This book had me SOBBING on the way to work this week, the last couple of chapters! Wow!

This short story is full of raw emotion, educational insight into relationships and how these were considered during earlier years. A story of which will probably still resonate with a lot of people.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, more than I thought I would. I’m so glad I chose to read it when I did. This year I’m trying out new genres, historical fiction being one, and this has set the bar high for the future.

A small book, with a mighty message!

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book!

Claire Lynch’s A Family Matter is a quietly devastating, gorgeously wrought novel that slips its hand gently into yours, only to press your pulse with unbearable tenderness. Set across two timelines - 1982 and 2022 - it unearths not only the ghosts of a forbidden love affair but the bureaucratic violence visited on queer women under British law, and the long, aching consequences that ripple through a family.

In prose that’s lyrical but never overwrought, Lynch threads the personal and the political into a finely embroidered tapestry. In 1982, Dawn, new mother, reluctant wife - meets Hazel, and their love blooms with quiet defiance, rich with the thrill of secrecy and the terror of being found out. “How would she begin to explain that this wasn’t new at all but the opposite. Something she had always known, as deep and bright as bone.” This isn’t just a love story, it’s a reckoning. It’s about what it means to remember yourself when the world is determined to forget you.

Forty years later, Heron, Dawn’s ex-husband, is facing his own mortality. His voice is full of ageing regret, a man “still like a boy sometimes, waiting for his mother to fix his problems for him,” haunted by what he hid and what he justified. The court transcripts (drawn from real historical cases) lend a grim authenticity, pulling no punches in their cold assessments of “risk to the child, psychological harm, influence of… perversion.”

This novel brims with characters trying - and often failing - to articulate their deepest truths. Maggie, the daughter caught in the crossfire, is an echo of her mother in ways she can’t yet see: “She looks at her reflection and has no idea if she has turned into her mother.” Lynch excels in these moments of mirrored interiority, where past and present bleed together, where love is both the balm and the pain. The writing is patient, elliptical, observant, like Annie Ernaux with a touch more warmth, or Tessa Hadley when she’s feeling unforgiving.

And yet, for all its sorrow, A Family Matter is also a love letter: to children, to mothers, to those who were made to leave and those left behind. “It had been the work of a lifetime, learning to live with what she had lost. Watching what other people had gained. The fluke of being born at a slightly different time, or in a slightly different place, all that might gift you or cost you.” Lynch writes this with the clarity of hindsight and the ache of knowing.

The final chapters left me breathless, not with melodrama but with the quiet devastation of lives re-examined and love remembered. There is forgiveness here, but not without grief. Resolution, but not without reckoning.

This is a book that deserves to be studied. A vital, beautifully-crafted account of love, loss, and the quiet resilience of queer lives lived in the shadows, and the light.

✨ Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK, Vintage | Chatto & Windus for the ARC. It was an honour to read this stunning debut.

This is a rare book. A beautiful, heartbreaking, important book. It's a book that will stay with me for a very, very long time. The storyline follows Dawn in the 1980s, a young mother who falls in love with another woman, and her estranged daughter Maggie in the present day. Maggie has an unusually close relationship with her father Heron, who brought her up as a single father. But Heron has been keeping secrets from Maggie, and when the past comes back to haunt them, Maggie has to reckon with everything she thought she knew about her life. Utterly brilliant, I was captivated from page one.

This book had me thinking about it whilst I wasn't reading.
It's baffling to think this was only 40 years ago and how far we've come since.
I ended up feeling a bit sorry for Heron and especially sorry for Dawn and Maggie.
My only criticism is it could have been a bit longer as it feels there was more of the story to tell.

I can’t believed I have lived through this time and never knew things like this were happening around me. What a beautifully written story about the quest of one woman to have her child who was everything. The only thing she did not have was the Law on her side.

This book captured me it was emotional and insightful a tale wonderfully told

A lesson for us all to learn

This book will stay with me. It’s genuinely gotten under my skin and I’ve found myself referencing it during convos with friends

A good little read, though I would have loved something longer, deeper and more expansive on the same subject. However, Lynch does a wonderful job in packing a great deal of action and context into such a small format. A Family Matter was clearly meticulously researched: it shows in the writing, which is clear and compelling in how inevitable Dawn and Maggie's separation would be.

