Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for my free e-arc!

📣 Lesbians 📣 Miner strikes 📣 Bashing Margaret Thatcher 📣

Now that I’ve siren called the appropriate audience for Neon Roses, let me tell you about this queer debut absolutely full of love and heart and self discovery and, everyone’s favourite, slagging off the Tories.

Based on the same events as the film Pride (which I’ve never seen but will be rectifying this post haste), Neon Roses follows Eluned, a young woman who is feeling stifled by her small Welsh town and the conventional path laid out ahead of her in 1984. Meanwhile, her father and boyfriend are part of the miners strikes fighting the pit closures threatened by Thatcher’s government. Enter - a group of lesbians and gays from London who have been raising money for the strikers.

For a debut, I thought the writing felt very self-assured. Eluned’s Welsh lilt seeps from the pages, along with the smells of tab ends and sausage baps, smudged eyeshadow and sticky dance-floors, iconic 80s bangers and rattling collection tins - evocative without teetering into purple prose territory.

I also loved how Dawson manages to nod to other stories of the time, although it’s Eluned’s coming-out journey that’s the star. But we get a sense of her father’s sense of betrayal & futility over the portrayal of the strikes by the right-wing rags, her sister’s ambition which is being throttled by her policeman boyfriend, her landlady Mrs Omar’s empty nester feelings and quiet support. They’re only supporting characters, but crafted in such a way to give you a fuller picture of life in 1984 amid anti-union and homophobic attitudes running rampant. Now that I step back and think about it, I could have gone for a bit more development around June, Eluned’s main love interest.

My only other complaint is the abruptness of the ending - I literally gasped ‘what!’ aloud when I realised I’d read the last page and there was no more! Maybe we can hope for a follow-on.

But if any of the topics broached her interest you at all, please keep an eye for this one coming out on 25th of May!