Every TD in the country should be strapped to a chair and forced to read it.

On Saturday, The Irish Independent reviewed A Thousand Roads Home.

The verdict?

They liked it!!! So relieved. I always read media reviews, peeking through my fingers, nervous about the verdict.

The full review can be found here:Irish Independent Review – Every TD should read!

Aside from the fact that I’m mentioned in the same sentence as Roddy Doyle (oh my), here’s a snippet of the full review. And oh my again for that last line!

Harrington doesn’t shy away from the dark side of life on the streets – poverty, violence and loneliness all feature – but good eventually triumphs. Thrown together, Ruth, DJ and Tom show us the ways that people try to put broken lives back together and the three of them manage to do something extraordinary.

It’s Harrington’s gift as a storyteller (she keeps a cracking pace, a lot happens over 438 pages) and the inherent dignity in Ruth and Tom’s characters that stop the book getting too bleak. The story itself is always gripping and shifts back and forward in time. Most importantly maybe, the characters are very convincing.

Ruth and Tom’s courage and initiative are endearing because they are representative of the way people really do become strong when they need to be. Every TD in the country should be strapped to a chair and forced to read it.

Carmel x

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