The stunning new novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author!Home is where the heart is… Angie Watts used to have everything. A new home. A beloved husband. Three adored children. Then Angie’s perfect life is shattered – and it’s up to Angie to hold her family together. Her son is missing. Her daughter is looking for help in dangerous places. And it’s getting harder and harder for Angie to … daughter is looking for help in dangerous places. And it’s getting harder and harder for Angie to keep them safe.
But Angie is a mother. And a mother will protect her family whatever it takes…
Page-turning and emotional Home Truths is the stunning new novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author, Susan Lewis.
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This was a great book to read. The writing is sharp and fast-paced; heartrending but with a Happily Ever After. It’s about human trafficking, bereavement, and financial insolvency. It’s also about a very strong woman who, with some assistance from kind people, claws her way out of poverty, homelessness, and hunger to save her family.
Home Truths is a powerful tale of persistence, dedication, perseverance, and survival in the face of repeated devastation. It shows the failure of the governmental support system to help those who suddenly or repeatedly, through no fault of their own, whether by unexpected downturns or not, find themselves without funds or accommodation, despite working hard.
You’ll find that this book brings you hope in the face of hopelessness. The power of friends and family when there is no one else to help you. How it is possible for the downtrodden to find justice, but that it’s a very hard road to get there and all are not so lucky.
The letter from Hamish was the hardest part of this book for me to read. It’s realistic, painful to read, paints a sad but true picture of what it’s like to be homeless, as well as what it means to be lucky.
There’s a lovely touch of romance. It’s definitely a slow-burn type of romance, and a damsel in distress rescue. It’s very much secondary to the main story, but it is important to the plot.
I loved this book. I’ll be looking for more books by Susan Lewis. I highly recommend this book.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher. I thank them for their generosity, but it had no effect on this review. All opinions in this review reflect my true and honest reactions to reading this book.
I feel like this was more of a 3.5 rounded up. I found it to be a tad too long and drawn out in places. There was a lot going on – drug addictions and murder and sex trafficking and overbearing ruthless landlords. I really felt for the poor mom in this story. Her husband is shot by the gang her son is running with and he was present when it happened. Now she cannot find him and she’s so far behind with her creditors that she is quickly losing everything and can’t seem to get back on her feet. I loved the relationship she had with her sister and how they always had each other’s backs. They both had such big hearts too helping those down on their luck. It was nice to see her and her family start getting some help back.
Favorite Quotes:
Maybe she could talk to Ivan… but no sooner had the thought entered her head than she dismissed it… he’d just channel the vicar and start spouting passages from the Bible, as if holy words were some sort of universal panacea that held the answer to everything.
Angie started to speak, but only a sob came out. “Please don’t be kind to me… it’s making me cry and I’ve already made a big enough fool of myself.”
My Review:
This emotive, heartbreaking, and thoughtfully written book has ruined me. I was emotionally gutted and thoroughly shattered. It took four days to get through it as I was occasionally compelled to put the book down and walk away from it and do some horrible and thankless task (like house cleaning) while I contemplated and digested the insightfully written words. It was wretchedly realistic and reeked of disheartening despair and distress, and happens repeatedly, every day and everywhere. This was only my second time experiencing the intense and profound storytelling mastery of Susan Lewis, and while I am emotionally drained it was well worth the discomfort and I sense I just may be a better person going forward having done so.
Susan Lewis is the bestselling author of over forty novels based on family drama, thriller, suspense and crime genres. “Home Truths” is her latest publication and is a powerfully emotive family drama, focusing on how far you would go to keep your family safe.
Angie’s happy life is shattered when her son Liam falls in with the wrong crowd and leads to her husband’s murder. It is left to her to hold what’s left of the family together. With her son missing and her daughter looking for help in dangerous places, Angie is barely able to keep a roof over their heads. But when the world is falling apart, a mother will do anything to protect her children….
I had never read a Susan Lewis novel before but I knew she was a well respected author who writes very powerful women’s fiction. I did feel an instant connection with the story when I started reading and found it initially to be quite brutal. Angie is portrayed as a strong character even though she infuriated me as she continued to bury her head in the sand, instead of seeking help from debt consolidators. Her daughter Grace, in my opinion, was the steal of the show and I liked how together with her friend she was adamant to try and help her mother with the financial difficulties.
Sadly as the story developed I did feel that the plot started to lose its way and focus more on the plight of the homeless and those in poverty. Although a huge amount of research has obviously been carried out by the author, I personally felt she surpassed what was needed to convey her feelings and emotions regarding those impoverished, to the reader and it soon became rather tedious reading. I was also starting to no longer be invested in what happened with Angie and where she was going to live. Without belittling the subject of the homeless, the story lacked depth and I wasn’t too impressed with the instantly predictable outcome and the sickly sweet, happy ever after, fairy tale ending. There was some emotional content during the closing chapters that I did experience, though I was saddened the author chose this route for the character involved. However, I appreciate she was trying to keep the story realistic to true life and through her research with the homeless she must have discovered these things sadly occur and wanted to tell their stories and do them justice.
Saying all this, I did want to see the story through to the end and I may still be tempted to read more by Susan again, subject depending. If women’s fiction, featuring poignant family drama is to your liking you should enjoy this book and I wish the author every success with another suspected bestseller.
