The stream-of-consciousness narration has a hypnotic flow that blurs the present into memory. It suits the book, and is undoubtedly well-written, but I did find it hard to read (there was a soporific quality to the unceasing rhythm). The characterisation is rich and layered, and the memory sequences were evocative and emotional... but I did find they rather overrode the present-day narrative.

Overall, there was a lot to like, but I found the style hard to engage with.

I found the writing style quite difficult, and the content was not really my thing. I persevered and while I couldn't warm to the characters, I could feel the loneliness and devastation they felt.

I really loved this memorable book that left me in little pieces blubbing on occasion. It’s the story of Johnny and the love of his life Jerry who he meets when he is very young. At the time Johnny and Jerry meet Johnny is 19 and Jerry much older at 45. Johnny is just starting out on his life and coming to terms with his gayness and his immediately drawn to the security of life with Jerry who lives in the ground floor flat in Nova Scotia house in a council estate in London where he tends his garden and his wide range of close friendships.
We meet Johnny again when he is in his 40s and he tells us of the story how he lost Jerry the love of his life so seen after meeting him
The scenes where Jerry was dying of HIV were heartbreaking.
This is a book with a no holds barred approach to living and dying which was very much present in this novel. The sex scenes for example left nothing to the imagination but were often tender and beautiful.
I love the idea of “queer magic” which was the way the older main character Jerry described the way him and his contemporaries live their lives with joy and positivity

The author has a very distinctive writing style snappy easy to read stream of consciousness like
The characters are described perfectly and really feel three dimensional and whole
This is a very memorable book that it will stay with me for a long time.

I read an early copy of the novel on NetGalley UK in return for an unbiased review. The book was published in the UK on the 20th of March 2025 by penguin press UK.
This review will appear on Meg UK, StoryGraph, Goodreads and my book blog bionicsarahbooks.wordpress.com

After the publication will also appear on Amazon UK

The way Porter explores grief was so raw and (of course) personal.
However, the contrast between these moments and the historical of the queer movement felt so drastic for my brain.
These comments are important to be mentioned, especially in queer fiction books. Here they were kind of formal and "emotion-less" compared to the rest of the story.
With that being said, I can't take away that the love story is well told.


thank you net galley for the copy

Unfortunately I DNF this book at 29%, the style of writing with the long run on sentences and stream of consciousness made it hard for me to get into and I still felt like I didn’t really understand the character by this point or feel like I was interested enough to find it what happened other than what had already been briefly mentioned.

I was expecting more with this one and was let down. Whilst it was interesting, I felt myself just waiting for the end.

I was sent a copy of Nova Scotia House by Charlie Porter to read and review by NetGalley. I’m afraid I really couldn’t get on with this novel at all and didn’t finish it. I didn’t like the writing, it being a rather frantic stream of consciousness, although I did try and persevere for as long as I could. The thing that finished it for me was one too many explicit sex scenes, whether that makes me a prude or not, I just felt that I couldn’t cope with it however much it was ‘groundbreaking’ or ‘genius’. Life is too short to read books that you are not enjoying. Good luck to the author, I’m sure he will go far considering the amount of praise bestowed on this book already, it just wasn’t for me.

This is a beautifully written, unflinching examination of love, loss and coming home.

This novel is written in a stream of consciousness style, which I don't normally get on with, but the poetic prose is vivid and powerful and I was immediately drawn in and swept away by it's raw beauty.

This is an incredibly moving story about grief and what it means to be loved. It's honest approach is refreshing and touching. The descriptions of place and architecture mirror the protagonist's interior life beautifully as he experiences the desolation of grief and loneliness towards healing and becoming seen again.

This honest review is given with thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.

Nova Scotia House, follows Johnny's life as a young man during the 90's at the end of his partner Jerry's life, and also his life in the present day as he reaches the age that Jerry was when he passed. In many ways I found this a difficult book , an almost rare dnf for me.I did carry on as knowing a little about the AIDS crisis and how abysmally the queer community was treated; it's a story that needs told frequently. The writing style was both difficult to follow whilst feeling deeply personal. It felt like Johnny/the author was simply emptying the thoughts in their head on the page. I always struggle to deal with relationships where one partner is significantly older than the other, particularly when the younger party is a teen, as it feels like the older partner is exploiting the younger. This was emphasised by fact Johnny was clearly still struggling decades later. There was also a particularly graphic sex scene that did almost make me give up about the 60% mark. I did find myself reading more just to try and get out of Johnny and Jerry's world quicker. Having said that there is a slight glimmer of hope at the end of the book so I'm glad I stuck with it.

