I liked many aspects of this novel but parts of it were a little odd. For example, if you're going to have a character with autistic traits, they should be researched, convincing and sensitive. I also thought the tone was a little gentle for some themes.

The Last of the Greenwoods by Clare Morrall is about estranged brothers and the discovery that the sister they thought was dead may be alive.

A quirky book with quirky characters - I enjoyed it, though it was a bit slow in parts. Something of a different book for me.

I couldn't finish this one. I could have fought through it but I was disinterested and found myself skimming. Not too great would recommend if you're new to reading this kind of story.

The message in this book is a clear one. If you have to make a life choice do it carefully.
Nick, Johnny and Zohra made choices they now regret and they get a chance to make up for a few of them. The reader does get some insight how the situation was when the choices were made but the decision made was not always the obvious one. I missed out on the connection between the stories except for the she was the postwoman that delivered that letter and in need of a train carriage. The way they stood in their lives, how they got there and what they now were looking for was so different. This gave me the feeling I was reading two different books set in the same place at the same time.
I enjoyed the story of Zohra and Crispin the most. There is a lot of action in that part of the story. Crispin is a fun character with an interesting life. What he does for Zohra makes him even more likeable. The past they share and what they know makes it easy to cheer for them.
There are some interesting parts in the brothers stories too. The murder of their sister and now the woman showing up. The flashbacks on their lives which was pretty interesting and fun. But in the end I missed some depth in the characters to really connect.

Clare Morrall is so good at writing about people on the margins. In ‘The Last of the Greenwoods’, Johnny and Nick Greenwood are estranged brothers who live separately in two abandoned, adjacent railway carriages; with shared kitchen and bathroom. They are adept at avoiding each other.
Nick lives in Aphrodite on the right, Johnny in Demeter on the left. Aphrodite has horizontal blinds at the windows, open at a slant so someone inside can look out but no-one outside can see in. Demeter’s windows are unknowable with permanently drawn curtains. The carriages sit amidst trees and shrubs, hidden from the main road in Bromsgrove, West Midlands. They have been the brother’s world since they were boys. Until one day, into the lives of these emotionally separated but geographically close brothers comes a letter which reignites haunted memories. “The floor is vibrating under his feet, there’s a sensation of motion, as if the train has started to move. What’s happening? Is he slipping backwards, losing his place in the present and tumbling back to the past? How can this be?”
The letter is from their older sister, Debs; the sister who was murdered when the boys were children. As the brothers consider whether the letter is real, a fake, or a joke we learn more about their background via Zohra, the postwoman who delivered the letter. Zohra has a past of her own which she tries to forget. What brings together these seemingly disparate story strands? Trains? And what effects change in the lives of the Greenwoods and Zohra? Trains.
Slowly, with exquisite and often humorous detail, Morrall unravels the mysteries of the past, building a picture of these people’s lives. They are ordinary people but in telling their story she makes them extraordinary, reminding us that the life of each of us has a story to tell and that elements of life can be repetitive. “Are they doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again – play, replay, round and round on an endless loop?”
Running throughout is the question of verifiable identity: the woman who returns could be Deb, or Deb’s friend Bev pretending to be Debs; and who are the girls who harassed Zohra on social media, did they use their real names or not? The brothers consider how they can accept Debs, do they need evidence, DNA proof, or can they trust their instincts? And why are the two brothers not talking?
Another masterful Morrall novel.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/

What a beautiful book! It’s not a fast-paced page turner but a slow-burning, compelling read with enough intrigue to keep the reader interested.I loved the two stories running side by side. The characters were vivid and believable. The perfect book to immerse yourself in on a long journey.

An intriguing tale about a missing sister who returns many years later. But her brothers are unsure if she is their actual sister.

Interesting characters, well thought out plot and a tense read in places. The end was quite ambiguous but a pleasurable read and a favourite author of mine.

I loved this book. It kept me captivated from beginning to end.
Zohra is a postwoman. She loves her job, enjoys being outside and most of all it helps her keep her anxiety under control. One day she has a letter for an address she didn't know existed and meets the Greenwood brothers. We follow the Greenwoods and Zohra's stories, flashing back to see how they came to be in their respective points in life and seeing how their stories unfold.
The author told these stories quite beautifully. There is little fast action until the very end and the book meanders along at its own pace. However, I was still kept enthralled. How did all these people arrive in the situations they are in - why are the Greenwoods living side by side but untalking? What went wrong for Zohra at school? All of these people made mistakes, much like we all do, and need to come to terms with them and put them solidly in the past and move on.
I loved the characters. Yes, they all do wrong things but they aren't nasty. These are just ordinary people living ordinary lives. In fact, I think they all sound quite interesting & I'd be happy to go out for a drink with any of them!
I just fell in love with this book and the characters. I was quite sad when I had to leave them. I know they are only book characters but I was left with the feeling that I hope it all works out for them!
I was given a free copy of this book via Netgalley.

Wow! I thoughly enjoyed this book. It grabbed my attention straight away and kept me gripped to the end. A brilliant unputdownable read. Thank you!

When reading the blurb of this book, my interest was piqued by the human aspect, but I was worried I might not fully get on board* with the train aspect. I needn’t have been concerned though - this was a really brilliant tale of romance, railways and resilience, and one I would happily read again and again.
*See what I did there?

I requested this book since it is set close to where I live, but sadly the writing style was absolutely not my thing.

You get two stories for the price of one with this book. In one thread Zohra, the village postwoman, is living a quiet life after having been the victim of Facebook bullying. In the second two reclusive brothers are faced with the return of their long lost sister.

