then you’ll know what I mean.
It flashes between the 1980s in Northern Ireland, and then 2023/24. The 80s in Northern Ireland was a difficult time, and so is the present scenes, just in different ways, and it was fascinating to see the comparison between the two. I loved both sections, but I’d say I leaned further towards the present scenes. I can’t pinpoint exactly why, but I found myself enjoying those chapters just a smidge more, but each section is fab.
It’s not easy going, I’ll say that. It has some powerful topics – the Troubles of Northern Ireland, missing people, abandonment, homophobia, job losses, struggles with sexuality, political tensions, abuse, money troubles, illness, death – it’s a lot. But amongst all of that is hope and love and they shine brightly.
It’s so touching, so moving, so beautiful. It also angered me. I know it’s just a fictional book and it was a different time then, but the homophobia angers me so much. The idea that someone could abandon their child because they happen to love someone of the same sex, it just baffles me. Neil has done it so sensitively and so real that I worry he’s got first-hand experience. But that whole subplot was so powerful.
There is a small cast of characters which allows us to really get to know them all. Billy is a wonderful main character, so very real and I was on his side throughout. The other characters – old friends and new – are also great and all work well with Billy, but for me, he steals every page. I utterly adored him.
If these two books of his are anything to go by, Neil has definitely cemented himself as one of my favourite authors, and I cannot wait for his future work. I just know they’re going to be outstanding.
Books By Your Bedside 