From the author of book club favorite The Salt House comes a deeply affecting novel about a teenage girl finding her voice and the military wife who moves in downstairs, united in their search for the true meaning of home. Sixteen-year-old Libby Winters lives in Paradise, a seaside town north of Boston that rarely lives up to its name. After the death of her mother, she lives with her father, … lives with her father, Bent, in the middle apartment of their triple decker home–Bent’s two sisters, Lucy and Desiree, live on the top floor. A former soldier turned policeman, Bent often works nights, leaving Libby under her aunts’ care. Shuffling back and forth between apartments–and the wildly different natures of her family–has Libby wishing for nothing more than a home of her very own.
Quinn Ellis is at a crossroads. When her husband John, who has served two tours in Iraq, goes missing back at home, suffering from PTSD he refuses to address, Quinn finds herself living in the first-floor apartment of the Winters house. Bent had served as her husband’s former platoon leader, a man John refers to as his brother, and despite Bent’s efforts to make her feel welcome, Quinn has yet to unpack a single box.
For Libby, the new tenant downstairs is an unwelcome guest, another body filling up her already crowded house. But soon enough, an unlikely friendship begins to blossom, when Libby and Quinn stretch and redefine their definition of family and home.
With gorgeous prose and a cast of characters that feel wholly real and lovably flawed, This Is Home is a nuanced and moving novel of finding where we belong.
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I had been in a bit of a book slump and thriller burnout when a Goodreads friend, Susanne, recommended this book to me. I am so grateful to her, this book was just what I needed. Ms. Duffy’s writing flows so well and I was engaged by the book from the very beginning. This is a great story with wonderful writing and more than one life message that can be taken from it.
“This is Home” by Ms. Duffy shows us, by her carefully crafted characters and their interactions, just what the meaning of home is. It should be a place where you feel safe, comfortable, able to decorate your space as you like and if you are really lucky there may be other people in your building or house whom you care deeply about and who feel the same about you. Home should be a place that makes you feel happy to be there!
Bent Winters is an ex-serviceman who is now a police officer in a small town close to Boston named Paradise. After the death of his wife he is now solely responsible for his daughter Libby, age 16. Bent decided that moving into a 3 apartment home which his sister owns would be affordable and his sisters, Lucy and Desiree, could help look after Libby when he works long, late hours. The sisters live on the top floor and Libby and Bent on the second floor.
The three had just been getting to know each other when Bent rents out the lowest floor to a young woman, Quinn, who is trying to figure out her life. Her husband John has come back from several tours in Iraq, a completely different person. Quinn has tried all she can but John has pretty much deserted her, left their home and in fact later informs her that he has signed up for another tour. He has no interest anymore in making their marriage work. Bent had found Quinn on the steps outside her home, which she can no longer afford, and knew that he had to help her. Bent and John had been in the service together and he feels that he needs to try and help him and his wife.
This story will tug at your heartstrings, make you cry perhaps but also laugh. Throughout the book these characters will go through some tough times with Libby, as she tries to figure out her teenage self. Bent and Quinn begin a friendship which may lead to more than that. Somehow the five of them, including a rescue dog named Rooster and a new puppy, just seem to know how and when to help each other.
This is the kind of book that I would like to recommend to everyone. Don’t read a lot of reviews, just go into it blind, I just know you won’t be disappointed.
I received an ARC of this novel from the author and publisher through Edelweiss. This book will be published on June 11, 2019 by Atria books.
I really enjoyed how a moody teenaged girl became a confidante to a young woman whose husband (suffering from PTSD) has left her. It made me wish I lived in a 3 story building with family and friends on each floor. It’s a great combination of difficult situations and satisfying resolutions.
This Is Home was a wonderful novel about family and home! I enjoyed the characters and the way they were depicted The story centers around the multi unit house where Bent and his teenage daughter Libby live. Bent’s two sisters, Lucy and Desiree, also live here. Quinn moves into one of the house’s units after her husband disappears. The story is about the family who lives in the house and the other people in their lives who come and go. Bent struggles to raise his daughter on his own. Libby struggles with the hectic part of living with everyone in the house and her relationships with her friends. The characters and their stories encompass a little world that feels like a comfortable and warm home like atmosphere. The story is told with a range of intense emotion for the difficult parts of the characters’ lives and humor for the lighter moments.
Lisa Duffy’s latest novel, This is Home, is an incredibly heartfelt look at love, loss, desires and fears through the lenses of various family members. Life is full of good, bad and ugly. This is Home respectfully puts PTSD in the spotlight in this harrowing tale of life after war.
The story is told in dual narration by teenaged Libby and thirty-something Quinn who have been thrown together by fate. Well, fate and Quinn’s MIA husband and his ex-sergeant. While each character is on their individual quest to find love and happiness, the two narrators’ odysseys are the primary plot of the book. At first wary of one another, these two form an unlikely bond that illuminates and refines their needs and how to fulfill them.
Quinn lost her husband, John, to war. Not that he physically died in battle, but he mentally and emotionally died as a result of PTSD. He just couldn’t make his way back to Quinn. Fundamental to her moving on is the determining if she ever really had him.
“I said John is a good soldier. Doesn’t mean he was a good husband.” – Bent
Libby lost her mother to both emotional distance and cancer. She has essentially been raised by her father and aunts. She is a highly intelligent and emotive young woman, who has figured out that “dying isn’t the only way someone disappears”.
