A brave attempt to deal with disabilities and can anger issues be nature or nurture. But this is just hinted at rather than discussed. Plot is minimal and mostly predictable. The writing is good but there is nothing to pull you through the book. So it was no surprise when all ends happily ever after.

I steamed through this book - really enjoyed it while accepting it is a serious theme and also fairly light read.

This is the story of Lizzie who begins the book giving birth prematurely to twin boys - Oliver and Joseph. As the story unfolds we watch both boys grow up and in their different ways mature into men. They have had different challenges to face - Oliver is healthy and popular but feels his mother put all her attention onto his brother, Joseph has a disability and has been protected and supported all his life. On the outside they are two handsome twins but on the inside they are living totally different lives. And sadly this has affected their relationship which is at times distant and at others, volatile.

But they are also dealing with something that they are not aware of consciously - there is a secret in their family. They both clearly have an inkling that all is not right but with no evidence they just deal with this as best they can. Their mother has presented herself as a strong warrior, someone who has fought against all the odds and made her boys her highest priority. But she is holding onto a secret and in this way, she is actually helping create a problem for her beloved twins.

Lies within the family are toxic and this story is about the gradual unravelling of the family story until at last the truth is revealed.

I found the characters believable and the story is interesting. Of course it is a little easy to rely on the entrance of a stranger with stories to tell, for the truth to be revealed. But even though the boys were not the type to ask questions much earlier, and their unexamined lives meant that they could have lived all their years believing a fantasy, it still was an enjoyable read.

The experience of parents with premature babies spending those first weeks in a neo-natal high dependency ward was well described and perhaps that is the part of the book that remains with me most.

I was completely hooked from the beginning and it was so very hard to put down. It was an amazing read. Being a sister of younger twin brothers I was interested to read about Joe and Oli's relationship. Lizzie was such a courageous lady full of character. grit and determination despite the hurdles she faced. A wonderful story of love, friendship and success against all odds. I loved the twists and turns as the story developed.

.Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to read this book in return for an honest review. I always love a Caroline Bond novel so I was excited to read the new one The Day We left. I have to say that I absolutely loved it and is now my favourite book by Caroline Bond. It literally has a little bit of everything in it and was a very emotional read. The bravery Beth showed was awe inspiring and I just wanted to hug her so badly. A captivating story that was totally believable and relatable. I highly recommend this book and have given it 5 stars

This is a well written book about family drama, deceit, lies and subterfuge and on the whole is a good read. The story flows well and moves from past to present times easily. It centres on Beth and her twin sons Oliver and Joseph, the family dynamics and their relationships with each other. I found it hard to like all three characters which ultimately affected how much I enjoyed this read. I liked the start of the book and the hint of underlying tension that made me guess (correctly) at Beth's relationship with her husband. The author is descriptive about Joe's CP, how it affects him and his relationships with his mother and brother. The story then slowed in my opinion, yes I liked following the twins relationship and lives from teenagers to present day although I still didn't really like or take to either of them. I think the ending is good, the twins know what their mum did and why and if I'm honest I liked the three of them more at the end than I did during the rest of the story. Overall, a good easy read although this didn't wow me, and if you like books with family drama then you'll probably like this one.

3 stars ⭐⭐⭐

This was an emotional read set around the time Lizzie prematurely gave birth to twin boys and her time in hospital whilst they were in the neonatal unit and then continues from their sixteenth birthdays onwards when she is now known as Beth and, so the story goes, raised her sons single handed (but with support from a good friend and fellow single mother) after a freak accident killed the boys father the day before they were due to leave hospital. For me I found the chapter set around the birth and the boys first few weeks really engaging but I didn’t find the chapters following the boys lives during different birthdays as enjoyable. The story itself is quite slow paced but has a strong storyline at its core and it was interesting to see how the author wanted to write about raising boys to become decent men. I think it did a great job of writing about Joe’s disability and the impact it also had on those around him, most especially his brother who felt it overshadowed his own life. This is a very thoughtful book and great for those who want a slow burning emotional family read.

The Day We Left is a story about Joe and Oli, twin boys who are very different. They are led to believe that their father died when they were babies, but their mother, Beth, is hiding the real truth which is that she took the boys and ran away from a violent partner.
This was a slow and gentle book. An OK story that doesn't pull up any trees. As a whole, the writing was good - apart from the excessive number of typos, missing words, wrong words etc which need to be picked up in a thorough proof-read - but I would not describe it as a page-turner. The plot was predictable, although it had a hint of tension which suggested that a twist might be forthcoming; unfortunately this never materialised.
The ending was unsurprising and rounded everything up. I can recognise that many people will enjoy this type of bland escapism, and maybe my expectations were too high for this one, but it's unlikely that I will look out for more from Caroline Bond.

Thanks to NetGalley and Atlantic Books for a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.