A nature themes memoir is usually my favourite kind of nature book, but I am devastated to say that I didn’t love this. I’m not even sure if I liked it. 

Dochartaigh writes beautifully, of that there is no doubt, and I still intend to read her earlier book, Thin Places, but beautiful writing isn’t enough to sustain a xxx page book about yearning for motherhood when it’s an urge I have not got. 

This is also a “covid” book. A book set chronologically through 2020 and I feel I have read SO many of these now that it’s hard to offer something new. It was a huge thing we all lived through, and everyone’s experience is different. I’m sure there were struggles for Kerri and her partner, but I personally am fed up of reading stories about people privileged enough to have been holed up in the countryside, surrounded by nature and wonder, while I worked daily and the only perk was no traffic on my commute. That sounds bitter in, but unless your 2020 story has something new to offer over the other dozen or so 2020 books then I have little patience for it.