“Coming home to people who are happy to see you…” makes a difference to each of the motely characters in this novel. Even when coming home also means dealing with dysfunctional relationships and addictions. Because it is the sense of belonging and acceptance that create the feeling of family and home.
This is Home is an emotional journey that will greatly affect readers. Bent was my absolute favorite, but I loved all the characters. Ms. Duffy’s character development and creative storytelling is superb. This heartfelt novel is one of my #MustRead2019 books.
Lisa Duffy’s latest novel, a story of joy and struggle in a coastal New England town, is full of engaging characters you’ll remember long after you turn the final page. This Is Home reveals the truth of human nature, which seeks to heal and forgive those we love, even when they break our hearts.
Lisa Duffy’s beautiful novel delves into that most elemental of themes — home — with insight and grace. This is a book to savor.
The connections between these characters was surprising, amazing, and perfect. Every person in this book is connected to the others. They are family members, community members, housemates, brothers, fathers, daughters, and sisters. They protect, they push, and they love with their whole hearts. I loved how connected they were and how they stood together no matter what was happening.
Libby is the perfect teenager. She grew up mostly without a mother but had her aunts and her father to give her the love she needed to thrive and grow. When Quinn moves into the apartment below them, she brings a relationship that Libby didn’t know she was missing. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t quick but it was real. She became a friend, a confidant, and a woman in Libby’s life that was there by choice not just because she is family.
Lisa Duffy wrote a book that handles so many tough subjects, PTSD being a big one, but she does it with care and respect. She shows how a disease can affect the person and those who love them. There is so much involved with the characters, their lives, and the lives they share. I couldn’t put this book down.
This phenomenal novel reveals such unique and endearing characters struggling through upheaval and loss in order to forge the true shape of their family. They face each day with humor, grit, and vulnerability that draws the reader in. Libby, Quinn, Bent, and even the world’s smelliest dog rush to life on these pages and have carved out a place for themselves forever in my imagination. Building on her emotional debut novel, this book solidifies Duffy as a master of writing hope into heartbreak.
A beautifully drawn portrait of a motherless girl and a rudderless woman both trying to find their place in the world— but who find each other instead. Lisa Duffy nails the complexities of modern relationships, and proves that she’s a storyteller that’s here to stay.
This novel was a great joy to read; completely unexpected and wholly heartfelt. It’s a group of misfit characters muddling through life attempting to understand that they actually do fit, it’s just the where and how that’s tripping them up. The author very eloquently and honestly delves into tough subject matter without laboring on those topics. She acutely makes them a living part of the story to showcase how those matter leave lasting effects on the effected. Lisa Duffy’s writing engages you in her story perfectly. She never tells you anything but shows you the very ordinary lives of these people and the adjustments they make for each other.
The plot is woven together with some mystery and allure, romance and longing, grief and elation. It’s a family story. A patchwork quilt of quirky, illuminating characters that fill your reading heart from beginning to end. Self discovery is abundant. Understanding and acceptance profound. Letting go and moving on essential. The two characters from whom we get duel perspectives are seeking understanding, security, and a keen sense of self. They grow together throughout this book in a myriad of ways with the unsolicited help of the motley crew of eccentric secondary characters.
I would classify this as contemporary women’s fiction. There’s seeds of romance planted throughout but it’s not even close to the main component of this story. Love, loss, and growth are tangled up together to create just a really refreshing, honest story of hope. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I loved this story. Libby who is 16 lives with her dad (Bent) on the middle floor of a triple Decker home. Ben’t sisters, Libby’s Aunts live on the top floor and a stranger moves in downstairs who Libby finds out her name is Quinn. I enjoyed getting to know all the characters in this book and what they have been through. Libby’s mom was never an actual mother to her and then her mother came back home with cancer and passed away. Quinn who is married and her husband John went missing after two tours in Iraq. So much happens that keeps you reading page by page. Libby wants to have home with just her dad and their dog, but comes to love having all the family around and finally it comes to be this is home for them all. Reality of life in this book and what family and friends will do to help others. I just loved this book. 5 stars. Thank you for such a wonderful told story Lisa. I recommend this book to others definitely.
Lisa Duffy won me over with her heartrending, beautifully written debut THE SALT HOUSE, and I’ve been looking forward to her sophomore novel ever since. I was fortunate to receive an advance copy from the publisher, and take it from me: Put this one on your list for June, because THIS IS HOME is worth the wait!
From its perfect title to the moving story behind it, THIS IS HOME is gorgeously written, tightly woven, and full of characters you can’t help but cheer for. I didn’t want it to end! (Thanks to the author and her generous publisher for the ARC to read & review.)
This is Home is a beautifully-written, emotionally-charged book revolving around a group of people who share an apartment building. The story features compelling characters which include Quinn, a young wife whose soldier-husband has left her; Libby, a teenager who is trying to figure out her place within her family and among her friends ; as well as family members and friends who complicate their lives with their own struggles. The author delves into the difficult subjects of PTSD and addiction with honesty and compassion, leaving readers with feelings of understanding and hope. There were so many times when the author’s writing took my breath away, with lines like this one from the prologue: “…she takes the flag and presses it against her chest to keep her heart from slipping out.” All in all, This is Home is a book to treasure, a book to hold in your heart, a book that reminds us that all we really need in life is to come home to a place where people are happy to see you.