Little Wing by Freya North

About the book

1969. Florence Lawson, a 16-year-old schoolgirl who dreams of being an artist, finds herself pregnant and banished to one of the most remote parts of the UK.

1986. Dougie Munro, searching for adventure, leaves the Isle of Harris – the island of his birth – for art college and a career in London as a photographer.

2005. Nell Hartley, content with her life managing a care-in-the-community cafe in Colchester, discovers a shocking truth about her family.

Between the sprawl of London, suburban Essex, and the wild, unpredictable Outer Hebrides, three lives collide and interweave as questions are asked and secrets surface. What happened to Florence? Why is Dougie now so reluctant to return home? How can Nell make peace with the lies she’s been told?

Little Wing is a novel about resilience, forgiveness and the true meaning of family, about finding one’s place in the world and discovering how we all belong somewhere and to someone.

What I thought

This is only the second book of this author that I’ve read, the first one being The Unfinished Business of Eadie Browne which I absolutely adored. Though I don’t think anything could beat that book for me, (perhaps I’m a tad biased because it was set in Manchester) this one certainly came a close second, I loved this too.

All the characters in the book are likeable with their own backstories. It starts out with Nell Hartley. She runs the local cafe in Colchester along with her staff, happy in her work she also visits her mum who lives in a care home and has early onset dementia. Nell finds the visits hard at times as her mum on her bad days doesn’t recognise her daughter and Nell is left wondering why her mum often asks if she’s Florence. It’s after Nell finds out some shocking news from her Aunt that she takes on a long journey to Harris in search of the truth.

Here she eventually meets up with Dougie, also returning to Harris to visit his father. Dougie too is in some ways in search of his lost youth, his dreams of being a photographer haven’t quite worked out the way he had envisaged and now finds himself working as a commercial photographer, photographing products for catalogues. It’s not really what he went to art college for.

Then there’s Florence as we go back in time to when she turned up on Harris, 16 and pregnant, shunned by her family, how was she going to cope on an island so far from home away from her precious step dad and her best friend. Florence’s story is particularly touching, yet hopeful too.

There are lots of vivid descriptions of this beautiful area, and the islands practically become a character in themselves in the book. It’s a wonderful story of characters finding truths, lamenting their losses and making peace with their pasts with much hope for the future. A really satisfying read which I enjoyed very much.