For me, the characters are realistic but not always vivid. Perhaps because Maggie's reactions are broadly quite restrained, which is understandable in light of her age and responsibilities, her father's illness etc, the story sometimes lacks urgency for me. The perspective switch from the alternating family sections (Heron, Maggie, Dawn) to the few brief sections where it's from the solicitor's perspective also took me out of the story a bit, as it felt inconsistent with the structure of the book otherwise, but they're only brief little shifts.

This would be a wonderful read for fans of Kit De Waal or John Boyne's The Heart's Invisible Furies, particularly for readers who enjoy contained, concise fiction that can be read in a session or two.

Looking at a family history from various points of view gives interesting perspectives on a single action. Just one mis-step and everything unravels. Eventually 40 years later many difficulties get resolved.

4.5 ⭐️

I feel like this is a book that will stay with me for a while, it’s beautifully written and so so heartfelt.

The two timelines are woven together beautifully from 1982 and 2022.

Honestly just go out and read it, this book made me feeling everything,

An interesting story about a mother who was forced to give up her child, just because she was in a relationship with another woman. The father who was spineless and went along with what he was told to do, despite thinking that it was wrong. And the child who as an adult, learns the truth about why her mother left her.
I found the court case was shocking! How men could get away with treating a woman like this is beyond comprehension.
I’m so very pleased that times, attitudes and actions have changed for the better.
I’m marking this book down as I didn’t feel any emotion when reading it, however, it opened up my eyes and for that I am thankful.

A Family Matter is a character driven read and I loved it.
This is a debut book for this author and I loved it. There are 2 timelines that you bounce around. The first being 1982 and Dawn is twenty three years old, married to Heron with a daughter but Hazel comes into her life and turns it upside down. They need to be together but Heron and the year that it is has other thoughts on her having access to her daughter. Dawn gives up her daughter and moves away leaving Maggie to be brought up by her father. 2022 and Heron has some bad news but he’ll keep it to himself for a while as Maggie is busy with a job, husband and two children to look after but sorting through paperwork and handing it to Maggie to sort for herself leads to information Maggie never knew about.
Wow I loved this book, it drew me in from the beginning and didn’t let go. The last few pages will stay with me for a while as I process everything. The characters were all very real which made it easy to read. The book wasn’t too long either which was a nice change to not have something dragging out for the sake of it. A good ending leaving you with your own thoughts. A really good debut.

This book is written in two timescales - 1982 and 2022. In 1982 Dawn lives with her husband Heron and daughter Maggie and then she meets and falls in love with Hazel. She hopes that Heron will forgive her for falling in love with a woman but he doesn’t and he fights her in court for sole custody of Maggie with the help of his mother. Thanks to the lawyers, he wins. I am a similar age to Dawn, Hazel and Heron and have lived through the 80s as a young woman. It is hard to remember how different those days were and how far we have come since then although I do remember as a librarian, how clause 28 affected book selection.
Heron is dying in 2022. He knows that he will need to tell Maggie not only that he has cancer but that her mother didn’t just run away and leave her. The world Maggie grew up in is a very different world. Hard for her to understand the past. I ended up having sympathy for all these well depicted characters .
I did wonder how accurate the novel is but the author’s research is at the back of the book and proves that the novel accurately portrays how gay women with children were treated.
Thank you Netgalley for giving me an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book which was set in the early 80s and tells the story of Dawn who has followed the life path expected of her and married very early. She’s living with her husband in a small town when she unexpectedly meets and falls deeply in love with Hazel, who has moved into the village herself . As she gets to know Hazel more and falls in love, it becomes clear to her that her marriage is a sham and she needs to follow her heart and move in with Hazel. All very shocking at that time in her rural backwater. To add to the complications, Dawn has a little baby Maggie and her decision to leave her marriage ultimately causes her to move away from Maggie.
We meet the family again in modern times when Maggie is living with her father who is now elderly and has a serious life limiting illness they’ve had a very close relationship over the years but I’ve never really discussed the main reason that her mother left her all those years ago
The author has a beautiful flowing lyrical writing style. Her book is a joy to read. She has the ability to describe the quiet differences between people and the struggles that they have perfectly and her character definition and progression is a strength in her writing.
I am finding it hard now to read novel set in the early 80s when the understanding is that this is a historical time period it’s making me feel very old nevertheless the early 80s were very different to the 2020s and this is what comes over well in this writing.
I read an early copy of the novel on netGalley UK in return for a in an unbiased review. The book is published in the UK on the 29th of May 2025 by random house UK/vintage.

