★★★★☆/★★★★★

Book Review: Half A World Away by Mike Gayle

Strangers living worlds apart.
Strangers with nothing in common.

But it wasn't always that way...

Kerry Hayes is a single mum, living on a tough south London estate. She provides for her son by cleaning houses she could never hope to afford. Taken into care as a child, Kerry cannot ever forget her past.

Noah Martineau is a successful barrister with a beautiful wife, daughter and home in fashionable Primrose Hill. Adopted as a child, Noah always looks forward, never back.

When Kerry reaches out to the sibling she lost on the day they were torn apart as children, she sets in motion a chain of events that will have life-changing consequences for them both.

Review: I really liked the writing style with the alternating point of views. Kerry's 'voice' was great, her character jumped out of the page at me, she came across as almost larger than life with a heart of gold. Noah's chapters showed an educated man who cared very much about his family.

Half a World Away is well written, engaging, funny and heartbreaking in equal measures. I wanted to pull Kerry and Noah out of the book and give them a huge hug at several points in the story. I'm definitely going to be keeping an eye out for more by Mike Gayle, his writing is definitely for me.

As always, thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Hodder & Stoughton, for granting me early access to this novel in exchange for an honest review.