How often do you encounter a book which you think is really terrific but which you would be very careful who you would recommend it to? For me, this happens hardly ever and I wonder if I’m feeling more aware as I had a query last week about a crime novel I reviewed asking if it had any sexually explicit or graphic scenes because the lady’s 15 year old son wanted to read it, and to be honest, I couldn’t remember as I tend to take such scenes in my stride, they don’t usually flag up for me. Here, in this unflinching debut novel they do, as do scenes of grief and loss so raw that I would be nervous to foist it upon someone who might find things too triggering.

But I think this is an amazing book, an important book, even though there are aspects I would not normally champion. First and foremostly, is the writing style, perhaps best termed as stream of consciousness. It is largely a memoir from Johnny who lost his partner Jerry to AIDS in 1995. They had met when Johnny was 19 and Jerry was HIV+ and in his mid-forties. Twenty-four years later and Johnny is still in the same flat they lived in together, still grieving, still unable to move on until the proposed building of a tower block will cut out the light to Jerry’s garden which Johnny has tended all these years.

The style veers from present tense to recollections of his time with Jerry and if I say it features numerous examples along the lines of I’m going, I don’t want to go, I’m not going, I’m going, you’ll see what I mean about the stream of consciousness style which generally speaking I don’t like and here it took me a while to get into it through an early section where Johnny walks to a place he used to visit with Jerry, but do you know, here it really works and I think it is because the level of observation is extraordinary and everything feels immediate and a certain observation can trigger a recollection which is not separated, it just tends to flow into the narrative.

This reflects a time when death in the gay community was ever-present and it is recreated here chillingly yet superbly. The locations are vague, the music is specific and it is probably that which puts me right there. Jerry represents a lost generation, those that came after and many of those who survived emerged differently. LGBTQ+ life has been far more assimilated into mainstream society, this is not what Jerry and his friends wanted. It is a pin-point accurate depiction of this particular time, just before medication gave people a chance to live with AIDS and when people had been dying horrifically and tragically for years.

The Johnny of now looks back at his younger self, his love for and learning from Jerry, on how Jerry would not recognise what has happened since and his desire to live as he believes Jerry would have wanted him to. This is raw, unflinching stuff – the grief, the love, the sex, everything feels exposed and honest and that is why this book is pretty extraordinary. I’ve either now put you off it or given you a real desire to read it, I understand if it’s the former, but hope it’s the latter .

Charlie Porter has had non-fiction work published but this is a debut novel and now it is all four of my five star novelists this year who have seen 2025 debuts. He is joining Karissa Chen, Garrett Carr and Rupert Dastur in my Superstar Debutants list- all four so very different novels. Exciting times.

Nova Scotia House is published on 20th March by Particular Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

When I started reading Nova Scotia House I was worried it wouldn't be for me. I was judging this purely on the writing style which is like a stream of consciousness, but thank goodness I didn't abandon it in favour of something 'easier' because I would have missed out on something special.

The story is told by forty-eight year old Johnny who is in mourning for his partner Jerry, a man who he lost almost three decades ago to an AIDS-related illness just a year before antiretroviral medicines became widely available. The book reads like Johnny is talking to us about their relationship, reminiscing about their time together at 1, Nova Scotia House, whilst trying to navigate his life without Jerry so many years later. He stumbles over his words and repeats himself, which lends the work a dose of realism as his language becomes less fluid as his emotions are heightened. The story also moves between time frames without ever becoming confusing. Charlie Porter really has a wonderful way of writing.

Johnny is desperate for Jerry not to be forgotten, and to make sure that his life means something. He is battling with insecurity and survivor's guilt, afraid that the choices he makes will never be enough to do the legacy of Jerry proud. We witness him trying to arrive at a place of acceptance, both for the loss of Jerry and for the person he has become without him.

There is much here for readers to relate to, and it covers a hugely important time in modern history. It is an evocative and intelligently written book, telling a story of just one couple during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, but which sadly reflects what many people of the time will have gone through. Read it for the history and the social commentary, but most of all, read it for those who were lost so that we can remember them.

I struggled with this a bit because it is a meandering stream of consciousness as Johnny reflects on his life with Jerry, who has passed away due to AIDS. Despite the title, the story isn’t about a the house, but about the people, love, and memories that once filled it.

It’s a story about resilience as much as it is about loss. It also highlights the different ways people impact each other. Johnny’s memories and reflections are kind of like an old beloved photo that you keep going back to and looking at.

Nova Scotia House is a tender read of love, living and grief, set in the 90s, amid the AIDs crisis.

The characters are so palpable. The way the book is written, you cannot help but feel a connection to them. The well-timed shifts help the reader understand how life was for the characters and how it has changed, and allowed the reader a deep insight into Johnny and Jerry's relationship.
It’s an important topic and is done well, and given the style of writing it’s difficult to forget it’s fiction. The characters are beautifully curated and help tell such an important story.