This review will appear on NetGalley UK, StoryGraph, Goodreads, and my book blog bionicSarahSbooks.wordpress.com. After publication will also appear on Amazon UK/Waterstones.

I found this short book quite moving and very thought provoking. Heron is an interesting character and his daughter, Maggie, comes through stronger as the story progresses. It's a sad little story but not an unusual occurence, as the book describes. I remember such cases amongst friends and colleagues during the early 1980s. Well written and well paced, an excellent debut. I wish it could have gone on a bit longer but the main reason for the story was certainly dealt with by the nice ending. With thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the e-ARC to read and review.

Absolutely beautiful book. I read this very fast as I was desperate to know how it ended. Lovely characters and hugely sympathetic portrayal of an impossible situation. Highly recommend

A thought-provoking tale.
Claire Lynch gives us a very well written story that deals with a situation that existed in the 1980s and earlier, but that thankfully has now been resolved.
Forty years on from then, Heron has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. He sets to putting his affairs in order. He enlists the help of he daughter Maggie, for whom he has been a sole parent since 1982. She makes a discovery that relates to her mother, finding more about her and why she left. Readers learn more about this from the other timeline and from Maggie discoveries. This causes a rift with her father.
I found what is described here very disturbing, and in the acknowledgements at the end Claire Lynch tells us that this was by no.means a solitary case.

A good read. The book straddles the years between 1982 and 2022. Heron lives in Scotland now and has ill health. He keeps himself to himself and the villagers know very little about him. He keeps his illness from his daughter. Heron brings up Maggie on his own. The reason for this is that Dawn becomes infatuated by a school teacher she meets and this is where it all changes. Maggie could not to be brought up in what was then considered a “toxic” relationship – two women living together. Heron passes away and someone is sent to deal with his Estate. Eventually the truth comes out about how Maggie has been brought up by Heron and the story goes full circle when mother and daughter meet after so many years. The book is very emotional on all levels and sad but that is due to public opinions about same sex relationships in the 80’s. The book is written beautifully and sensitively

I was immediately interested in Heron's story, and I was concerned for him. His story was more recent, 2022-2023.

Dawn's life in 1982 was very interesting to learn about. I shared the way she liked fashion, and thought what she bought from the car boot sale was very imaginative and so immersive. It reminded me of my own experiences of these events and how I'd like to try to find bargains too. How Dawn met Hazel is very imaginative.

I liked the easy banter between them.

I really felt witness to both Dawn's and Heron's life. Heron's daughter Maggie's life is part of the story, too.

I felt proud of Heron and how he tried to do the best he could with his life considering his health and age. I have disabilities and am not in the same health situation as him in terms of having cancer, but I did feel for him after his gym sessions and with his aches and pains and the kind of feeling like people didn't understand what he was going through.

I was pleased that he tried to keep a tidy home and was sad he was divorced.

I thought the scenes with his doctor's appointments were realistic and her advice was helpful.

There's so much attention to detail and the visuals are excellent.

A Family Matter will make you think and feel. I felt interest, empathy, and sadness. It's hopeful, realistic, sad and heartbreaking. It will make you feel emotions as it's so realistically written.

Thanks to Claire Lynch and publisher for my eARC in exchange for my honest and voluntary review.

4 stars

Maggie was brought up by her father Heron form the age of 4. She believed that her mother had had an affair with another man and gone off leaving her behind. She never really had a conversation with anyone about her mother.
When her father is diagnosed with Cancer and starts clearing out his house she comes across Court Papers detailing why her parents split up. Will she forgive her father and eventually find her mother?
A complex tale of relationships 40 years ago and how times have changed for the better.

Beautifully written. A simple story but beautiful and heartfelt. An interesting insight into family life and family law in the past and the lasting impact this may have had on some families.