wordsofclover's Reviews (2.16k)

I was really looking forward to this book and I'm so disappointed I found it a real struggle to get through! We are following a bunch of different characters in LA during the 1940s and seeing how they come from all different backgrounds - in particular we are following Maria, who emigrated from Mussolini's Italy as a child and is now an enemy alien in the land she calls her new home. Working with Mercury Pictures, Maria has established herself as a dominant force while haunted by the father she left behind in a prison camp.

I loved the sound of this book and honestly movie land during WW2 isn't something I've read about it before and I was looking forward to discovering more and being in immersed in a world full of glamour, excitement as well as tension and fear. This is all certainly there but I found the story was very slow to get going, it jumped back and forth too much and because we are following so many different characters, I found myself losing track of where we were in timeline and story at times. Unfortunately this just wasn't one for me.

It’s been 7 years since Holly Kennedy’s husband Gerry passed away and he left 10 letters for her to open every month in the year following his death to help her through her grief. Now Holly is in a new relationship, her life is back on track, kind of, until she takes part in a podcast - telling her and Gerry’s story and the magic of his letters. Now she is being contacted by a group of terminally ill people calling themselves the PS I Love You Club and they need her help but will her involvement bring her back to the darkest time in her life?

For fans of PS I Love You, this story might be a sweet yet emotional return to the life of Holly, her friends and family, and her memories of Gerry who served the ultimate romantic move by leaving behind letters for his wife, even when he was no longer around. I wasn’t sure about this at first and if the continuance of the story was a good idea, as it feels like things for Holly are still very raw, she isn’t fully healed from Gerry’s loss and then when the club approach her she’s very prickly - and I understood this as there is an element of feeling these people took something from Gerry by ‘stealing’ his idea without permission from Holly, it felt like a gut punch at the start.

However, the more the story progresses and Holly explores the journey of her grief further and the person she is now compared to the Holly Gerry knew, she and the readers realize how much she needs the club and vice versa. She ends up learning more about Gerry and why he wrote the letters and understands his process more while helping others with their own letters.

The only thing I wasn’t completely sold on in this book was Holly’s relationship with Gabriel - maybe it’s because we just had to accept Gabriel from the start, we didn’t see the beginning of their relationship, just the rocky middle part. I think I wanted something bigger and more romantic for her and I felt like Gabriel just wasn’t that.

The end felt a little bit rushed and I would have liked to have seen Holly next steps take place more in the end of the middle, so the middle I guess was a bit drawn out and it took a while for a bulk of the initial club moments to happen and for Holly to make certain decisions.

But I enjoyed this. I listened to it on audiobook narrated by Amy Huberman who did a lovely job.

Set in Ballina, County Mayo and mostly following the POV of Dev and Nicky, Wild Houses is a beautifully told story sharing a snapshot of these characters lives while exploring loneliness and grief, all with a tension of violence rippling underneath the surface.

Late one night, Dev opens the door of his house to see his two cousins manhandling a teenage boy out of a car - they’ve kidnapped Doll English to hold him as ransom until his brother Cillian pays a drug debt. Dev struggles with the violence while also staying silent, exploring in his own quiet way what it means to be complicit and the fine line between staying silent and living a peaceful life. At the same time we follow Nicky, Doll’s girlfriend as she thinks about her relationship, her future outside of Ballina and her own experiences with loneliness until the realisation sets in about Doll’s disappearance.

The writing in this is so quiet but impactful and I personally appreciated and loved Dev’s POV as we see this guy who is described as a ‘giant’ actually be extremely soft and quiet, and full of complex feelings and emotions wrapped up in his own mental health journey, anxiety and his grief over the recent passing of his mother. There were also some lovely moments in this involving Dev’s very elderly dog and Doll - and the gentleness between dog and boy breaking up the threat and tension of violence and the kidnapping situation.

Would highly recommend this book - it’s a shorter read than most but it’s one that will stay with you and make you think about the characters long after you finish it.