I am a huge fan of a kestrel and the film adaptation but never read this one before. This is the story of a hard working gamekeeper in the north of England at a time where work is scare and steady employment revolves around mining and steel works, this is the life of being at one with nature. Living off the land was a way to make ends meet and also keep gamekeepers in favour with a landlord by providing expertise for planning shooting parties and the like. An escape from the manual labour of mining, but brought its own challenges and dangers. Beautiful writing as expected and I thought true to life at the time, social injustices, class, money and lack of it all feature and would make good discussion with a book club. Thank you #NetGalley for the audiobook to review.

Evocative and illuminating year-in-the-life story from the author of 'Kes'.

This caught my interest. I loved Kes (book and film) and remembered enjoying the storytelling, the style of writing.

I read this as an audiobook and it did bring the period to life. We follow George Purse through a year of seasons at his job of gamekeeper. Which had moments of total fascination actually. Caring for eggs and raising chicks was the highlight for me. Watching out for poachers. The hunt at the end, bringing home the reality that George's job is literally to ensure the rich have their sport.

The neverending work is really emphasised, the poverty present at the time and in this place, I did feel the period quite sharply.

Very eloquent, and a worthwhile read.

With thanks to Netgalley for providing a sample audio copy.

Format: audiobook ~ Narrator: Luke R. Francis
Content: 4 stars ~ Narration: 5 stars

George lives with his family in the heart of the English countryside. He is a gamekeeper. His job is to breed pheasants for the Duke so that the pheasant hunt in autumn can be successful. It may seem like a simple job at first glance, but it is not. It’s hard to raise strong pheasants.

George possesses impressive knowledge about nature, the landscape, and the animals that inhabit it. He is very protective of the pheasants, fighting against anything (humans and animals) that could threaten their existence.

"George Purse never killed anything for fun. He only killed to protect his pheasants, which were then killed by other people for fun."

Although first published in 1975, The Gamekeeper is, in one way, a timeless novel that outlines the connection between man and nature.

Many detailed descriptions show Hines’ excellent knowledge of this profession. But this also makes the narrative slow. And although The Gamekeeper is an interesting portrait of a working-class man and his connection to nature, it is also very slow, and sometimes the reader may struggle to read it. I highly recommend listening to an audiobook to make things easier.

Thanks to Saga Egmont Audio for the advance copy and this opportunity! This is a voluntary review and all opinions are my own.

This re-release of a book from 1979 has an interesting resonance in the current day- only 40 years stands between then and now, and within those years, a whole way of life has seemingly disappeared, with a roster of class-divided people all vying to secure their position and interact with nature in a way that makes most sense to them- protecting or shooting wild birds, and surviving however they can.

I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I found this book very difficult to get into and once I did, honestly it bored me to tears. Maybe there are readers out there that this will appeal to but I was not one of them.
Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the arc in exchange for this honest review.

A, warts and all, story of the life of a gamekeeper in the rural North of England. When the steel works are mines were the main occupations of the area. Told over a year, the gamekeeper is in charge of breeding pheasants for the hunt. In a time when small hunt animals were currency for favours.

I just loved this book. It's a bit grim living off the land, but that's how it was before supermarkets. A great insight into life back then. It was very entertaining.

An ode and manual to a quiet life that now reads as a coda to a lifestyle that barely seems possible in current times. The Gamekeeper covers a year in the life of a gamekeeper (shocking) who raises pheasants and grouse to be hunt on a duchy in rural England. A retired steelworker, our protagonist now spends his day caring for his birds and fending off poachers, both human and animal. Touching on themes of class, friendship, and solitude, the novel will get its teeth in you and its hard not to yearn for this life among the birds and trees.