3 stars
Home Truths by Susan Lewis a four-star read that may reveal some scary home truths. This was a well written, emotionally charged story, but it was not what I was expecting. I enjoy gritty reads when I am in the mood, I also like being able to lose myself in a novel and this one just came a little too close to home in the current climate. It is emotionally gripping and builds very well, if it wasn’t so well written I would have struggled to read, but the writing just kept me hooked. Angie is a very complex and brutal character, watching her grieve will knock you for six, but it was watching the effects on Liam, Grace and Zack that really knocked me down. I don’t know what to put as I don’t want to spoil the story as it is one that many will thoroughly enjoy. I will definitely be looking out for this author again in future.
This is an emotional novel about how quickly life can change. One minute you can be part of a happy family and by a twist of fate, you become a single mother on the edge of eviction from your family home and depending on handouts for the food to feed your children. The main character is a mother who will do anything she can to protect and take care of her children.
This novel alternates between two time lines – Angie as a young mother, getting married and with Liam as a happy child and Angie in present day trying to keep her two children in their family home. Angie is a brave woman and tries to do everything on her own – she doesn’t like to ask for help and by the time she does, her life is pretty hopeless. She is a loving mother whose main concern is her two children at home even as she yearns to find out what happened to her oldest son. I found it amazing how quickly life could go from middle class to extreme poverty and not having money to pay rent or buy food. Even though Angie worked several jobs, she still struggled with money. This is a dark and gritty book that deals with homelessness, drugs, human trafficking and prostitution and it will make you hope for the best for Angie and her family, and, yes, cry some tears for them too.
Angie and her family definitely deserve a happily ever after ending but will they be able to find their way out of their current circumstances and find happiness? or will life continue to keep them down? How far will a mother go to protect her family that she loves? This emotional book by Susan Lewis will keep you turning pages while you hope for a better life for this family.
Thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.
Home Truths by Susan Lewis is the story of one woman’s journey into homelessness. Although Angie’s story turned out better than many, it was more than frightening when her eldest son became involved with drugs and gangs and her husband was beat to death by the same gang with her son, Lima, looking on. She was miserable as were her remaining two children, but they were getting on, at first. But, as the months slipped by, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t keep up with the bills. Until, finally, her landlord started eviction proceedings. She ignored the mail, believing that it would be OK, until it wasn’t. She found herself packing to move out of her house, where she’d lived with Steve, her husband, and having no place to go, she bundled her kids off to her sister’s house and began sleeping in her van. She hated that. After a while it occurred to her that she could sleep in the storage room at the church, for whom she ran a home for homeless men. She managed to get a key and make a copy of it, until someone reported seeing a person around the room at night and they changed the locks. She was at her wit’s end, asking Steve for help one day after being turned down time and time again for jobs, when she saw Martin Lawrence through the window at a restaurant. She asked him for a job and got so much more.
This is an eye-opening book about how the services for people needing help sometimes make things so much worse. The measures put in place by the government are not enough and overwhelmed. Too often these services are run by jaded people, because they, too, have seen too much. It’s about internet trolls who target young people, drug them, and use them. About how families are threatened to seep low-level “soldiers” in line. I learned more than I care to know about the whole system, in a piece of fiction so kindly written that it brought tears to my eyes more than once. This is England, and things are run differently there, but the gist is the same. Everyone should read this book and think through how they could help; how their votes could change things; what it means to be human. I recommend it.
I was invited to read a free ARC of Home Truths by Netgalley. All opinions contained herein are solely my own. #netgalley #hometruths
In the blink of an eye Angie Watts perfect world crumbles, her husband is murdered, their financial stability is threatened, and her eldest son disappears without a trace. Her and her husband knew their eldest son Liam had fallen into the wrong crowd and it had a bad effect on all of their lives. He was missing school, becoming distant, and dabbling with drugs. But she never thought her son’s poor choices would lead to the death of her husband.
Now two years later she finds herself struggling to make ends meet due to her smothering debt, keep a roof over their heads, and maintain some control over her other two children. But her life is about to be overturned once again, the police have called to notify her that Liam has gotten himself into trouble again. How much more can this mother take?
In Home Truths readers will meet a mother driven by desperation, her need to hold her family together is so great she struggles to maintain staying on the right side of wrong. Angie just wants her happy family back, but at what cost. We all know desperation can lead people to do crazy things, but Angie borders the line of taking it too far. This story reads like the headlines you would see on the evening news, a family falling apart due to the poor choices of their children, dangerous associations to gangs, losing everything because of debt, and doing unthinkable things to pay those debts. This family faces it all, and page after page you will begin to wonder if they will ever be able to be happy again. It’s a heartbreaking family drama that will keep you completely enthralled from start to finish, and leave you wondering how far would you go to protect the ones you love? Highly recommend!!
I requested an advanced copy of this title from the publisher and I am voluntarily leaving my honest opinion.
This is a story that could be taken from the pages of any local newspaper today. It’s the tragedy of today’s working poor, job losses, housing crisis and it’s youth, caught up in drugs, gang activity and violence.
Angie and Steve had an idealistic life, with lovely children, a beautiful home and an income good enough to live comfortably. Then tragedy strikes, when Liam, their oldest son is caught up in gang activity and his father is brutally killed by a mob of these same gang members.
So starts Angie and her two remaining children, on a road to poverty, homelessness and the inability to find meaningful employment. This is a story of hardship, frustration, struggle and devastating loss, and hopelessness, in just the day to day efforts to survive.
But it’s also about the good people that are out there, ready and willing to help those that have reached overwhelming despair.
I have never read a #Susan Lewis book and thank #Goodreads and #Harper Collins for the ARC of HomeTruths. She is a masterful storyteller and I will definitely continue to read other’s she has written. This book was definitely one that plucked my heartstrings. All comments are my own.