great performance and storyline

really enjoyed the narration of this one, with the musical interludes. the story really drew you in and you cared so much for the characters. It kept me guessing all the way through, very well done. Sad that this was the way people treated eachother, and although things have improved, there is still some way to go!

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Great story

I really enjoyed listening to this book. Both the narrators have good clear voices and were able to provide convincing accents. Its a bitter sweet tale with several doses of harsh reality examining life in London as it must have been for the new arrivals from the Caribbean in the post war years. A really human story of love, death and motherhood told with compassion but without any sickly sweet romance. Really entertaining and intriguing.

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3 people found this helpful

As the title suggests: Lovely... but with a twist

I didn't see the full ending coming of this story but it made for a pretty clever and subtle twist. Every time I read something about racism, I am deeply angry and upset. The characters in this story are well meaning people that have happened to go through some really horrendous things just because of the colour of their skin. It saddens me that in 2020 this is not completely behind us. The audiobook is worth your time and I really enjoyed the voice actors work and their interpretation.

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2 people found this helpful

Lovely Debut Novel

This Lovely City
One of my favourite lockdown reads is Louise Hare’s debut novel This Lovely City, which featured on Sara Cox’s Between the Covers (Series 1 Ep. 4) .
It’s set in London in 1948 and 1950 and focuses on the discovery of a body and how this impacts the lives of the two main characters Lawrie and Evi, who are a couple. Lawrie has arrived from Jamaica on Windrush, which docked at Tilbury in 1948, but it’s important to remember that mixed-race Evi (with Sierra Leonean and Irish heritage) is part of Britain’s mixed-race population that predates Windrush. The novel captures the different cultural needs of Evi, who has known no other country yet is in search of a community to belong to, and Lawrie as a 19-year-old Jamaican, dealing with disillusionment and homesickness in England, but who has a strong sense of identity.
The music scene plays an important part in the novel: it’s a bit of a side hustle for Lawrie and most of his band mates. It’s also a place of camaraderie and longer-term career options for the musicians, In reference to the pardner scheme, it reflects this black support network, which was to play an important part in black acquisition of property in the UK. The music scene when contrasted with other scenes in the book is also telling of a kind a racism that is more or less comfortable with black people as entertainers, but not necessarily as social equals in other respects (living next door, doing the same jobs, being bosses etc.). In reference to this Lawri says that he feels ‘trapped in a foreign land and used to parading himself before a paying audience’.
The novel portrays some of the iconic images of Windrush passengers in their trilby and fedora hats in one of the first descriptions of Lawrie after he comes home after a night playing his clarinet with the band. It also describes the air raid shelter in Clapham, which accommodated Windrush arrivals who didn’t have places to go when they first got here, making me as a Londoner curious to know more about some of the legacies of World War II in the capital.

Although it deals with some uncomfortable topics, it’s a very good read. I can’t wait to see what Louise Hare has in store for us with her second novel, which is out next year.

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Exceptional

Probably the best audible book I have listened to Great jazz helped!Well done Louise Hare

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1 person found this helpful

social history

Interesting comment on the impact of Wind Rush on London society, the good and bad

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I truly wish times would change

I listened to this book at the time of the George Floyd murder. Those who want to educate themselves need to know how ingrained Racism is.

A great book. Made me remember my parents ‘welcome’ to theUK.

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4 people found this helpful

A gripping tale

I listened to this in about 5 days as it was so intriguing and I was keen to find out how it would resolve. Very well narrated and performed. If you liked this you will enjoy Ordinary People and Small Island, which are set in a similar time period.

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Loved the story

Interesting story beautiful narrators of a time in recent history. Based in South London were I lived.

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Another Brilliant Debut

I loved this novel and it taught me so much about post war British society and what the first wave of West Indian immigrants went through on a arrival.

Gripping and so well written. Louise Hare and Abi Dare both have a brilliant future ahead of them. Strange you should be friends.

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