Richard & Judy Introduce Little Wing by Freya North

Spread your fingers across three datelines separated by a new century - 1969, 1986, and 2005 - all set within a single lifetime, yet as distant to each other as are the Romans and the Victorians. But Freya North shows how the more things change, the more they stay the same. Unwanted pregnancies. Moral judgement. Lies and secrets; the shock of discovering family truths. This is a great story, full of twists and genuine surprises. We loved it.

Richard's Review:

This is quite simply a fabulous, five-star read. I finished Little Wing in two sittings. Well, lyings – both times I didn’t get my bedside light out until after three.

The triple storylines are clever but never complicated. We are in three time zones – 1969, where aspiring artist Florence Lawson falls pregnant at 16 and is banished hundreds of miles away to the Outer Hebrides; 1986, where we find Dougie Munro leaving the Isle of Harris, his birthplace, to London and a career as a photographer; and 2005, with Nell Hartley, who loves her job running a care-in-the-community café in Essex but is about to discover a ticking time bomb from the past.

What links these three lives? After a tale of intrigue and unexpected twists, you’ll find out – and be richly satisfied.

Judy's Review:

It is extraordinary to think that well within living memory in this country the shame of teenage pregnancy could lead to a girl like Florence being, to all intents and purposes, banished. The poor girl must somehow re-build her life in the Outer Hebrides. But Freya North writes bewitchingly about Florence’s beautiful new environment, so much so that I truly want to go and see it for myself.

The big questions in Little Wings are these. What really happened to Florence all those years ago? Why is Dougie, now a bored commercial photographer, so determined never to return home? And how can Nell possibly come to terms with the family secret she has uncovered?

A beautifully written and plotted story. You’ll love it.