Unfortunately, the stream of consciousness writing style was something I did struggle with. At points I loved it and couldn’t put the book down, but at others it all seemed a bit too overwhelming, reading without proper punctuation and in small spurts of thought made it difficult to keep up with at points. I understand Porter’s intention, but at times it was a bit overdone, and that’s why I’m giving it 4 stars. This is personal preference though!

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin for the ARC!

This was a tender and bittersweet story of love, loss and grief, amid the AIDs/HIV crisis during the 90s.

The characters were so likeable, they each had their own part to play within this book and by the end I felt a deep attachment to them all, especially Johnny. I liked that we got time jumps to Johnny's and Jerry's relationship and saw how life had been for them before and after everything changed. The story in general is an important topic too; it's easy to forget while reading that this is a fiction rather than a biography, all the characters seemed well thought out and I feel could have easily been based on real couples from this time.

Unfortunately, the stream of consciousness writing style in this prevents me from giving it a full 5 stars; I understood what the writer was trying to do but for me, it made the book slightly tedious to read some of the time. This is only personal preference though and I can see how this style would be enjoyable to a lot of other readers.

Aside from that, I still enjoyed this overall. It was emotional and poignant and the characters will live in your head long after the last page.

Thank you to the publisher & Netgalley for my free eARC!

Much of what I would like to say would seem anodyne in the face of the dreams, love, loss, and survivor’s guilt embodied in this novel. It took me a wee while to settle into Charlie Porter’s style of writing, but the isolation and plight of so many during the AIDS calamity clasps one hard, and remains indelible.

This book has a direct confrontational style that suits it subject matter, and that forces itself into your thinking as you read on. Johnny is bereft, still grieving for his lost partner Jerry in the context of a changing London and the fallout from the early days of HIV as it tore across a London scene that had become home.

Johnny looks back at his relationship with Jerry, and looks forward at his prospects for the future in a London which is no longer there for him. The book is harrowing, exciting, confrontational and challenging, from start to finish. And it is full of hope from despair, as you see Johnny start to move forward through his persistent grief to a new space.

Thank you to Net Galley and Penguin Press publishing for a free e-ARC of 'Nova Scotia House' by Charlie Porter.

This was such a beautiful and simultaneously heart wrenching book. As I do with a lot of the ARCs I read, I went into this book not fully knowing what to expect, other than that it is set in the aftermath of the AIDS crisis.

Nova Scotia House is written in a very unusual and interesting way, as others have noted, I found adjusting to the style a bit hard at first. However, it became clear that the book follows Johnny's thoughts as they come, both in the past with his relationship with Jerry, and in the present time in a really immersive way

"oh I've heard all about you, they would say, or words like that, the one who finally settled him down, I would smile, not counter them, settled down, the total opposite of my life with Jerry, he ignited me, he gave me the world"

The relationships and emotions are written about beautifully, especially in relation to confusion and grief. It often felt like I was right there at many of these difficult moments. I had to pause after some of the hard-hitting chapters of this book as it was so impactful - it is such an important remembrance of queer history. I loved the exploration of queerness and 'normality', as well as of Jerry and Johnny's love and their domesticity.

"He taught me to walk where we were not wanted"

"I used to think how we lived was so pioneering, such radicals, but now I realise that we were doing what humans have done for millennia, living communally, in groups. It is only in this very recent history that we have become so segregated and so removed from one another, and this forces those of us who believe in communality to be seen as militant"

For me, reading Nova Scotia House felt like gold prospecting. I was shifting through tones of rubble to find the occasional nugget of gold. The grief was very raw and it really touched me, especially as I am dealing with the loss of my dad right now! But unfortunately those heart-wrenching moments were overshadowed by the unlovable writing style and the history of the queer movement. Sure, there's merit in reading accounts of what it was like, and what people had to go through to finally have some dignity and much needed rights. But for someone who may have read a lot about that, the story showcased in Nova Scotia House will come as a sort of repetition. In my view, the uniqueness of this novel lies in it's deep love story and the grief of losing the most important person of your life. And we don't see enough of that... a shame!

A debut novel with quite an unusual writing style and built around a relationship of two men and the effects of HIV and AIDS and the impact on society and the individuals concerned. For those readers who have witnessed the suffering I imagine it is an emotional tale. I can understand why some readers would not have finished the book as it is harrowing in places. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to ARC this book.

This is a stunning novel about love and loss during the AIDS epidemic, in an unnamed city which I think is London. The novel is fragmentary and told in stream of consciousness, which takes a little time to get used to but works beautifully for this story. Thank you for the early copy! One for literary fiction lovers.