In both cases the main characters are faced with truths about their past, perhaps things did not happen as they remembered.

There is lots of action in this book, but it remains surprisingly gentle, you feel sympathy for everyone who is forced to reexamine their past and reconsider their futures.

Most enjoyable!

Thanks Hodder & Stoughton and netgalley for this ARC.

What family means to different cultures, personalities, and traumatic events that effect changes in people. Loved the way Clare Morrall brings all these things together without making this a sappy chick lit book.

Plenty of themes going on here and plenty of action to link them. Good characterisation, too, and I particularly enjoyed the dynamic between the two estranged Greenwood brothers and between them and the woman who turns up claiming to be their long-lost sister, thought to have died 50 years ago. For most of the book, I expected the question of her identity to become central but it doesn’t really. What it does is link nicely with Zohra’s teenage experience with Facebook trolls - the question of not knowing if someone is actually who they say they are. If not, how do they know so much about you and what do they want from you? In the case of the Greenwoods, the reappearance of ‘Debs’ provides the impetus for them to mend fences with each other after decades of smouldering resentment over past events and, whether she turns out to be Debs or not, surely that can only be good? I had to restrain myself from racing through the pages to find out. We are also given a wealth of detail about steam locomotives and their restoration that largely went over my head, but introduced some entertaining characters and dialogue.

I’ve been a fan of Clare Morrall’s writing for many years. It seems like ages since her last book so this was a long-awaited treat for me.

I chose to read this book because of its blurb: elderly brothers live in adjoining railway carriages. No one visits and they never speak to each other. Until the day Zohra Dasgupta, a young postwoman, delivers an extraordinary letter - from a woman claiming to be the sister they thought had been murdered fifty years earlier. And this didn’t disappoint. Two strong storylines which ran parallel then intersected at certain points, believable characters and good quality writing all made this a very enjoyable book which will appeal to many readers.

Note: rating is 3.5 / 5

When Zohra, a postwoman with a past that has derailed her life, is asked to deliver a letter to two brothers who time seems to have forgotten, she can’t help but be intrigued – especially when she finds out they live in a railway carriage (also lost in time).
Zohra has an interest in trains, is helping to restore a local station and train line, and an interest – it seems – in people who, just like her, have secrets. And the Greenwoods, Johnny and Nick, have secrets, a whole lifetime of them.
Johnny and Nick bury everything in a shield of anger at each other, they always have, but it got worse when – forty odd years ago – their sister died and their mom fell apart. Still only young, they were left to their own devices and to pick up the pieces. They didn’t pick them up very well. Now, as they enter their 60’s everything is about to change with the arrival of a letter from a woman claiming to be their long-dead sister. Can it be true? And if it is, what does that mean for the lives they’ve been living? And what about Zohra, is her past destined to shape her future the way that the Greenwoods lives have been shaped? As her path crosses theirs, changes may – it seems – be about to happen.
Writing this out, it all seems like a lovely story and it is, heartfelt and heart-warming in so many ways. Clare Morrall has built a wonderful, slightly off-beat, world, one where people aren’t quite what they seem and where they often hide their pain in the dull, day-to-day, routine of living. If anything, it was too lovely for me – this book wasn’t really my style (which I only realised once I started reading it) and I feel bad about that because it means my review probably won’t be as positive as others you might read.
Part of my problem are the characters themselves. No one is normal, everyone is a bit off the wall. It made it hard for me to focus on the story because I was distracted by their quirks. None of them were bad people, none of them were unlikeable – quite the opposite, but I needed at least one character to ground them, and the story, and I didn’t get that.
The second problem for me was the way the story wandered. Morrall writes in a way that mirrors her story, which is slow-paced and slow to build. Her words tend to wander through the people she is writing about, describing them in a little too much detail in places and then making leaps in others as if you – as the reader – are supposed to fill in the gaps. I’m not much of a one for too many words and there were way too many here (when fewer could have done just as well).
It’s a style that I struggle with, one that I find pretty but also hard to follow at times. In places, I loved this book, how it was playing out. In others, I was so frustrated by the pace that I just wanted to grab the characters and scream. I know not every book in life moves as quickly as the majority I read but here, the phrase “slow as molasses” came to mind more than once.
Somewhere halfway through I started to feel tired by reading and, whilst I wanted to know how it all ended, I also wasn’t sure how much I cared. Still, I did make it through – to an ending that was positive and life affirming and showed that we can all reinvent ourselves and it’s never to late to start again.
It all reminded me of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, which didn’t work for me either, but probably gives you an idea of whether you would like this book or not. So, a hard one to review – a well written book, with interesting characters, and a strong, positive message at the end, but just not for me. Sorry!

Johnny and Nick Greenwood are brothers living side by side, yet not talking to one another, in 2 dilapidated railway carriages, the home of their childhood 50 years ago. A childhood that saw their sister murdered. An unexpected letter and an arrival from abroad opens up everything they thought they knew about the past and brings them back together. Alongside is the story of the railway, brought back from abandonment by a group of volunteers. Zohra is one of these volunteers, and also delivers the unexpected letter to the Greenwood brothers - her story is equally as intriguing as that of Nick and Johnny. A really enjoyable read with a fast-paced and exciting ending.

I loved this books characters, especially Johnny and Nick. Two brothers living side by side in old railway carriages but not speaking. A really enjoyable read with a mystery at the heart of it.

Thanks to Netgalley for my copy.